Text: Luke 1:26-55
Date: December 18, 2011
We know the story, right? God sends the angel Gabriel to Nazareth to visit Mary, a teenager pledged to be married to Joseph. She’s a virgin. “Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you,” the angel says. Then, answering Mary’s questions, Gabriel goes on to tell her that the Holy Spirit will come upon her and that she will become pregnant. She will give birth to a son, the Son of God, and she will name him Jesus. “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her . . . left her with a special edition of the book What to Expect When You’re Expecting.
Now, I know that the Bible doesn’t say actually that, but indulge me a little bit. After all, my comprehensive research has revealed that this book has come automatically with a positive pregnancy test since the beginning of time — or at least since 1984. And, in one sense, Mary is no different from any other expectant mother. Besides the conception, there is no reason to believe that Mary’s pregnancy was fundamentally different from typical pregnancies of mothers everywhere. This book, if she had it, would have helped Mary through the nine months of pregnancy, telling her what to eat, what changes in her body to anticipate, how her baby was growing and so on.
For nine months, Mary’s womb is the place where God chooses to dwell. Let me repeat that. For nine months, Mary’s womb is the place where God chooses to dwell. God enters the world not in a spectacular display of shock and awe but in the place that historically has been among the most vulnerable for any human life: the womb of an unwed teenager. An unwed teenager, that is, living in occupied territory far from the center of power. God enters into this world as a speck, a promise, a whisper, within the flesh of a young woman. This is how God chose to reorder our world, and, because the Son of God was within her, Mary had to reorder her expectations. She had to reorder her life.
What to expect when you’re expecting? What do you expect when you are expecting God to take up residence?
We know what David was expecting. When he became king over Israel and conquered Jerusalem, he took up residence where kings typically take up residence — in a fortress. (2 Samuel 6) David claimed Jerusalem as his own, and, with modesty worthy of a king, he called it the City of David. David became more and more powerful because the Lord God Almighty was with him.
One day, after he was settled in his palace, comfortable, remote in hand, and with his feet up on the coffee table, David casually said to the prophet Nathan, “Here I am, living in a palace of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.” Nathan replied, “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you.” What David had in mind was building God a house. After all, wasn’t that the least he could do? Whether it’s for war or glory, isn’t power that is possessed always meant to be used? [i]
That night, the word of the LORD came to Nathan and gave him a message to give to David, “House? What’s this about a house? Who said anything about a house? Did I tell you to build a house? Have I ever lived in a house? Since the time I led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, I’ve been moving with them, place to place with a tent as my dwelling. I’m the one who will build a house for you, not the other way around.”
David, with his power, with his wealth, with his will, expected to build the place for God to dwell. A place worthy of a king . . . like himself.
What do you expect when you are expecting God to take up residence?
Near the beginning of the first trimester of pregnancy, the amniotic sac forms around the fertilized egg to help cushion the growing embryo throughout pregnancy. At the end of the first month, the baby is about the size of a grain of rice. By the end of month three, the baby still is only three to four inches. At this size, the baby is almost fully formed. With arms, hands, fingers, feet, and toes. He can open and close his fists and mouth. Fingernails and toenails are beginning to develop, the external ears are formed.
During these first three months, a mother can expect to experience food cravings, fatigue, tenderness in the breasts, heartburn and morning sickness. Her body is adapting and providing nourishment for the baby growing in her womb. Her body needs to make space for another living being — one who has its own identity yet is a part of her; one who demands much from her yet cannot be born into this world without her.
After the angel left, Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea to spend some time with Elizabeth, her relative who was miraculously six-months pregnant. There, Elizabeth confirmed what Mary had been told.
What did Mary expect when she was expecting? Let’s let her speak for herself.
Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, for now on, all generations will call me blessed;
for the mighty one has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” (Luke 1:46-55)
Mary was at the end of her first trimester when she returned home. Within her, she carried God-who-is-with-us.
What do you expect when you are expecting God to take up residence?
We know what Solomon was expecting. From the beginning, God was explicit. When Israel wanted a king to rule them, they were rejecting God’s rule. God warned them that a king would take their freedom and would make them his servants. Yet because his people wanted to be like the other nations, God let them. God conceded that David’s son Solomon would build a house for his name, and Solomon did.
Mary said, “My Spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.” In terms of wealth and wisdom and concubines, there was no king like Solomon.
