Scripture:
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
~Luke 1:26-38
Advent is a season of waiting. We have been waiting for a celebration of the deepest mystery of our faith, the incarnation—that moment when God chose to be made flesh, and came to dwell among us. It is coming—it is so close. But waiting is not something we tend to be good at.
This has been a year of waiting. Waiting for the Covid crisis to subside, waiting for a vaccine to arrive, waiting for the outcome of the presidential election—and for those of us in this part of New York, for the outcome of a congressional election, too. And now we have entered a season of a different kind of waiting, waiting for the calendar to move to a particular date that will not be moved back, that will come when expected—but which also draws our attention to the other things for which we continue to wait.
The Dutch priest Henri Nouwen gave a lot of thought to this problem, in a meditation called, “Waiting for God.” Nouwen wrote,
In our personal lives, waiting is not a very popular pastime. Waiting is not something we anticipate or experience with great joy and gladness! In fact, most people consider waiting a waste of time. Perhaps this is because the culture in which we live is basically saying, Get going. Do something. Show you are able to make a difference. Don’t just sit there, and wait…
In our particular historical situation, waiting is even more difficult, because we are so fearful… We as a people are afraid—afraid of other people who may be different, afraid of inner or uncomfortable feelings, and also afraid of an unknown future. As fearful people, we have a hard time waiting, because fear urges us to get way from where we are. If we find that we cannot flee, we may fight instead… Those who live in a world of fear are more likely to make aggressive, hostile, destructive responses that people who are not so frightened. The more afraid we are, the harder waiting becomes…
It impresses me to recognize that all the figure appearing in the first pages of Luke’s gospel are waiting. Zechariah and Elizabeth are waiting. Mary is waiting. Simeon and Anna, who were there at the temple when Jesus was brought in, are waiting. The whole opening scene of the good news is filled with waiting people. And right from the beginning all those people in some way or another hear the words, “Do not be afraid…”[i]
When we meet Mary in Luke’s gospel, she is already waiting… she is engaged to Joseph, presumably waiting for her married life to begin. But an angelic announcement interrupts the path and pattern of her life, and changes her waiting. Before she knows she has anything to fear, an angel tells her, Do not be afraid. (Which, I have always imagined, might tend to heighten a person’s fear, if they hadn’t been afraid to begin with.)
Do not be afraid.
Why, we might wonder, would Mary be afraid?
Lots of possibilities, actually.
The first is the presence of an angel at all. As Nouwen mentioned, those who have angelic encounters in scripture are often told, Do not be afraid, which suggests angels themselves are fearsome creatures. Though we often think of them as being beautiful, winged, somewhat androgynous creatures, scripture describes at least one type of angel as being covered with eyes, and possibly fire, or maybe being a kind of reptile. Any one of these would make anyone queasy, if not ready to run. But my favorite depiction of what might be terrifying is this one, from the children’s picture book, “This is the Star.” (This is the Star Angel Image- illustrator Gary Blythe)
And there are other reasons. Mary, once she understands that she is pregnant, and Joseph is not her child’s father, would have reason to be afraid. Since engagement was a serious as marriage in her culture, she would likely have been presumed to be guilty of adultery. The laws outlined in Leviticus would have required her to pay with her life (Lev. 20:10).
Even if the authorities had mercy on her, she could have become an outcast from her family. She could have been thrown out, with no resources and no one inclined to lend a hand. And childbirth itself was dangerous—the maternal mortality rate was greater than ours by a factor of 100 at least.
But also: Mary was faced with a future radically different from the one for which she had been preparing. She was to raise a child with a calling it was hard to understand, let alone imagine. And the angel’s words are grand—he speaks in poetry. It would have been a lot to take in.
But get this: without exactly asking, the angel awaits Mary’s consent. Without her having asserted her right to agree or refuse, the angel approaches the young woman using persuasive language. And knowing only the barest outline of the future—a child, without benefit of an easily identifiable father, who would be the people’s savior, and the Son of God, and a king—accepting just that, Mary does the unthinkable. She agrees.
And still Mary must wait—for nine long months—but she is given something to hold on to while she waits.
“The Lord is with you.”
That’s what the angel says. The Lord is with you.
And that, as Henri Nouwen tells us in his essay, is what makes all the waiting possible. For Mary. For you. For me. And, in truth, isn't our job remarkably similar to hers? Not in the details, but in the nitty gritty of it. To give birth to the manifestation of God’s love, again, in our time. To create a space for the love of God to take hold in us—to plant its seed, so to speak, so that we might bring it to birth and send it out into the world?
Poet Joyce Rupp uses the image of a nest to convey what we are called to do. She writes,
looking high into winter trees
I see the distant nests
cradled in the arms of branches.
nests: round, full of warmth,
softness in the welcoming center,
a soft circle of earth’s tiny goodness,
flown from the far corners,
patiently pieced together,
and hollowed into a home.
nests: awaiting the treasure of life.
simple, delicate dwelling places
from which song will eventually echo
and freedom of wings give flight.
advent has been on my mind.
prepare the nest of heart.
patch up the broken parts.
place more softness in the center.
sit and warm the home with prayer.
give the Christ a dwelling place.[ii]
Make no mistake. Mary, Gentle Maiden and Mild, is a heroine. She is Captain Marvel, what in Proverbs is called “eshet chayil,” Woman of Valor. If you don’t believe me, open your bibles to Luke chapter 1, and read her manifesto, also known as the Magnificat, beginning at verse 46, in which she prophesies—yes, she prophesies—what child is this, how Jesus will bring in a new world, one he will call the reign of God, in which the poor are cared for and the powerful tumble from their thrones.
And all because of what the angel said: The Lord is with you.
I’m no angel, but I’m going to steal his line. And as our waiting draws to a close, and the celebration of the Holy Mystery begins, I’m going to say it to you.
Make warm that nest in your hearts. The one who will patch up our broken places looks to you and me, to give our Savior a dwelling place. The Lord is with you.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[i] Henri Nouwen, “Waiting for God,” Finding My Way Home: Pathways to Life and the Spirit (New York, NY: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2004),
[ii] Joyce Rupp, Fresh Bread and Other Gifts of Spiritual Nourishment (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1985), 150.