Here, in the first chapter of Luke, we are asked to believe the impossible.  When Gabriel visits Mary with the announcement that she soon will conceive and bear a child, the Savior of the world, we join her in wondering, “How can this be?”

          In my imagination, I see her walking away from Nazareth, now heading across the Judean hillside.  As she journeys, the words echo in her heart and mind: “How can this be?”  “How can this be?”  “The angel told me not to be afraid.  But how can I not be fearful-an unmarried, pregnant girl living in a culture where the punishment is…will I survive?  When my friends discover I am pregnant will they risk giving me support?  Will they stand by me?  What if they don’t and I have to go through this alone?”     

“Let it be with me according to your word, O Lord.”  I know I said it and I meant it and I’m not going to take it back.”  “But what if, what if…”

Each step brings Mary closer and closer to the home of Elizabeth.  It is natural that Mary is turning to her cousin. During her childless years, Elizabeth likely had taken a special interest in the much younger Mary, being somewhat of a surrogate mother to her.  As the two greet one another and then, as the child in Elizabeth’s womb moves, we are asked to believe this impossibility: a woman of Elizabeth’s age, a barren woman, could have a child. 

In response to Mary’s astonishment, Gabriel speaks these words: “With God nothing will be impossible!”   To any that ask, “How can this be?”  To any who doubt the sovereignty of God. To any who lack faith that God can work miracles, the only suitable response is the declaration of Gabriel: “With God, nothing will be impossible!” 

This time of the year a great cast of characters is formed by children playing the parts of angels, shepherds and wise men in Christmas pageants. 

But the main character in the drama is always God.  It was God whose Spirit moved so that an impossible conception became possible.  It was God who sent angels to interrupt the bleating sound of sheep with the good news for Shepherds and for us: “Unto you is born a Savior.”  It was God who prompted the wise men to follow the star.

The story about Elizabeth and Mary is first and foremost a story about God, who makes possible the impossible.  God is the main character in the unfolding drama of their lives and in our lives, too. God uses small, ordinary people to accomplish great, extraordinary tasks.  

I recall a story about a pastor of  several small churches in northeastern Pennsylvania.  The region he serves is poverty-stricken with coal mining as the most common occupation.  The preacher spends much of his schedule each week taking communion to the simple houses of his discouraged parishioners.  Into their grim and grimy lives he brings the gifts of God’s exquisite grace. 

Not long after he had begun his work in that region, the minister decided to stop by the county dump and collect some bits and pieces of trash.  He took the garbage home and from it he fashioned a chalice and a plate to be used as he served communion in the homes of his parishioners. 

 

He would sit around the kitchen table with people the world had discarded, and over and over again tell them the same thing.  He told them the history of the chalice and plate and then would explain: “This is what God is in the business of doing.  God takes lives that seem useless, broken, thrown away, and then makes them over into vessels of beauty-vessels through which God can minister to the world.”[1]

         

          At the core of the Christian story is a God who takes ordinary people, broken people and creates beautiful vessels that are used to accomplish God’s great purposes in the world. 

God comes to an aged, childless couple named Abraham and Sarah and gives them a son named Isaac.  God comes to a person such as David, the youngest and the overlooked, and makes him King.  God comes to Jeremiah, the youngster not yet equipped for the work of a prophet, and makes him one of Israel’s greatest prophets.  He comes to Mary, a young peasant girl, and names her “Favored One”. He comes to us, ordinary people, people tainted by sin.  From the stuff of our lives, God creates instruments to be used for his work.  

          God is the main character in the drama of Luke one.   But Mary is the leading lady.  She consents to be the bearer of Christ into the world.  In her we find a model for our own Christian living.  She trusts God.  She does what God wills her to do.  She throws herself into the mysterious plan of God. 

          I have read that the African impala can jump to a height of over 10 feet and cover a distance of greater than 30 feet.  Yet, these magnificent creatures can be kept enclosed in a zoo with a 3-foot wall.  The animals will not jump if they cannot see where their feet will fall.[2] 

          Faith is the ability to trust what we cannot see, and with faith, we are freed from the flimsy enclosures of life that only fear allows to entrap us.

          Mary jumped, though she could not see where her feet would land.  She trusted God with her future.  

          In that trust, she finds unequaled joy.

          “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

          For the Mighty One has done great things for me, and Holy is God’s name.”

          God is the main character in our life’s story.  He wants us to be his leading men and women. How can this be?

          As we trust God with our future, he entrusts us with the vocation to bear Jesus into the world.

          We are to believe the impossible, that God can take us, ordinary people, to accomplish his great, extraordinary work today, tomorrow, always.