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.
"For nothing will be impossible with God". It strikes me that this is the turning point of the entire venture. I believe it no accident that this line, this thought, this sentence which turns the world upside down, is found at the beginning of the Gospel. Everything else which follows depends upon that one thought: for nothing will be impossible with God. If I do not believe that one sentence, nothing else to follow in the Gospel will be believable. There will, of course, be no virgin birth. Neither will there be miracles, or healings, or transfigurations, or resurrections. Neither will there be hope. Nothing else in the Gospel will make sense, or come to life, or invite me into the story, if my picture of God leaves out the impossible. And as soon as I have eliminated this aspect of God, I realize that it is not God, but my imagination of God, that I am worshiping.
Perhaps impossibility was the first thing turned away from the inn. There is no room, no space, for the God of impossibility in this place. We tend to send him away time and time again: in our own lives, in our relationships, in our churches. No room for a God of impossibilities here. We don't want the God of impossibility. He would be too upsetting, too illogical, too threatening, too... transformative.
My advent prayer is that the God of the impossible would again break in upon our lives, even when we cry "no room".
ps - for a good Advent 4 sermon, see this at Nova Scotia Scott's place.
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