Rocked my world!!

Yesterday was the Fourth Sunday of Advent.  In churches across the country that follow the lectionary, the story of the annunciation was told.  The annunciation can be found in chapter 1 of the gospel of St. Luke.  This is the story in which the Virgin Mary is visited by the angel Gabriel and Gabriel tells her that she is to be Jesus' mother, he would save his people from their sins, he will be great and called the Son of the Most High.  There's just one problem!  Mary is a single teenage girl engaged to be married and is believed by those in her community to be a virgin.  Gabriel goes on to tell her that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and the child that she would bear would be holy.

I can only imagine that Mary in the back of her mind had already dreamed and envisioned the life that she and Joseph were to live.  But after putting herself aside.  She yielded to God's will for her and changed her life at that moment, as well as the trajectory of human history.  I can dig why the Catholics make such a big deal about the Blessed Mary.  She is the vehicle through and which salvation came down from heaven and dwelled among us.  Heaven's perfect and unblemished lamb came down through forty-two generations to commingle among the lowly and destitute.  To comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.  Glory to God!

In my Advent Sermon at St. Mary's School, I addressed a group of roughly 300 people, some of which were happy to be in chapel and others were probably just going through the motions.  In the moment, I told my mostly teenage audience, that Gabriel's visit to Mary rocked her world.  God took her world as she knew it and turned it upside down and inside out.  Her hopes and aspirations were not solely her own, but those of God for humanity.  I asked the students:  When was the last time God rocked your world?  How did you respond to this?  Gabriel's parting words to Mary were:  "For with God nothing is impossible."  In the last days of this Advent season, let us be ever mindful that with God NOTHING is impossible.  You can't do it, but God can.  Let go and Let God!

Peace and Advent Blessings!
Karsten