“Nothing will be impossible for God” (St. Luke’s: Dec. 8th, 2017 – Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary; Gn. 3.9-15, 20; Ps. 98; Eph. 1.3-6, 11-12; Lk. 1.26-38)

This mystery.  Today is Day 6 of Advent, the season where we are preparing to celebrate the central mystery of our Christian faith – the moment when God became man, the moment of the incarnation.  Christmas is the time of year when we are reminded that what sets us apart – as Christians – from all other religious believers is the strange series of stories that begins with what we celebrate today.  The one thing, above all, that makes Christianity unique among all the religions of the world is the fact that we never speak about God without also speaking about a human being – Jesus of Nazareth.  And we can’t speak about Jesus without speaking of his mother – Mary of Nazareth.  And we can’t speak of Mary without speaking of how God prepared her to be the theotokos – the “God-bearer”.  That the Creator would become a man, that God would have a mother – these are strange ideas, they might even strike us as being impossible.  It might be helpful for us to ponder on these mysterious events that gave birth to our faith.

This man.  Why did Christianity come into existence?  When we remind ourselves that the first “Christians” were Jewish, the question becomes all the more intriguing.  Why did this group of first-century Jews make the sort of claims that they did about that one particular first-century Jew from the village of Nazareth?  As first-century Jews, the first “Christians” had at least two options regarding Jesus and within which they could try to understand him:

1 – Jesus was a prophet, like the prophetic figures of the Hebrew Scriptures (e.g. Jeremiah).  This is, in fact, the Islamic view of Jesus.  Muslims do “believe” in Jesus – they believe that “Isa” was a prophet of Allah, that he was the son of Mary (i.e. “Miriam”), that he ascended into heaven and that he will return one day.  Muslims do NOT believe that Jesus died on the cross.  How could Allah permit for one of his spokesmen to be treated in such a fashion?  The category into which Judaism puts “Yeshua” is also that of a prophet – with the difference being that Judaism believes that Jesus was a false prophet who got what he deserved.  The Gospels of the NT do indeed present Jesus as carrying out a prophetic ministry, but they also believe that Jesus was much more than a prophet.  If the first followers of Jesus had believed that Jesus was simply a prophet, they would not have begun to worship him and pray to him, as our evidence of the early Christians shows them doing.

2 – Jesus was a Messianic pretender.  Jesus was someone who got the idea into his head that he (of all people!) was Israel’s rightful king, the “anointed One” who had been designated by God to liberate his people.  The fact that the members of the Jesus-movement continued to speak of Jesus as the Messiah of Israel after his crucifixion continues to puzzle historians of Christianity.  The death of Jesus on the cross should have spelled the end of his movement – recall the Emmaus story at the end of Luke’s Gospel (Lk. 24.19-24).  Obviously, if Israel’s enemies executed you, you weren’t the Messiah after all.  You had miserably failed at your mission.

This God.  However, not only did the early “Christians” continue to speak of Jesus as Messiah (“the Christ”), but they also wrote stories describing just how it was that Jesus was the rightful King of Israel and also, the true “Lord” of the entire world.  This is precisely the point that the Christmas stories of St. Matthew and St. Luke are making.  The evangelists are well aware that even according to their own Jewish categories, the claims they are advancing about Jesus look for all the world to be preposterous, absurd and simply wishful thinking.  And yet, they boldly set out the “facts” as they see them.  The early Christians believed that Jesus had exercised a prophetic ministry, that he was indeed the Messiah of Israel, i.e. Israel’s rightful King; however, the categories of “prophet” and “Messiah” were not adequate to describe Jesus’ ultimate identity.  The early (Jewish) “Christians”, during their before-dawn gatherings on the “first day of the week”, would “treat” Jesus the same way they had “treated” Yahweh in the synagogues or in the Jerusalem Temple.  That is to say, the early Christians prayed to Jesus and offered worship to him.  Why would they do that?  The early followers of Jesus could easily have remained Jews in good standing by continuing to (secretly) honour Jesus as a kind, wise, but ultimately misguided “prophet”, but they didn’t; they insisted on according divine honours to the man Jesus.

This story.  Look at the way that the evangelists – Matthew, Mark, Luke & John – write their “Gospels”.  The New Testament Gospels are unique among the literature of the ancient world.  They do not fit into any of the literary categories of the time.  The Gospels were written as “endings” to the epic saga that is the Hebrew Bible.  That alone should capture our attention – why would the evangelists presume to present the story of Jesus as being the fulfillment of the hopes of their nation and their nation’s Scriptures?  This alone alerts us to the fact that the evangelists believed that, in the life and death of Jesus, something of ultimate significance had happened.  As we read the Gospels, we see that they are NOT the kind of stories that one would make up out of thin air – one gets the impression that the evangelists are telling a story that they feel compelled to share with the world, even though they knew how “crazy” it would sound…  Ultimately, all 4 of the evangelists – each in his own way – is advancing the claim that – as unlikely as it sounds – Yahweh, the God of Israel, made himself fully present to his people in the man from Nazareth.  That, in a nutshell, is Christianity – the belief that the God of the Hebrew Bible became a human being, a first-century Jew who was born of the Virgin Mary, and suffered under Pontius Pilate.  Once you believe that, you are not far from something which resembles …the doctrine of the Trinity.  This belief led St. Luke to tell the story of Jesus’ birth in the way that he did.

This death.  St. Luke’s Gospel has a “twin” opening – everything happens in twos.  Two couples; two unlikely births; two baby boys whose births are met with songs and prophecies that evoke all the ancient hopes of this ancient people, the first-century Jews living in Palestine under Roman rule.  Somehow, the unlikely children of these unlikely parents in two unlikely villages are the sign that, in Lewis’ language, “Aslan is on the move”, i.e. Yahweh’s purposes are going forward, the promises made to Abraham are about to be realised.  It is a strange beginning to two strange lives which will both come to a tragic end – one beheaded by a half-Jewish puppet king, the other crucified by a Roman governor.  Only, the “end” of the life of the second child to be born will occur in two movements – first, the tragic dashing to pieces of ancient dreams followed by the renewal of hope as yet another couple, accompanied by a “stranger”, sits down to break bread in another village – this time on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

This woman.  One man and one woman, so Genesis tells us, were at the origin of the spread of evil to the whole human race.  One woman, called to give birth to a man-child, would be the divine answer to the plight of the world.  The resurrection of Jesus, his virginal conception, the unlikely pregnancy of his aunt Elizabeth, the immaculate conception of his mother Mary – this is how the Creator of heaven and earth came to save us.  And Jesus – our Lord and our God – will come again to restore all things; for nothing will be impossible with God.  Amen.