Mary said, “The Lord has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.” Solomon conscripted laborers from all Israel – thirty thousand men. He sent them off to Lebanon in shifts of ten thousand a month. He set a master in charge of this forced labor.
Mary said, “The Lord has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” Solomon had seven thousand carriers, eighty thousand stonecutters, over three thousand foremen to build the Temple. He overlayed everything with gold.
Mary said, “The Lord has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has helped his servant Israel, remembering his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” At the dedication of the temple, Solomon said, “I have indeed built a magnificent temple for you, a place to dwell forever.” (See 1 Kings 6-8)
What do you expect when you are expecting? What do you expect when you are expecting God to take up residence?
During the second trimester of pregnancy, the baby is very, very busy. He’s sprouting hair. His ears and eyes move into their correct positions. He starts to suck and to swallow, to yawn and to hiccup. He might kick and jab, and he is developing his senses and starting to smell, to taste, to see, and to hear. For the mother, the second trimester may mean less morning sickness and fatigue. But not always. It’s becoming more and more obvious that the mother is pregnant – she’s showing more because the baby is growing more.
Mary was carrying a whole new world in her womb, a world in which she – a poor peasant girl but a servant of God — is lifted up and given a great task to do; a world in which the mighty fall low, and the humble are lifted up; a world in which rulers tumble from their golden thrones and the rich are sent away empty; a world in which the hungry are filled with good things.
Mary’s vision was one in which all people wanted and waited for and longed for. This is what Mary was expecting when she was expecting. What do you expect?
The Christmas story is about God taking up residence in the flesh and all the risk that comes with it. It’s the same risk that God takes when he takes up residence in us. It’s the risk of embodying, the risk of being fully human, fully vulnerable, fully open. It’s the risk of saying yes to God and taking what comes. The Christmas story is a reminder to be born again and again and again. God coming into our world and taking up residence lacks the pomp and the circumstance associated with kings and presidents. No, the Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. (John 1:14, The Message)
A baby growing within his mother’s womb is vulnerable. It needs nurturing, tending, and attention. This is how God chose to enter the world and chooses to reorder the world. What does it mean to live a God bearing life? Let’s look to Mary. Mary didn’t have it all worked out. Things ended up very differently than how Mary expected. The cross made sure of that.
But Mary shows us that bearing God does not mean that we need to do something fantastic, incredible, extraordinary so that God will say yes to us. No, it is just that we have to be willing to say yes to bearing Jesus in the midst of the ordinary, mundane, and the everyday. It is then when God transforms our humble places into sacred spaces, vessels for the divine to be born into our lives and into our world.
Soon-to-be parents get books like What to Expect When You’re Expecting, but, in truth, parenting is more like jazz music than classical. It’s beautiful because it can only be done with improvisation and in coordination with others. I think it’s the same with faith. When we carry the Spirit of God within us, we know what sort of things to expect – things like Mary’s song tells us to anticipate. But it’s beautiful because it can only be done with improvisation and in coordination with others.
During the third trimester. a woman may feel that there is no way that her belly can get any bigger. But it does. It gets a lot bigger because the baby is getting a lot bigger. As the time passes from month seven to month eight to month nine, the mother anticipates the baby’s birth – not so that things will get back to normal because things will never get back to normal. No, the mother knows (believe me she knows) that the baby was not meant to stay inside of her. It was meant to be delivered so that it can grow and grow and be shared with the world. She desires to hold in her arms the baby that she has carried inside of her and delivered into the world.
What do you expect when you are expecting God to take up residence?
Sometimes, I think we need to remind each other what to expect. We need to remind each other because there is One who has come to us and who desires to grow within us. We need to remind each other because there many times when we feel that God’s plan is too much for us to bear. We need to remind each other that birth – all birth – involves pain. We need to remind each other that Christ’s Advent is coming.
Ready or not, Jesus is coming. We don’t know the day, we don’t know the hour, but he gave us the signs, and he told us to be ready. We need to be reminded that, through his Spirit, God desires to take up residence in me, in you. This is how God reorders our world – not through the trappings of worldly power but through the vessels of people who simply say “yes” to his call.
What do you expect when you expect God to take up residence?
Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21)
What do you expect when you are expecting? Expect the unexpected, because nothing is impossible with God.
We are the Lord’s servants. May it be to us as the Lord has said.
[i] I was helped in this sermon by Debbie Blue, Mary, Mother of God and David, King of Empire, http://thehardestquestion.org/2011/12/page/3/.
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