The How and the Wow and the Stress Right Now

2015-12-20 Lk 01 39-55

The How and the Wow and the Stress Right Now

Is anybody else kinda stressed out about Christmas? If you need to pull out your lists and check them twice during the sermon, I get it. I get the stress.

Like, this Luke passage. Yet again, a scripture I feel completely unqualified to preach. It happens a lot. But it's so blatant when I - a man - am assigned the text about not one, but two pregnant women. Thanks, Luke.

The men in this story, dads Joseph and Zechariah, are either absent or silent. Did you notice that? Joseph's gone. Where did he go? No one knows. He just disappears. He does that a lot. And Elizabeth's husband, Zechariah? Zechariah literally says so many stupid things that an angel of the Lord strikes him mute for the duration of his wife's pregnancy. And all the women are like, Go, God.

When Mary and her cousin, Elizabeth meet in the hill country, it's the women who carry the story, just as they carry within them the Savior and his messenger. With Jesus, the women are the first to get there and the last to leave. Just like church. The men wander off in the mechanical "how." But the women get the miraculous "wow". As someone with daughters in a religion that tends to be over-explained by men, some of whom could stand to be stricken mute, I think that's important.

The "wow" trumps the "how." Sometimes the plot just gets in the way of a good story. There are parts of the Bible, in particular the reproductive parts, that you really don't need to think too hard about. The begettin' and begattin' are there for legal purposes. Like the agreements on iTunes. It's OK to click, "I agree," and go straight to the music.

Mary and Elizabeth go straight to the music, to the wow, to the here and now. They might not totally get what they've agreed to, but they believe it's special. It's holy. It's something they're called to do.

It's not just me. We're all completely unqualified to tell the Christmas story. We're all completely unqualified to be characters in the Christmas story. I mean, look at what we've done to it. The season that ought to make us leap for joy stresses us out. Our incompetence is showing.

But for some reason, God keeps making us part of it, and making it part of us. Some of us are like Joseph - absent, absent-minded, absent-hearted. Some are like Zechariah - full of stuff that doesn't need to be said, or ideas we can't speak so good. And some of us are like Mary and Elizabeth - united in hope, reunited by relatives and relative experience. Everybody keeps Christmas or loses it in their own way. But Mary and Elizabeth show us a better way.

Like these women, we're all called - women, men, kids - we're all called like Mary and Elizabeth, to make our way over the hills and down the valleys. We're called to endure the abdominal somersaults for the sake of messages and messengers yet to be born. Like Mary and Elizabeth, we don't know how it's going to turn out. We just know it will. Because it does. Because God.

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The cousins young and old, Mary and Elizabeth, meet in the mountains. I picture it looking like Townsend. I know that's not nationally geographically right. As long as it's not downtown Gatlinburg.

And the child in Elizabeth's tummy - who will be John the Baptist - jumps for joy because of the presence of Mary's baby who will be Jesus. The Force is strong with this one.

Elizabeth says, "Why should the mother of my Lord come to me?" Essentially, "Mary! What are you doing here?!"

Mary says, "Well. It all started like this." Actually, no. Mary doesn't explain. She doesn't get into the biology. She doesn't preach a sermon. She doesn't even talk.

She sings.

Words are the language of the mind. Music, poetry, singing - is the language of the soul. Christmas isn't about the how or the stress. It's about the soul. The heart. The spirit. The hope, peace, joy and the love.

And it goes like this:

With all my heart [, Mary sings,]

   I praise the Lord,

47 and I am glad

   because of God my Savior.

48 He cares for me,

   his humble servant.

From now on,

all people will say

   God has blessed me.

49 God All-Powerful has done

great things for me,

   and his name is holy.

50 He always shows mercy

to everyone

   who worships him.

51 The Lord has used

   his powerful arm

to scatter those

   who are proud.

52 He drags strong rulers

   from their thrones

and puts humble people

   in places of power.

53 God gives the hungry

   good things to eat,

and sends the rich away

   with nothing.

54 He helps his servant Israel

and is always merciful

   to his people.

55 The Lord made this promise

   to our ancestors,

to Abraham and his family

   forever!

It could be that you look at your lists, and your bank account, and you wonder, "How am I gonna do this?"

It could be that you look at your tree that should be taller, should be four inches to the left, should have the ornaments rearranged so the hole in the branches isn't so obvious and you ask, "How am I gonna do this?"

It could be that you look at a picture, a face, remember a touch, and you sigh, "How am I gonna do this?"

I'm pretty sure Mary and Elizabeth looked at each other's tummies and wondered the same thing.

How is God gonna do all the things in Mary's song?

I do not know how.

Neither did she.

But she sang, and she rejoiced. The "how" was overcome by the "wow." Her stress, whatever that might have been, was stricken silent by the "why."

"Why does God show mercy to me, his humble servant?" Mary does not know. You don't have to know everything. You don't need to explain it all. Sometimes the heart knows enough.

Of course, Christmas is stressful. Go to the mall or Walmart this afternoon and you'll be ready to lose your religion. Be responsible if you self-medicate. There is stress right now, for so many reasons.

But there's also "wow." The coming of Christ is so much more than even his mother could imagine or say. May the unspeakable love of Christ be with you this week. And always.