Luke
1:26-38
26
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee
called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the
house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said,
"Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." 29 But she was much
perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30 The
angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with
God. 31 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will
name him Jesus. 32 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. 33 He
will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no
end." 34 Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a
virgin?" 35 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. 36 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. 37 For nothing will be impossible with
God." 38 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.
Back
when I worked as a summer missionary at the Coffee Baptist Vineyard in Ariton,
Alabama (a campground owned by the Coffee Baptist Association) I happened to
work with a couple of guys who were, let’s say, not so eager to work outside in
the middle of July in South Alabama. So in order to avoid cutting grass, weed
eating, or repairing equipment they came up with a plan. See, the camp director
loved to share his opinion on any and everything, so these two realized that if
they wanted to get out of the sun for a few hours all they had to do was go
into the director’s office and ask him a question. The more controversial the
subject matter of the question, the longer they could stay inside in the cool
of the air conditioning, even if it meant listening to the ramblings of someone
with severe opinions.
Well,
one day, after having just about enough of having to take up their slack, I
decided I’d go into the director’s office and pose a question that would surely
get me out of an afternoon’s work. It was the kind of question that I (as a
relatively new believer) had likely come across in some Sunday school literature
or heard from some youth group speaker. I went into his office, sat down in a
chair across from his desk and asked, “It’s true that God can do anything,
right?” He answered, “Yes, of course.” “Ok then,” I said, “Can God make a rock
so heavy that God can’t pick it up?” (That’s what some folks might call a “theological
conundrum,” a riddle with no answer, the perfect time-wasting question for one
who would love to argue the theological complexity of just such an inquiry.) I
remember he looked at me across his desk and said, “Chris, don’t come in here
trying to waste time by asking questions. The grass on the ball field needs to
be mowed.” Turns out that while I was skilled at a few thing, I wasn’t as
skilled at time-wasting as some of the other camp staff.
I
have to confess, at the time it was just a question I asked in an attempt to
kill some time, to get out of the sun for an afternoon. But it became the kind
of question that sprouted into something more in my own mind. “Can God really
do anything? Is there anything God can’t do? Is God limited, say, by the laws
of physics or even the words of scripture?” To those with a proof-text level of
faith, there’s an easy answer to that question: simply look for verses in the
Bible that explicitly say that God can do anything. Verse 37 of our text this morning is as good a text as any: “For
nothing will be impossible with God.” Stripped of any literary or
historical context, this verse clearly states that nothing is outside the realm
of possibility when it comes to the ability of the Almighty. It’s the kind of
verse that can be glibly tossed at any situation in order to make one feel
better, to ease one’s anxiety, to give one confidence in his or her desires or
expectations: “Will I ever get out of debt? Nothing
will be impossible with God…Will I be cured of this disease? Nothing will be impossible with God…Will
I get the house I’ve always wanted and have all the money I’ll ever need and
then some? Nothing will be impossible
with God.
Perhaps
there are those among us who can easily live within the confines of such a
surface-level, pseudo-theology, but the rest of us live in a reality where such
an easy-to-swallow understanding of God doesn’t mesh with what we have
experienced.
Even
in the midst of Advent and the holiday season, when hope, peace, joy, and love
play the soundtrack to our lives, we turn on our televisions to news stories of
violence and anger; we see so many who are in need in the midst of others who
are buying more than they could possibly need; we hear of the oppression,
injustice, disease, and despair that resides in all places across this globe,
and we cannot help but wonder sometimes, “Is nothing really impossible with
God? If nothing is impossible with God, then why doesn’t God do something about
all of this—why doesn’t God end hunger, AIDS, and war? Is that impossible with
God?”
One
of the great things about intentionally celebrating Advent—about purposefully
waiting for the actual arrival of Christmas—is that we are made to live in the
juxtaposition of the joyous festivities of the holidays and the reality of
winter, the reality of life. We are made to wait so that we might truly
understand what it is we are waiting for, to comprehend that Christmas, the
arrival of the Christ-child is an event that breaks in through the brokenness
of life to tell us that there is indeed hope—though it might not take the shape
we had envisioned. We celebrate Advent; we patiently wait for Christmas,
because we are indeed waiting for God’s kingdom and God’s promise to make all
things new. We’re waiting for God to do the impossible.
Yet
while we wait, we still hear Gabriel’s words to Mary before us this morning.
God’s messenger tells Mary that she will bear the Son of God, that she will
conceive even though she is still a virgin, that she is favored. When Mary
asks, "How can this be?” in verse
34, Gabriel tells her of God’s Spirit, of Elizabeth’s (her much older
cousin) pregnancy, and in verse 37
says those words: “For nothing will be impossible with God.” That seems like such
an obvious statement, but put yourself in Mary’s place, hear them with Mary’s
ears. An angel, a terrifying messenger from God, has told you that you will
bear the Son of God, that even though you’re a virgin, a young girl, you will
conceive and bear God’s Son, you will have to deal with the birth pangs, the
rumors, the inherent difficulties, and you will have to raise this Son of God.
Now imagine that load has
just been dropped on your shoulders and then the angel tells you, “Nothing
will be impossible with God.” Now, if that is true, then why not skip
all this birth business and all of its difficulties? Why not bring the Son of
God into the world some other way, some wonderfully powerful, brilliant,
undeniable way? Why not prove that nothing is impossible with God by bringing
God’s Son into the world by some means that cannot be dismissed as
superstition, lies, or fairy tales? Why put the burden on a young girl—a poor,
young, girl from some backwater town? If nothing is impossible with God, why
not prove it to the world through some grand, cosmic display of power and glory
that would make more than shepherds and Magi from afar take notice? Why…?
Because nothing will be impossible WITH
God…even this seeming burden God has placed upon Mary.
Mary doesn’t question God.
No, when Gabriel tells her that nothing will be impossible with God, she
responds in an exemplary way, the way all of Christ’s followers and God’s
people ought to respond when told of the things of God: "Here am I, the servant of
the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." You see,
nothing is impossible with God, because when one is truly WITH God, he or she no longer sees the impossible. Those things
which once were thought of as impossible are seen with new eyes, from a
different perspective—a kingdom perspective.
I like the way Shane
Claiborne puts it: “When we ask God to move a mountain [something we may indeed
see as impossible], God may give us a shovel.”[1]
Nothing is impossible with God; that’s why God uses folks like us to do the
work of God’s kingdom, that’s why God calls us to action, to change the world.
All those things we may question God about, all of those things that may cause
us to wonder if God truly can do everything, just may be the very things God is
going to use you to accomplish! Nothing is impossible with God, so why be
afraid when God tells you to speak a hard word in the midst of a stubborn
community? Why be hesitant when God calls you to do what seems to be undoable?
Nothing is impossible with God.
In many ways, that is
what Advent and Christmas is all about. God brought salvation into a seemingly
unsalvageable world through the birth of a child. God brought that child up
through obscurity and poverty to be the most influential figure in history. God
dwelt among us in the flesh of that child, taught us the meaning of life in
God’s kingdom through the words of his Son, and God overcame death—perhaps the
ultimate impossibility—through the resurrection of Christ. Nothing will be
impossible with God.
As Christmas lies but a
few sunsets from now, may you hear God’s words to Mary with new ears. May you
realize that nothing is impossible with God. May you hear the voice of God
calling you to be an agent of bringing reality to the impossible. And may we
all worship in awe, wonder, and love the God with whom nothing is impossible.
Amen.
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