“Holy Fear, Hopeful Fear” Luke 1:26-38
Fourth Sunday of Advent December 18, 2005


There is so much fear.

Some fear is over-hyped to the point of comedy. For instance, have you ever watched the TV weather report when there might be a chance of snow flurries a week from Tuesday? Other fears are serious and real.

Some fear for their personal safety. As a late-evening event breaks up in our College room downstairs, students ask questions like, “Who’s going to Dupont? Can we walk together?” Another example. I was talking with a woman this past week who is a brand new driver – and who has been in two accidents in the past two weeks that were not her fault! Can you imagine how fearful she is, even to turn the ignition key again?

Some fear is mean-spirited, and exaggerated to manipulate people. Republicans tried to make people fearful enough to vote against John Kerry, by declaring that he would not effectively protect us from terrorists. Democrats reacted to President Bush’s proposals for Social Security reform, by encouraging people to fear for their finances in retirement. The National Rifle Association keeps its members fearful that banning “Saturday night special” handguns today means banning hunting rifles tomorrow. According to abortion rights groups, if Samuel Alito is confirmed as a Supreme Court Judge, it will be the end of civil rights as we know them. In his gubernatorial campaign, Jerry Kilgore tried to make people fearful that Tim Kaine would not carry out the state’s capital punishment statutes.

The use of fear is very effective! But it’s also coercive and deadening. It polarizes. It prevents dialogue and consensus. It closes us off from hope.

I begin with all of this because fear and anxiety plays a huge role in the gospel story this morning! (You might miss that, unless you really enter into this familiar narrative.) An angel comes to Mary. Do you remember that one of the first things he has to say to her is, “Do not be afraid, Mary”?

What kind of fear are we encountering here? Is this the kind of fear that closes us off from hope?

How would you have reacted if you had been Mary? The angel Gabriel bursts in and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." But, we read, she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.

I hate to dispute the romantic images on the front of Hallmark Christmas cards, but this angelic visitation was terrifying. (Enough of you have heard me speak from this soapbox, so I won’t say much this morning. Suffice it to say that our idea these days of angels who are beautiful, gentle women is not at all Biblical – because, in the Bible, angels are always male, and are always frightening! We’ll see that again, in the story from Luke on Christmas Eve.)

Listen, again, to the angel Gabriel’s scary message:

The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?"

You see, Mary was 12 or 13 years old. That is the age when girls were eligible to be married in that culture. Mary is not actually married. She is “engaged,” as the NRSV translates it, or “betrothed.” That means that Mary’s father and Joseph have reached the formal agreement of making the marriage. They have done this in the presence of witnesses, and Joseph has paid to Mary’s father the bride price they have agreed upon. Sometime in the next year, the property transaction will be completed. Mary will be transferred from her father’s house to Joseph’s. But even now, but Joseph possesses property rights. If Mary is pregnant when she is transferred to Joseph, she will be damaged goods. The worst case scenario would be that Mary’s father would have to refund the bride price, and that Mary would be put to death by stoning. (That is the punishment for a woman who has engaged in sexual intercourse out of wedlock.) So Mary’s fear is, quite literally, for her life.

The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. (If this is “favor with God,” then I hate to think about how God treats those who are enemies!) Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" The angel does not address the fear in Mary’s question! He keeps on with what he has to say! Listen again, and ask yourself whether the angel’s further message will bring consolation or further fear to the young girl?

The angel tells her: "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.” There, now, you who have put yourself in Mary’s position. Do you feel more secure in what’s going to happen to you? Or is your fear increased?

Here’s the thing. We are encountering fear in this passage that is much different from the fear created by political svengalis like Karl Rove. Mary’s fear is a holy fear, because she is coming to understand that this is something that God is doing. What we find in this story is the hopeful fear that God provokes within us. God is doing something mysterious, and beyond our control, and it threatens to turn our lives upside down, but it is what God is doing, and God is doing something new! And so, our holy fear opens us to wonder. It opens our hearts to hope. Fear and faith exist, side-by-side, in our hearts.[1]

It seems to me that this is a primary purpose of the evangelist who composed the stories in the first chapters of Luke: to stimulate our wonder and hope. The gospel writer is trying to excite our faith in the God who can do anything that God wants to do!

Look at how the gospel writer is doing that, as he structures the first chapter of Luke. There are parallel stories of two frightening angelic visitations, with news of two impossible births. The first visit is to Zechariah. (Do you remember this story?) Zechariah’s wife, Elizabeth, has not borne a child, which was a source of shame for a woman in that culture. And now, Elizabeth is too old to hope for a pregnancy. In fact, Elizabeth is so old, that when the angel tells Zechariah that she’s going to have a son, Zechariah doesn’t believe it! And so the angel punishes Zechariah’s faithlessness by making it so that he can’t speak until the baby is born!

What a great story! You see what the gospel writer has done: he has made us think about Sarah, the wife of Abraham, in Genesis, who was 89 years old, and had never been able to bear a child. But at age 90, Sarah gave birth to Isaac. Impossible! In this first chapter of Luke, you see, the news that Elizabeth and Zechariah are to have a baby is every bit as fantastic as what the angel Gabriel has to say to Mary!

Gabriel uses that news as his clinching argument to Mary. He tells her, “And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God."

There it is. That’s the point. “For nothing will be impossible with God.” Holy fear is hopeful fear. Our lives are turned upside down! But it’s what God is doing, and God is doing something new!

And so, the angel Gabriel waits. How long do you think the silence lasts?

Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.

Kathleen Norris writes this about Mary’s response to the angel:

She does not lose her voice but finds it….she asserts herself before God, saying, “Here am I.” … Mary proceeds – as we must do in life – making her commitment without knowing much about what it will entail or where it will lead. I treasure the story because it forces me to ask: “When the mystery of God’s love breaks through into my consciousness, do I run from it? Do I ask of it what I cannot answer? Shrugging, do I retreat into facile clichés, the popular false wisdom of what “we all know”? Or am I virgin enough to respond from my deepest, truest self, and say something new, a “yes” that will change me forever?”[2]

Let us approach the Christmas celebration with “a holy fear, full of wonder, mystery, and surprise”;[3] with the faithful confidence that nothing is impossible with God!

In the name of God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia

[1] Stephen R. Montgomery: “Beyond Fear, Fundamentalism, and Fox News: The Active Hope of Advent” (Journal for Preachers, Advent, 2005), page 13. [2] Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith (New York: Riverhead Books, 1998), pages 76-77) [3] Montgomery, op.cit.