God Is With Us: Annunciation 2013

Annunciation
Isaiah 7:10-14
Hebrews10: 4-10
Luke 1: 26-38

Today we are given the message: “God is with us.” It is good news. It is the gospel, and it is a prophetic message that will change our lives, but only if we realize that the job of a prophet is not to tell us what to expect in the future, but rather what to do with our present.

We heard the prophet Isaiah give the news to King Ahaz, who is fearful of an invasion from the north. Isaiah tells Ahaz to not worry, because a child will be born whose name is “God with us”, and the child will still be around when the invaders from the north are themselves destroyed. Sometimes this message from Isaiah is seen as a prediction of the birth of Jesus, but it really isn’t, because the child’s name is not Jesus, but it is even more true that the message is about Jesus: God is with us. Our gospel story is about another message to not worry. This time, the messenger is the angel Gabriel, and he tells Mary not to worry about her pregnancy. He also says that the child will be called Son of God. Mary’s acceptance of the news is sometimes seen as proof that she could have prevented the pregnancy by saying “no”, but that can’t be proven by the narrative. The only thing that we can be sure about is that Mary is willing to cooperate with God and make the best of an existing situation. We should be thankful for her cooperation. Because of it God is with us, and God is one of us.

As Mary was willing to open up to God and carry Jesus in herself, nurturing him and eventually letting him go his own way, so we can be open to letting God reproduce and grow in us, so that we can bring God out to the world around us. Just as Mary gave up control of Jesus, so we must not try to control what God does – we must simply let Jesus do what he knows is best, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us. We also need to be willing to take Jesus offered to us by others who are growing him in their lives. Sometimes we don’t like the way it is offered, but at least we can be grateful for the gift. God is with us. No need to worry. AMEN