The Rev. Robert Lundquist Advent IVB 12/18/05 St Paul’s, Ft Collins

Waiting. We always seem to be waiting for something, don’t we? We are in the Advent season of waiting and preparing for something great. But all too often we experience waiting in rather negative terms. Have you seen the TV ad with the guy who “hates to wait”? “One-hour photo? Too long! Fast food? Too slow!”, he proclaims. He speaks to our society, if not for it.

We’ve all spent time in drab waiting rooms with those ancient magazines. We get put on hold with that terrible music. The elevator never comes, the spouse is always late, the order never arrives, the take-off is delayed. The snow never melts, the rain never stops, and the paint never dries. Will anyone ever understand me? Will I ever change? At times it seems that life is filled with unsatisfied desire and incomplete dreams…

Waiting. We are a people waiting for God to come. Each of us is pregnant with the Divine. We are waiting.

Gabriel. The name means “messenger of God” in Hebrew. Gabriel is honored by Jews, Christians and Muslims. The Muslim belief is that it was Gabriel who dictated the Qu’ran to Mohammed, and that it was Gabriel who caused the Holy Spirit to overshadow her by blowing into the sleeve of her garment.

In our Gospel passage from Luke we hear Gabriel’s greeting, which should sound quite familiar to our own ears: “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” To which we reply, as we do every Sunday – “And also with you.” The Lord is indeed with Mary, with you and with me.

It is Mary who is favored by God, as we hear twice in Gabriel’s message. Favored – and a highly unlikely vessel. For who would choose a 14 year-old maiden to bear the Christ? Even more significant is God’s desire for Mary’s free consent to do so. Scholar Jaroslav Pelikan puts it thus: “… God does not rape; God woos.” Mary makes the decision to embrace God’s plan of salvation. She is not merely a passive receptacle, but a partner with God in bringing about the new heavens and new earth.

Her consent creates the earthly/Divine paradox with which we continue to wrestle:

Welcome, all wonders in one sight!

Eternity shut in a span,

summer in winter, day in night,

heaven in earth and God in man!

Great little one! Whose all-embracing birth

lifts earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth.

Richard Cranshaw, 17^th century English poet

The coming of Jesus was prophesied. Gabriel reminds that God will “…give him the throne of his ancestor David…” In our reading from II Samuel we find the prophecy – God tells Nathan the prophet to say to David,

God will make you a house, and God will raise up your offspring and establish the Divine Kingdom. God says, “I will establish the throne of David’s kingdom forever.”

For David wishes to build a permanent home for the Ark of the Covenant, the richly ornamented container of the stone tablets on which are written the Ten Commandments. Through Nathan God says to David, “No.” For the Ark was portable, carried about when it was needed, and it dwelt in a tent. Even when David had a palace for himself, God instructed that the Ark should not. I was to remain in the midst of the people – and it is in this spirit that we process the scripture into the midst of the congregation for the reading of the Gospel lesson. The Word of God, we believe, came into our midst, and did not come from on high, from a palace or monument.

In this prophecy through Nathan, though, we see that God promises something to David in a play on words. God will give David a house – not an edifice, but a dynasty. The Messiah would be an offspring of David’s descendents. And it was to David that this promise was made: “I will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.”

While the fulfilling of prophecy is important, for Luke in pales in comparison to these words from Gabriel:

“…nothing will be impossible with God.”

Elizabeth, in her old age, will become pregnant with John the Baptizer. Mary, a young girl, is most favored and will become, in Greek, the theotokos, literally the “God-bearer.” She will carry the Christ to the world.

And yet, Mary is not alone. She is the pioneer, our forebear, our foremother. For as Meister Eckhart, the medieval German mystic put it so beautifully:

“We are all meant to be mothers of God. For God is always needing to be born.”

I am… You are… theotokos. Bearer of God.

Your waiting need not be in vain. Let us cry out, “Here I am, O God – your servant. Let it be with me according to your word.”

AMEN.

A Parish For All People!