Can you hear it?

 

If there is one message the world needs right now, in a moment of high anxiety and seemingly unending wars, you can find it in the story of the Annunciation.  In addition to the angel’s announcement to Mary about her role in salvation history, there’s a second announcement—a reminder of something so transcendent and persistent, we might easily forget about it.

The enduring annunciation here is the annunciation of hope.

You find it right there, at the end of the proclamation of an angel, who declares this news with the gusto and enthusiasm of someone who knows he’s making history.  This figure, Gabriel, stands before a young girl whose life is being rewritten and redirected right before her eyes and what does he do?

He leaves her—and us—with this message, his parting shot: "NOTHING WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD."

There you have it. All bets are off. Surrender your doubts, your questions, your worries and misgivings.  Believe the unbelievable, he says.  Embrace the mystery.  Miracles are possible.

Hope is possible.  Anything can—and will!—happen.  

We all know what comes next.  And this gospel (Luke 1:26-38), a prelude to Luke's famous account of the Nativity that we will hear at Christmas, offers us a kind of late-Advent gift, one that we need to continue to unwrap day after day, in moments of shock or wonder or worry.

When all else fails, we need to hang on to these six words, the ones that likely sustained Mary not only for the months that followed, but for the next 30 years, through a flight into Egypt and agony on a hilltop: Nothing will be impossible for God.

Maybe we’ve forgotten that.  Maybe we need to hear it, especially now.  At this dark moment in time, what is being announced is LIGHT.

Mary, we're told, was troubled at what she heard.  Of course, she was troubled.  Who wouldn't be?

But what follows is a message that defies any doubt.  In our moments of confusion, when we’re troubled by what God brings to us, we have this to hold onto.  It’s the announcement of possibility and promise.

Angels will speak.  The Spirit will come.  A virgin will conceive.  The world will be guided to a savior in a stable.  And decades hence, the blind will see.  The lost will be found.  God will raise the dead.

"How can this be?" Mary asks.

It can, because all things are possible.  Because "impossible" is not part of God's vocabulary.

There's much that we don't know about this episode from Luke's gospel.  We don't know if other words were exchanged between Mary and Gabriel.  We don't know what happened immediately after this encounter.  What's a pregnant virgin to do?  Did Mary share this news with anyone else before departing to visit her cousin Elizabeth?  It's intriguing to consider.  Writers and movie directors have created an entire industry imagining moments that Luke left out of the story.

But all that overlooks the central meaning of this pivotal scene -- and the profound message it offers in these last hours before we celebrate Christ's coming into the world.

Our God is a God without limits.  He is the God of possibility.  That possibility can even bring about something as elusive and as consoling as peace.  In our world.  In our country.  In our hearts.  Does it seem unlikely?  Remote?

When worried or troubled, filled with fear or doubt, maybe we need to ask "WWMD?"

What would Mary do?  Well, start by taking a cue from the Annunciation.  Hear the message within, the good news that defies logic, and hold on to what is really being announced.

In times of distress, we need to shut out the anxious noise of the world -- and trust enough to listen to angels.

When a mother is expecting a baby, in a way the whole family is expecting with her.  There is joy in expecting a beautiful happening to become.  There is excitement in anticipating a vacation trip that is going to be a whole new experience.  We may ask some friends and family who have been there.  Expecting keeps us young.  We look forward to the future instead of to the past.  There are always new and exciting aspects in life, if only we have the eye to see them and the gift of wonderment which children possess and grown-ups should never lose.

Christmas is such an event to come.  It is God revealing “the mystery kept secret for long ages” (Romans 16:25-27).  He wants to be present to us.  He wants to give us an image of Himself in Jesus Christ, an image that we are able to perceive with our weak human senses.  Christmas is great every year, but only for those who are expecting “Emmanuel—God with us” (Matthew 1:23) in faith and wonderment.