Saint Luke 1:26-38

A Christmas Thought

If there had never been a Christmas
Or the Holy Christ Child's birth
Or the Angels singing in the sky
Of promised peace on earth
What would the world be like today
With no eternal goal?
What would the temporal body be
Without a living soul?
What would give us courage
To push on when hope is dead,
Except the Christmas Message
And the words our Father said:
"In love I send My only Son
to live and die for you,
And through His resurrection
You will gain a new life too."

Early in Matthew's Gospel it is written "Every tree therefore that does not bear fruit is cut down…" (Matthew 3:10).

These strong words of John the Baptist are telling us something important about what it means to be a follower of Christ - what it means to be a Christian. How do we make our lives fruitful in this sense?

For a definitive answer, we can turn to today's Gospel Reading. There we discover the attitude and approach of the most fruitful person of all time. Mary, the Mother of Jesus.

According to the New Testament, Mary was a gracious, strong, sensitive woman who can tell us a great deal about life.

This peasant girl, probably a teenager from the little valley of Nazareth, way off to the back country, suddenly hears the startling announcement that she has found special favor with God, and that she is to become a mother in a very special way.

Can you imagine what this was like for this young woman?

The first thing she did was to ask a question: "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" (Luke 1:34). And the answer that came was even more startling: "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" (Luke 1:35).

Then, Mary, with this heavy, bewildering happening bearing down on her gave her beautiful response: "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." (Luke 1:38).

"Let it be!" That was the cornerstone of Mary's life from that moment on. That unconditional acceptance of God's will, released the awesome power of God's love, and that is what it means to be "fruitful," in the Biblical sense.

A young lad was leafing through a book that his mother had been reading entitled, "Child Psychology, Ages Five through Ten."

He turned to a friend and said, "You should see what a pain in the neck I'm gonna be next year."

In order to get close to the fruitful mother/child relationship between Jesus and Mary, we have to think of such things as Jesus going through the "terrible twos" and all the other periods of a child's development.

If we think about Jesus as a read child (and that is what "Incarnation" means), we realize that He needed to be trained, needed to be cleaned, needed to be nourished, needed to be taught, needed to be disciplined, needed with all the problems children have. And Mary was there to fulfill these needs. Mary did what needed to be done.

It is a tremendous tribute to Mary to realize that so much of the parent turns up in the child. There may be vast differences in lifestyles of back-to-back generations, but when you look beneath the surface, you discover very real, and sometimes very startling similarities between parents and offspring.

Consequently, when we realize what Jesus came to be, we can see what a glorious thing Mary did in that day-by-day mother/child relationship.

Moreover, Mary did this so often in times of severe crisis. It doesn't require much Biblical expertise to realize what a difficult time she had. From the moment of that announcement of Christmas to come, her life was shaped by the destiny of her child.

The birth itself took place a long way from home. It took place under circumstances unfavorable, even for those early days - in a stable. But that's not all. She could not go back home to familiar surroundings after giving birth. Jesus, Mary and Joseph had to leave the country. They became displaced persons because of the political situation of the time.

Mary could not go home, but perhaps the greatest hurt of all, for Mary, was the difficulty in understanding her child …

At age twelve, Jesus chided her for searching for Him and worrying about Him, even though He had been missing for three days in a crowded city.

At the Wedding Feast in Cana, He scolded her when she told Him the wine had run out.

Later on, when people were accusing Jesus of being insane, Mary went back to the place where He was preaching and He rejected her request to come out and talk to her.

Then came that moment at the Cross. Mary, who had been through all the heartbreak with Jesus, every step of the way, is quietly turned over to the Apostle John, as Jesus went to His death completely alone.

Mary certainly didn't plan it that way. The bittersweet truth that God's plan for revealing His goodness is not tailored to fit our preconceptions was a discovery Mary made as a very young woman. And it was the key to Mary's strength in all those times of crisis and sorrow. "Let it be," she had said, "Let it be with me according to your word."

That is the key to our weathering the crisis of life itself.

As followers of Christ, we work hard, we find forms of therapy, we find help from others, we do everything we can, but always within the context of Mary's fiat, "Let it be with me according to your word." Say it, and really mean it and the Power of God's Love, lying deep within you, is released.

The true meaning of the heavy burdens we carry, as individuals, as family members and as members of the larger society, can be spelled out only in this context. "Let it be" is the secret of a fruitful life.

Most of us turn to God frantically when we're in trouble. That's when we really commiserate with Him when we come to Church on Sunday. But what we're talking about now is tomorrow. We're talking about your Monday style of life - and Tuesday, and through the week.

Tomorrow on the job, right at your desk, or behind the counter, or in front of your class, or beside your machine, or facing your computer screen, stop from time-to-time for just a moment, just for a flash and say, "Let it be. Let it be with me according to your word."

Many years ago, it was the Beatles who gave us that very interesting commentary on the first chapter of Luke's Gospel …

"When I find myself in time of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, 'Let it be.'

"And in my hour of darkness, she is standing right in front of me, speaking words of wisdom, 'Let it be!'

"There will be an answer, Let it be!"

That is the secret of a fruitful, Christian Life, so let it be done to you as God wills! To do as God wills! To love one another as God wills!

Thanks be to God!!!!! Amen!!!