Sermon at the Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday of Advent 2017

It was the smell that first alerted her. Not an unpleasant smell, not at all, just different. Not perfume exactly. Something cool and fresh, reminding her of early morning frost or cold water from the well. A scent you could breathe deep into your lungs and feel them clean and alive. Whatever it was, Mary knew it didn’t belong on a warm spring day in Nazareth.

After the scent, the movement. A presence, not entirely visible, but clearly there. The air shimmered with every colour imaginable. Then the colours took on the shape of wings. Mary should have been afraid, but the scent and the colours were so beautiful that there could only be wonder. She could have stood there all day, breathing the air and admiring the colours. When the voice spoke, it broke the spell, and her disappointment stopped her from understanding the words at first. Who was talking? What were they saying? Why her?

The message when she finally understood it was beyond ridiculous. A baby, for an unmarried girl, a baby from God, a holy child, a king. For a moment she suspected a joke, a prank played by the local boys. But there was the scent, and the colours, and Mary had to believe it was true. Heaven had come to call, and Mary was enveloped in its perfume. What could she do but say yes?

Pause

However you tell it, this is a strange and magical story. We would not be surprised to find it in a book of children’s fairy tales. The story is embedded also in this poem by Elizabeth Jennings, called ‘Advent’.

Comings gather here to celebrate.
Almost impossible adventures now
Take place and all excessive dreams can meet
And no one even wants to question why
Bright lights assume a street,

Stars stand in order. One or two may fall,
We are awestruck, full of gratitude.
Marvels can happen, we invite them all
Into a sudden state of wanting good.
Yes now every tall

Story comes true. A child is on its way,
Unborn as yet but carried in the womb
Of a virgin. She chose to agree
To this. O all the world makes ample room
For everyone to be

Enchanted in a state of graciousness
Not all choose well but possibilities
Blossom about us. In the Christmas Trees
Waiting around we watch our happiness
And some fall to their knees.

Advent, from Timely Issues by Elizabeth Jennings (Carcanet 2001), p 46

Almost impossible adventures/now take place…Marvels can happen…Yes now every/Tall story comes true….

When Mary receives God’s message from Gabriel we are faced with the seemingly impossible, the unbelievable: that heaven and earth should meet, and touch, and with such creativity that a child is conceived: a child who is both God and human – all of each – bearing the very stamp and imprint of divine love; the fingerprint of God. And the child to be born is such that we mere humans can see and touch and hear the Word made flesh, a gift beyond our understanding, yet offered to all.

This is the stuff of miracles. Not make-believe, not wishful thinking, not a fairy story, but of a true marvel, a tall story that has come true.

This is what we are given in the gospel account: the true and unique encounter of ‘heaven and earth in little space’ as the old carol puts it. Our deepest hopes are given flesh as result of Mary and the angel’s utterly unexpected, indescribable encounter.

In a world full of suffering and violence, where people seem intent on inflicting the maximum harm on one another, and truth is lost in webs of deceit, remember this. This world has been visited by God. Heaven and earth met in Nazareth long ago, and they meet again when people of faith repeat the story of the miracle, and know it to be true. The world cannot be without hope, when it is touched by heaven.

And what of us today? Might we encounter angels, receive life-changing news, have a ‘yes’ asked of us? As the poet reminds us:

O all the world makes ample room
For everyone to be

Enchanted in a state of graciousness
Not all choose well but possibilities
Blossom about us.

Well, yes. For the God who chose so graciously to come and dwell with Mary, to become one of us; this is the God in whom we believe, who we worship today. This is the God who remains faithful to his people come what may, who raised Jesus from the dead, who promises to make ample room for everyone ‘to be enchanted in a state of graciousness’. Will we, like Mary, choose to say Yes to God as he approaches us face to face, or sidles up to us quite unexpectedly? Unnamed, unrecognised possibilities lie around us.

As Advent draws to a close and Christmas beckons, we hear some longed-for words:

Yes now every tall/Story comes true. A child is on its way… we watch our happiness/And some fall to their knees.