I love the way Luke and Matthew
begin their Gospels. Both tell us of these plain, ordinary people, Mary and
Joseph, who obeyed God, and through whom God begins the extraordinary work of
salvation for all people.
Traditionally, the church has called
Mary the first disciple. She was the first to believe and obey. And even though
Luke tells her story with a bit more drama than Matthew’s telling of Joseph’s,
we still get the message that here was an ordinary young woman – really a
teenage girl – who embodied extraordinary courage and faith in God to be able
to say, "Let it be to me according to your will." Or to put it more
mundanely, Mary said yes.
More than one theologian of the
church over the centuries has said that the great miracle that surrounded the
birth of Jesus was not the miraculous conception of Jesus or the virgin birth,
but that Mary and Joseph believed and obeyed.
An old rabbinical story says that
when there was a crisis in the life of God’s people, the great rabbi, Baal Shem
Tov, would go to a particular place in the forest, build a great fire, say a
particular prayer, cry to God for salvation, and the story says, "It was
sufficient; for God saw the fire in the place, heard the prayer and heard the
cry, and God saved his people."
A generation passed and another
grave crisis came upon the people. Rabbi Maggid of Mezeritch, a disciple of the
great Shem Tov, went to the same place in the forest and cried to God for
mercy, "Master of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the
fire, but I am still able to say the prayer." And the story says, "It
was sufficient. And the miracle was accomplished."
Still later, another generation
passed and another crisis came upon the people. Moshe-Leib of Sassov, a
disciple of Rabbi Maggid, would go to into the forest and say, "I do not
know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient." And it
was sufficient and the miracle accomplished.
Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of
Rizhin to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands,
he spoke to God: "I am unable to light the fire and I do not know the
prayer; I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is tell the
story, and this must be sufficient." And it was sufficient (from Souls
on Fire: Portraits and Legends of Hasidic Masters by Elie Wiesel, p. 167).
For Mary, and Joseph too, the great
miracle was the simple act of obedience, of saying yes to God. Perhaps they
knew a lot of Bible and were well versed in theology but I doubt it. Perhaps
each of them was well situated in the religious life of Nazareth, but nothing
is said about any of this. All we know is that each of them said yes to God.
And it was sufficient. They didn’t set out to know all things, change the world,
or even change their town. They simply said yes to God. And God said it was
sufficient.
And it was sufficient. Amen.