December 3rd, 2023 - First day of Advent
Cranbury Presbyterian Church
Luke 1:26-38
watch video here
Being a “Yet Still” People
Happy New Year everybody. Today is the beginning of the church calendar. And we start the new year by jumping right into Advent. We begin here—with Advent—because the birth of Jesus puts everything into motion. It is the scandalous miracle that the rest of the year is grounded in.
Our expansive, sovereign God who knows the name of each star, who dances with the flowers as they sway in the breeze, and who hums in harmony with the song of creation became one of us. Our God took on flesh and moved into the neighborhood, and he ate and drank and laughed and cried with us. And because of this--Because God dwelt among us— we center all aspects of our lives around Christ Jesus. And as a church, we begin and end our days, our weeks, our years, our lives with him—the one within whom we live and breathe and have our very being.
Even our Advent traditions show how we center our lives around Christ. During this season, we mark this time with the lighting of the advent wreath candles. Each one represents a different week in Advent and helps us to remember the various aspects of the season. With each candle, we reflect on hope, peace, joy and love. And all the while, in the center of the wreath, is the Christ candle. Because it is from Him and through Him we have hope; we have peace; we have joy; and from him we know love.
This first week of Advent we light the candle of hope. So it’s no coincidence that today we hear the story of the annunciation—the story of the angel Gabrielle coming to Mary to ask her to be the mother of God. To be the god bearer and to bring hope incarnate into the world.
In this passage from the gospel of Luke, Mary is introduced to us in the midst of humble surroundings. Like the other girls and young women of her time, Mary is tucked away under the protective rafters of her family’s house. And it’s here, a place where no one else but her family should be, where a stranger appears. Not only has an absolute stranger suddenly materialized in her house but he also immediately tries to start up a conversation with her by saying some very odd things. Most likely with an over eager energy seen in mainly camp counselors and kindergarten teachers, the stranger exclaims, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you!”
Now Mary, Not hearing a knock at the door, the greeting of a visitor, or even the unfamiliar rhythm of a stranger’s footsteps, is understandably surprised and confused. And honestly shes probably a little put off too. I can just imagine Mary thinking, “Who is this person? And what did he just say to me?” And more importantly, “which family member am I going to have to yell at for leaving the front door open and letting this random man wander into our house?!”
But without missing a beat or flagging in energy, the stranger goes on to tell Mary that she has found favor with God and that she will become the mother of God’s son. Again confused, Mary asks the stranger how this prediction could even be possible. He gives an odd and puzzling explanation and in the end ensures her by saying that “nothing is impossible with God.”
And for whatever reason, that answer satisfies Mary and she tells him, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your work.”
In hearing this story, one question that comes up often—at least for me—is why did Mary say yes. Why did she “yes” to this request from God? To this calling that will change the whole world and inevitably pierce her own soul?
I think Mary said yes because she had a radical hope. And she had this radical hope because she knew of her peoples history--off their enslavement in Egypt and of God’s mighty liberating power. She knew of her ancestor’s longing and sorrow in a foreign land and of God moving the very foundations of the Earth to free them. She knew of God’s love for her and her people and God’s promises to them.
I think another reason she had this radical hope is that she knew her own story too. She experienced firsthand the debilitating weight of Empire and the exhaustion of poverty,. And yet She dreamed of the hungry being filled with good things and of the mighty being cast down from their thrones. she dreamed for peace, for freedom, and for flourishing.
Drawing strength from God’s promises, from the witness of her ancestors, and from her own lived experiences, Mary chose to hope against hope. She knew of the current suffering and believed another way was possible. She leaned on God’s steadfastness and said yes. Yes to hope. Yes to the impossible and yes to mystery. She said yes and opened up her life to God—to a life filled with profound grief and extraordinary goodness.
Like Mary, we are called to embrace this radical hope. We too are called to be a “yet still” people. To lament over the pain and sorrow that abounds in our world and in the same breath to loudly declare “and yet God is still working.”
Being a “yet still” people does not mean minimizing or shrugging off the pain of the present. Nor does it mean embracing some kind of pollyannaish naiveté or trying to leverage the power of positive thinking.
Instead, it means we are honest about the brutality and destruction we see in the here and now and refuse to embrace nihilism. It means that while we weep with those weep, we are still abundant in our imaginations of the future. It means that we hold the tension between sorrow of today and the possible joy of tomorrow.
Being a “yet still” people means we are defiant in our faith and in our hope. We are called to be the ones who have been hurt by others yet still seek the face of God in our neighbor. To be those who know the roughness of the world yet still choose to dream tender dreams. To be those who hear of war and rumors of war and build a life around peace anyway. To be those who see the reality of death and yet still believe in God’s promise of abundant life.
Being a “yet still” people is hard calling. Living and working in that space of tension is not an easy task. What we are called to do is both magnificent and challenging. Both astonishing and demanding. Thankfully, though, there is good news. We are not left alone in this calling. The very one who called us in the first place is with us. The God who spun the yarn of hope itself and wove it into the fabric creation walks alongside us. The Holy one who taught our hearts and lips to defiantly shout “and yet” is our closest companion. The very one in whom our hope rests, is our friend. This journey is a hard one, but we do not have to cling to despair my friends because we are not alone in it.
And there is no better time for us to re-claim our identity as God’s defiantly hopeful people. As author Sarah Bessy wrote in a recent reflection: Advent is for the ones who know longing. She says, “Now that I have wept, now that I have grieved, now that I have lost, now that I have learned to hold space with and for the ones who are hurting, now I have a place for Advent. Now that I have fallen in step with the man from Nazareth, I want to walk where he walked into the brokenness of this life, and see the Kin-dom of God at hand. Now that I have learned how much I need peace, I have learned to watch for him. [Because] Advent is for the ones who know longing. ”
In other words, my friends, Advent is for the ones who hope. Those who see the world we live in now and dream of a better one. Advent is for us-- the “yet still” people. The ones who open themselves up to the world and to God. The ones who make themselves vulnerable to the possibility of being disappointed by a broken world and to the possibility of participating in the inbreaking of God’s kingdom.
So let us embrace this radical, seemingly impossible, and defiant hope—because as the angel told Mary, “nothing is impossible with God” Amen