Mention in the scripture Mary. She isolated herself from her family, into an eastern location. [19:17] While a barrier separated her from them, we sent to her our Spirit. He went to her in the form of a human being. [19:18] She said, "I seek refuge in the Most Gracious, that you may be righteous." [19:19] He said, "I am the messenger of your Lord, to grant you a pure son."

[19:20] She said, "How can I have a son, when no man has touched me; I have never been unchaste." [19:21] He said, "Thus said your Lord, `It is easy for Me. We will render him a sign for the people, and mercy from us. This is a predestined matter.' "

The Birth of Jesus

[19:22] When she bore (Jesus) him, she isolated herself to a faraway place. [19:23] The birth process came to her by the trunk of a palm tree. She said, "(I am so ashamed;) I wish I were dead before this happened, and completely forgotten." [19:24] (The infant) called her from beneath her, saying, "Do not grieve. Your Lord has provided you with a stream. [19:25] "If you shake the trunk of this palm tree, it will drop ripe dates for you. [19:26] "Eat and drink, and be happy.[1]

You may or may not have known that the 19th Chapter of the Koran is entitled, Mary or in Arabic Mirium; and it is the only chapter or Sura in the Koran which is given the name of a woman. Here, in the version of a very familiar story, we hear of both the annunciation from the angel telling a young woman that God has chosen her to be the bearer of a miracle. 

Many of you know that I have only just returned from Melbourne, Australia, where I was a participant in the Parliament of the World’s Religions – a gathering of 6000 people of countless religious traditions from across the globe, from your good old Baptist Christians to Lutherans and Unitarians; Shinto Priests, Sadus and Gurus of the Hindu Faith, Shiite and Sunni Muslims; Indigenous Elders and Medicine Men; the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem and the Dali Lama and the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church in Southwestern Australia. For seven days we met together in countless workshops and sessions to share a truth which is in stark contrast to extremist generated headlines from around the world: there is more that is the same about us then there is anything that makes us different. There are more common aspirations for our globe and for our neighbors than there are competing interests or separate agendas. 

All people of faith, in one way or another, express it with the understanding that God is reaching into our world to use God’s people as bearers of transforming good news. As one Scholar of Islam, Tariq Ramadan has said, “if the word received is not of god, it will fade away, if it is of God, it will be eternal.” If God is reaching into our world situation at any point, that activity is vetted by the truth of its life serving, hope inspiring nature. 

Whether you are moved by her story, or whether you tend to discount it as of secondary importance in the whole scheme of things in the Gospels, Mary's story resonates far beyond the borders of our, western, Christian culture with any who have come from a background of obscurity and found themselves suddenly called upon to do the brave and unthinkable thing. 

Perhaps then, it is with new ears that we might hear familiar ancient words of prophecy associated with the season; referenced in countless carols and Advent Hymns....words such as Isaiah's of today, which were delivered to a people in a similar exile of uncertainty and fear. “The desert will blossom like a rose...from the dry pool will spring forth water."

As one commentator has put it, the prophet assaults our imaginations with images of hope; of a world where creation is set right by the work of God.”[2] Biblical scholars look at this as a most remarkable prophecy, considering the desperate situation of Israel's exile; and yet also note that some of Judaism’s most pushy, assertive, hopeful, and imaginative poetry was uttered in times of sheer desperation…and so it is with all the world’s religions. We are left with a legacy of hope which finds its most profound expressions in times of trial. 

Mary, the teenaged Middle Eastern girl, betrothed to a carpenter by her parents, no doubt...a contract of mutual benefit to both families. Now, this young woman is pregnant; with child of unknown origin as they might have said. Many a soap-opera has turned on the tragic discovery which Mary has just made as with weeping the young girl contemplates running away or even taking her own life. But Mary? She sings a song of joy and celebration.... "My soul magnifies the Lord...for he has regarded me, a simple and insignificant young woman and lifted me in the course of the miraculous gift of new life into a world of new possibilities."

The Koran tells the story of Mary so that the world may remember how great God’s love is for humanity...a love sufficient to engender the miraculous birth of a son to a virgin woman; that is to transform the lowliest of us into something special...to embody love among us. 

Isaiah 35 speaks of a God who intrudes, who comes among us to do that which we cannot do for ourselves. In 1943, after being arrested by the Nazis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer sat in prison during a cold, dark, lonely Advent. In a letter to a friend, Bonhoeffer compared his situation in prison to our situation as Christians in Advent. 

"One waits, hopes, and does this, that, or the other - things that are really of no consequence - the door is shut, and can be opened only from the outside."

 A door that can be opened only from the outside: “That is a vivid image for the God that Isaiah proclaimed in exile. Here is a God who comes to open our locked prison doors behind which we languish. This God does for us that which we cannot do for ourselves. Of this God Isaiah is able to proclaim, "Here is your God...  He will come and save you." Or as Mary sang it many centuries later, (Luke 1:54-55 NRSV) “He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever."

This is yet one more year when some of our sons and daughters – our brothers and sisters are called upon to leave the routines of their life to enter into the theater of war on the other side of the world.  Unemployment figures peaked in the last several months at an average of over 10% across our country. In some areas that rate of joblessness is nearly 20%. Markets are rebuilding but remain volatile, incomes and benefits precarious. 

In this time of uncertainty, the Christmas message is more than heart- warming and sweet; it is a word...and a story which comes from the darkest times in the history of a people. Defiantly it proclaims that God is here: that which is broken will be made whole, those who weep will laugh and those who anguish will be comforted...the hungry will be filled; the desert will blossom and yield in abundance. 

St. Augustine says that hope has two beautiful daughters: anger at the way things are and courage to see to it they do not remain the way they are. It is out of hope that our critique of the present order arises. It is out of hope that leaders of the world’s religions gathered. It is out of hope that we are all here today. It is healthy to be outraged - and then to give ourselves in some way to the process of making it better. 

Hope also seems to be the parent of patience. Hope gives us that persistence and determination to keep working on the world. As Reinhold Niebuhr said: "Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime."

So as these December days grow shorter and the night seems to be increasing all around us, Christmas is more than a brief respite in the routine. Instead of "keep on keeping on..." Christmas is a promise that should resonate in all of our ears; that the darkness will be overcome, that the spark is already lighted...the ember already glowing, the hope already kindled as hearts are made ready to receive good news. The bud of the rose is ready to burst into flower.

As Mary sings a song, in the Gospel of Luke, we see that she understood that God's presence is seeping into the world through an ordinary event; the common place moment made extraordinary when the ordinary becomes precious and the common place becomes a sign or hope for all time. Our fears and our doubts will be turned upside down because God is reaching into our world through you and though me – through the stranger and the neighbor.

"Behold, the dry ground will blossom and yield fruit and pools of cool water...behold a young woman will bear a son and the world will come to remember through this very ordinary girl just how much God loves us."  

Or, as the great preacher, Dr. Howard Thurman of Boston University wrote in a meditation on the moods of Christmas:[3]

…what is it? It is the rainbow arched over the roof of the sky when the clouds are heavy with foreboding. It is the cry of life in the newborn babe when, forced from its mother's nest, it claims its right to live...it is the promise of tomorrow at the close of every day, the movement of life in defiance of death, and the assurance that love is sturdier than hate, that right is more confident than wrong, that good is more permanent than evil." 

 It is a story worth telling and a song worth singing...it is the promise of the certainty of hope...even in this season of uncertainty.  Amen.