From the Pastor, Dennis Plourde
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Sunday, August 5, 2007
132 Days Left
Isaiah 9:1-7; Luke 1:39-45 |
NO! I am not trying to rush the seasons. I want to enjoy the rest of "summer" and the wonderful days of fall. It has been a long time since we have lived in a region with four distinct seasons. I want to enjoy them again! But I often wonder why one of the greatest stories of the Bible is restricted to being told on only a few days in December. The story is one of God's love and it is one to be told and retold year around. And, we need to remember that these were difficult days for Mary, Joseph and their families. The story begins with Mary's encounter with the angel and continues at Christ's birth – however, the reality is—there are nine months between the promise and the fulfillment. Nine anxious months, I would think.
Mary is a young woman of faith. This is seen in Luke 1:38 where she agrees to be the servant of her God, "Here I am the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Do we understand what this could have meant for Mary? There were Laws covering this sort of behavior. From the perspective of the Law, if this happened within the city the Law states that both Mary and the other party should be stoned to death (Deut. 22:23-24). The opinion being that she did not cry out for help. For if she had, someone could have come and rescued her. On the other hand, if it happened in the country the pressure would have been put on her to name the male involved and he could have been stoned to death (Deut. 22:25-27). The assumption would be that Mary had called out for help but there was no one around to help her. Thus, she would be assumed to be innocent. It was not an easy time. Can you imagine the pressure on her?
There is also Joseph, the man she was engaged to. This was a different day with different rules and mores. The only way an engagement could be broken was if Joseph divorced Mary. He had thought about it (Matthew 1:19-25). He did not want to bring any more public embarrassment on her. He would do it quietly. It took an angel to convince him Mary was telling the truth. If it took an angel to convince Joseph, what would it take to convince the community? Joseph, too, is a person of faith and he takes Mary as he has pledged to do. Whatever the outcome they will walk this journey together.
However, there is this three-month visit with Elizabeth we read about in our Scripture today. I like the way Eugene Peterson describes it in The Message: "Mary didn't waste a minute. She got up and traveled to a town in Judah in the hill country, straight to Zachariah's house, and greeted Elizabeth." The angel had told her about Elizabeth's pregnancy but she needed the confirmation. Confirmation of the angel's story. A chance to get away to pray and to seek the advice of her older relative, Elizabeth. Two women, one, way beyond the age of childbearing and the other a young teen woman carrying the Son of God. Even the child, John, leapt for joy in Elizabeth's womb when he heard Mary's voice. Confirmation of the angel's story.
Here, for three months they share. Here, Mary has the confirmation that this is really going to happen. This was not a dream. This is a time to celebrate with another who had known the powerful hand of God on her life. Now come the difficult days of going home to confront her parents, Joseph and the community. There are still many hurdles to overcome. I imagine the trip back home was one filled with apprehension. She knows what the angel said but who will believe her? (Since we don't know when her parents and Joseph were told, I am, for our purposes today, proposing that it was not until after she returned from the visit with Elizabeth that she told them.)
How would you react if this were your daughter? How did she tell her parents? Sit them down at the table, take a deep breath and tell the story? And, how did Joseph find out? Did Mary tell him, or did her father? I mean, Joseph could demand the dowry back. He has given it in good faith. What if they had spent it already? Can you imagine the sleepless nights (we know Joseph had them)? Would you believe her?
There is a wonderful portion of C.S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, in his Chronicles of Narnia, where the two older children wonder which of their younger siblings to believe. Both Lucy and Edmund have been to Narnia but Edmund is saying that he only said he had been there to tease Lucy. They question the "old professor" and he basically asks them, "Which one, from past experience, usually tells the truth?" "Normally which one would you believe?" They admit they would normally believe Lucy, she has been the more truthful one, but this story is so hard to imagine – another world where animals talk.
We have not even talked about how the community may have responded. Do they shun Mary? Is Jesus' encounter with the woman at the well a mirror image in some ways of the way his mother was treated as she went to draw water? It is a small village and you don't keep things like this quiet. When we lived in down East Maine some of the telephone lines were 32-party lines. As you were talking the other person's voice would grow fainter and fainter as more and more people picked up the phone to listen in. Now, they did not have telephones but the community gossip line was alive and well. They don't forget, either. Thirty years later, as Jesus was speaking in his hometown, the question of the people is, "Is this not the son of Mary" (Mark 6:3). This is not a simple statement. This is a reminder of the questions surrounding his birth. In the society of the day, Jesus would always be Joseph's son… even if Joseph had been dead for years. To identify him as Mary's son would be a slur at best. A reminder of the questions surrounding his birth.
For months they struggle with the community. Did the men question Joseph as to why he was marrying Mary? Can you hear them as they meet? As they seek out the carpenter do they ask how things are going and has he found out who the father is yet?
Faith journeys are not always easy journeys. We received an email from our missionary in Japan, Roberta Stephens, a few years ago (not that many). Roberta asked for prayers for a young woman who had come to Christ, and when she had told her parents of her faith decision they threw her out and had a funeral service conducted for her. To these parents their daughter was dead. A difficult faith journey at best.
Mary and Joseph are in the middle of a difficult faith journey. We have the story of the birth foretold and of the birth but not of the months between. Pregnant and poor, the carpenter and his young bride seek to become a family. We can be cruel when we want to be. Can you hear the whispers? "She should have been stoned." "We have a Law." "What was Joseph thinking?" Yet, Joseph and Mary keep their faith in these most difficult of days. God has promised, and they will continue to be faithful to God. Their only hope is in the angel's words and the words of the prophets. Prophets like Isaiah who writes of a day coming when "the people who walk in darkness will see a great light." A cosmic drama they have been chosen to play a part in. They do not know how the future will unfold. They have begun a faith journey of a magnitude that we cannot even imagine. Do we truly understand the faith it took in these months? Mary and Elizabeth have shared for three months, and she and Joseph now struggle as they wait for the coming of the promised One.
Today, as we come to this Table of our Lord, may we be reminded of the faith journey of Mary and Joseph and of the One whose body and blood make this Table possible. May our faith be as strong as that of Joseph and Mary as we take the bread and cup in remembrance of the Living Christ.
And, there are only 132 days left before we again celebrate the wonderful good news:
"God so loved the world…for to us a Son is given."
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