Mission Implausible
Scripture Reading: Luke 1:26-38
“Where are you from?” It’s a question that I, as a newcomer to Haverstraw, get asked whenever I meet new people, as happened several times at the Christmas concert a few weeks back. My answer tends to vary. Sometimes I’ll say “Connecticut,” which is where I grew up and went to college. But that was quite a while ago. If I think that the person is really asking, “Where did you come from most recently?” as in, what church did I serve before coming to Central, then I’ll answer “South Korea,” which always elicits raised eyebrows. “Really?”
When I was living in South Korea I told people that I was from New York, because I learned early on that virtually no one in South Korea has heard of Connecticut. They’d think I had said “Canada,” and then I’d have to explain that I don’t play hockey or say “aboot,” and I would try my best to explain in my imperfect Korean where Connecticut is on the map. It was just easier to answer “New York.” And that was partially true. I used to live in New York City and worked there for many years.
I could also answer “New Jersey” because I still own a home there, even though I haven’t lived in it for 10 years. But I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone that I was from New Jersey, even when I was living there. Now, New Jersey is a beautiful state, but the conception of New Jersey that many people have who are not from there comes from TV shows like The Sopranos and The Jersey Shore, neither of which casts the state in a favorable light. It’s like that line from the movie Dumb and Dumber, “That’s a lovely accent you have. New Jersey?”
What’s more, the major metropolitan centers of New Jersey—places like Newark and Jersey City—are overshadowed by their much larger and more celebrated neighbors to the north and south, New York and Philadelphia. For this reason and a few others New Jersey has the reputation of being a place that you drive through on your way somewhere else but not a place that you purposely drive to.
In that respect, New Jersey is much like Nazareth, the village in which Mary was living when she was visited by the angel Gabriel. Nazareth was not a destination, not a place that anyone traveled to. There were no tourist attractions, no natural wonders, no Air BnB’s to stay in, no reason really for anyone to stop in sleepy little Nazareth, a village of perhaps 2,000 people at the time. The only reason that might bring anyone through Nazareth was the fact that it was not far from a major trade route to Egypt. Like a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike, Nazareth might occasionally play host to weary travelers on their way somewhere else.
So unremarkable was Nazareth that it’s never even mentioned in the Old Testament. Not once. It does appear in the New Testament but not to any acclaim. Quite the opposite. In the Gospel of John, when the disciple Philip excitedly tells his friend Nathanael of his encounter with Jesus of Nazareth, Nathanael responds skeptically, saying, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (Jn. 1:46).
Can anything good come out of Nazareth? In retrospect we can, of course, say yes, for it’s the hometown of Jesus, the savior of the world. But it would challenge the imagination to think of a less significant place for God to begin his plan to redeem the world from the powers of sin and death. Of all places, why Nazareth? Why not a big important city like Jerusalem, or better yet Rome, the capital of the largest and most powerful empire in the world? The king of kings born in the city of the emperor! Now that would make a statement!
If Nazareth is an unlikely place for God to begin his plan to save the world from sin and death, then Mary is an equally unlikely choice to be the mother of the savior.
But no. God chose Nazareth, an insignificant agricultural village of a couple thousand people east of nowhere and west of nothing. It’s a rather anticlimactic choice, don’t you think? I wonder if Gabriel perhaps needed directions even to find it.
If Nazareth is an unlikely place for God to begin his plan to save the world from sin and death, then Mary is an equally unlikely choice to be the mother of the savior. What exactly are her credentials? What’s on her résumé that qualifies her for this honor? She’s not a princess; she’s a peasant girl—emphasis on girl, in that she was likely no more than thirteen or fourteen years old. Today we’d call her a teenager, but the concept didn’t exist back then.
She is part of a subjugated people. Her nation, such as it is, is subject to the colonial power of Rome. Nor is she from a prominent family, unlike her husband-to-be, Joseph, who is descended from David, Israel’s most celebrated king.
If Mary has any personal qualities that make her uniquely qualified to be chosen for the honor of bearing the Son of God, then Gabriel never mentions what they are. He simply says, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”
Mary herself isn’t sure what to make of Gabriel’s greeting. Luke describes her as being perplexed by his words and pondering what sort of greeting this might be. But again the angel tells her that she has found favor with God.
Like Israel itself, a tiny, insignificant nation that it pleased God to make his own, Mary finds favor with God not because of her easily recognizable qualifications but, if anything, for her abject humility. In a world of conquerers and conquered, she is among the conquered. In a world of extreme wealth for the very few and extreme poverty for the masses, she is among the poor. In a culture in which greatness is equated with masculinity, she is a woman. And in a society that values the wisdom and leadership of elders, she is a young girl.
On every level God’s plan to make Mary the centerpiece of this salvation drama seems highly implausible. No Hollywood producer would green light such an absurd underdog story.
But wait! There’s more! Things are about to get even more absurd. We’re about to go from the implausible to the impossible. Our heavenly messenger informs Mary, who is still a virgin, that she will conceive and bear a son. And although born into poverty, he will sit on the throne of David, and his kingdom will have no end.
This is how the Lord works. This is how God operates, breaking rules, flouting conventions, defying good sense and conventional wisdom in order to bring about something wonderful, something marvelous, something miraculous.
How can this be? That’s not a rhetorical question from me; that’s what Mary actually wants to know! “How can this be,” she asks, “since I am a virgin?” Mary is not expressing doubt so much as wonder. Young as she is, she knows how the world works. She knows about the birds and the bees. She knows that she is engaged to Joseph, but they are not yet married and they have not yet shared a bed. So how is it that she is going to conceive and bear a child?
It’s not a matter of biology, the angel tells her, but rather theology. That’s not an exact quote. What Gabriel says is that “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.”
I want to pause here because I assume that those of us who have been coming to church for years have heard this passage many times before. And perhaps in the repetition some of the drama and the wonder of it have been wrung out like a wet washcloth. But let’s soak in this story once more, a story that is saturated with the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Let’s appreciate how implausible this all is. A Jewish peasant girl some thirteen years of age, who lives in an obscure and remote part of a vast foreign empire, who is a virgin…she is the one whom God elects for this mission…this Mission Implausible! With all due respect to Tom Cruise and the Mission Impossible franchise (What are up to now, seven, eight films? There are more Mission Impossible films than there were episodes in the original TV series), Mission Impossible has nothing on Mission Implausible. God’s ways challenge our sensibilities and upend our expectations.
This is how the Lord works. This is how God operates, breaking rules, flouting conventions, defying good sense and conventional wisdom in order to bring about something wonderful, something marvelous, something miraculous. And if God can work wonders through a teenaged peasant girl living in a small town in the middle of nowhere, imagine how God can work through you.
Oh, and by the way, Mary. Your relative Elizabeth, the one who is too old to have a child? She’s six months’ pregnant. “For nothing will be impossible with God.” Implausible? Oh, for sure! But impossible? Never.