Witness His Majesty – Mary’s Mother

Look what God has done! We hope we can this Christmas …

Mary’s mum said that there is a ‘silent partner’ that arrives with a first child – worry! Parents pray but they also burn the midnight oil hoping that they are going to be good enough to hold this great responsibility with all of its mystery and lack of standard operating procedure handbook well enough.

I wonder whether we have been praying but also burning the midnight oil this year and if we have also had a ‘silent partner’ in church and life and family and world – worry?

I will remember 2021 as a tough year – disappointment and not being able to progress in some ways (not all ways, by any means).

Frustration: with this long-restricted life that came to its most invasive with the vaccine/anti-vaccine issue that has threatened to cause long wounds between family, friends and community.

Fear: A vast militarizing dictatorship is on the rise, and we have no idea what that might mean for ourselves, our children, our grandchildren.

Struggle : Church people and pastors struggling with the great unravelling of church in Western societies like ours..

The list goes on. The silent partner is not so silent.

And then comes this, as it did for a young woman and a troubled family – Angels singing, speaking right in the home paddock, the living room, the back yard. Angels – messengers saying and singing words with a joy beyond us.

They are not new words. In fact, the angels merely throw a magnifying glass on what has already been said and like a magnifying glass does not make the thing bigger, but merely helps us see what was always there more fully, so all this messaging from God’s holy messengers just shows us what old Micah and many others already spoke about God’s good news for his broken world.

But Mary’s mum could not handle this change. I am not sure I can. Can you?

We get used to our never-ending cycle of newsy worry. Bad news sells, and we buy it. We stroke all the bad news about the virus and the politicians and the government and the evil people and the fears and dread like a nice big warm fuzzy cat in our arms – and woe be to anyone who tries to get that cat or scars that cat out of our arms! If that cat jumps out, we have nothing to talk about …

Somehow, we find this possibility of God intervening more than any government ever- could – intervening in my life, my heart, my desires and fears and worries and longings and ideas a bit of an afront, like Mary’s mum did, like Joseph did, like Herod did …

How dare God call me to live differently, to see differently, to do differently.

How dare God call me to trust him to the point of no return; to the point of being misunderstood or maligned.

We find ourselves with Mary’s mum and Mary herself, and Joseph, and those travelling cultural elites on camels, and shifty underclass shepherds and a paranoid local despot named Herod, and all of the people we hear of around Jesus at this birth and at his death and even more at his resurrection from death.

We have a choice to make today and next week when the day arrives again.

“God, what have you done?” or “God, let us see what you can do!”

“God. What have you done to me”, or, “God, what can you do with me for others?”

In God’s interruption to her family, her expectations and her normal ‘what you see is what you believe” world, Mary could only blurt out in fearful and anxious tones “Mary, what have you done?!”. Being a young girl now pregnant out of wedlock was a really big deal.

Now, so now of course. But it was a big deal in living memory in this Valley. There are people here who carry the scares of shaming and damaging words said to them when they were so young.

For Mary and her mum and her fiancé it was probably worse. This is complete shame and leads to a life of shame and isolation from local community.

But then, Mary’s mum listens and lets the words in.

This interruption to our lives is not new – it is just completely marvelous! What has been promised is now being delivered as this baby will be delivered into the world.

And we get to be key players in God’s marvelous working.

After the resistance to change comes the welcoming of it, because faith has arrived. Faith has come alive through listening as God is speaking.

What a shift:

Mary’s mum says, “The first thing I said was, “What have you done?”. This is useless! Why? Because it leads to blame, shame, accusation, judgement, fear, the death of anything good …

But then the better response – from the listening to God speak: the trusting what he says response: “Look what God has done!”

And leads to an even better response: “Now let’s see what God can do”.

Now we are heading into love, confidence, hope and life – all by trusting this messaging from God’s messengers of good news joy.

When God speaks through this boy this Christmas and tells you that

Can you hear the boy speaking.  “Because I am with you and at work through you all the threats of a nation on the war path or a virus on the death march or a conflict creating havoc in your family, or a disagreement between long-time friends or whatever else is your ‘not-so-silent-partner’ at the moment, all these unwanted partners are no match for my intervention, my promise, my partnership, my hope, my gifts, my joy at work in your world.

Will we believe him not merely with a nod of intelligent approval but with the heart ready to pay any price as he will pay the price for us?

Mary did. She followed the call and saw great grace in it, even though it completely interrupted all of her plans.

When this baby boy says that in his power and love you will live securely, for his greatness reaches everywhere in your word and in your life, will you rest in that good news and let the warm fuzzy long-held and even tenderly strokes fears and frustrations and worry go?

When he says that you are not your peace but that

⁵ … he will be our peace

Will you say, ‘What have you done to me? Or ‘What can you do in me and through me?

Friend, come and see what God has done.

Let him help you ask, “Let’s see what I can do”

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