COME TO THE MANGER: See the Impossible by Cheri Holdridge (with the an assist by Kurt Young)

This story of the angel coming to Mary is so familiar. We hear it every year. And yet, when we read it, and really let the story sink it, it is so outrageous, isn’t it?  

Imagine this.  Mary is a young girl, probably only 12 or 13 years old, is engaged to be married. She is a virgin. And angel comes and tells her “you are going to have a baby, without ever being with a man. The father is going to be the Holy Spirit.  Your baby is going to be the Son of God. Haven’t you heard that your cousin Mary who is way too old to have a baby is now six months pregnant? If God can do that, then God can do this with you. 

Then the key words -  Nothing is impossible with God. God needs you to serve all of humanity in this way. How about it?”  Outrageous, right?  Scandalous?  But the most amazing part of the story comes next. 

Mary says: “Okay. I’ll do it.” She says with the strength and calm of a mature woman: “Let it be with me just as you say.”  She does not have a hissy fit. She does not stomp around and pout like some. She does not say, “I’m sorry dear angel, I think you must have the wrong person.” She does not argue. She does not cry. She does not get depressed, or angry or sad. 

What kind of young woman must of God found in Mary. How hard must God have looked to find her? My friend Mike Slaughter writes about Mary in his book Christmas Is Not Your Birthday. Mike says that Mary “had a proactive faith. A person with a proactive faith doesn’t live in the paralysis of doubt and disillusionment. Instead, a person with proactive faith actively pursues God’s redemptive purposes and presence in the midst of any situation, even when doing so doesn’t make sense.” (p. 30). Do you have a proactive faith?  

She wasn’t afraid. She did not doubt. She put her trust in God. Oh, how I would love to have that much faith.  God asked her to do something that the day before, she never could have dreamed would be possible.  It would have never crossed her mind.  Oh, what a difference a day makes. Then God made the impossible, possible. God wants to do the same thing with each one of us. God wants to make the impossible, possible through each of us.

Last Sunday night, I watched that CNN Heroes program on TV. I love that show. Every year they pick about ten amazing people from around the world who are heroes. They do unbelievable work to help other people. The winner for the night was a woman named Pushpa Basnet in Nepal who has created a home for children whose parents are incarcerated. She discovered that children had to go to jail with their parents.  Until she created the home these children, they had to go to jail with their parents. Her story was such an inspiration. Against impossible odds she has created a loving home for 40 children. I watched as I heard story after story of fantastic people who do impossible things to make the world a better place for other people. God uses them to do impossible things, to spread love and compassion and mercy.

Then I started thinking of people I know who do impossible things in their lives. Do you know people like that? I thought of Debbie. Debbie is my husband Kurt’s cousin. All Debbie wanted since she was a little girl was to get married and have kids, but it was not happening for her. Debbie was 39 years old and still single with no children. She did something very out of character for her. She walked into a clinic and made arrangements to have a child by in vitro fertilization.  This was out of character for her and her family.  

When her son Ben was 5 years old Debbie got asked out on a date by someone at work name Brian. It kind of threw her off kilter because she had kind of settled in to her life as a single mom. But she took a chance and went out on the date. Brian and Debbie got married when  Debbie was 49 years old. 10 months later Brian was diagnosed with cancer. It soon became clear, the cancer was terminal. He died 5 months later. We were all so horrified for Debbie. 

Why would God let this happen? After all those years of being single? To have been blessed to find a father for her son, only to have the father ripped away by cancer. How could this be? A woman with no faith would have found it impossible to live through this experience. But Debbie had a deep faith. She would not become paralyzed by anger and resentment. Do you know what she told me? She said, “I am so glad that Brian and I found one another because I would not have wanted him to go though cancer alone.” 

Of course! The words spoken as someone who loved her husband, and who trusted and God would see her through the impossible. She misses Brian.  But, this past summer Debbie road something called the Pelatonia (pella-tonya), a bike ride to benefit cancer research at the James Cancer Hospital at The Ohio State University. She biked 50 miles and raised $2400. She said she did it to pay it forward for all the people who cared for her and for Brian. 

She continues to do the impossible as she moves forward in life without Brian, giving thanks for the short time she had with him. She believes that God sent Brian to her and to her son Ben as a precious gift. It is hard to live without him, but she does not regret the short marriage she had with him. She did the impossible and lived through his death, and now she is not giving up on life. She is living a full life with a positive attitude, giving thanks to God for the blessings in her life.

What is the impossible challenge that you are facing in your life? It might be something big, like Debbie’s.  I look around and I know many of you are facing a challenge. Or not. Honestly, I feel like I face impossible challenges in the tasks of living every day. How about you? 

I face the impossible task of getting two children to go to school when they don’t want to. I face the impossible task of writing a sermon on weeks when I don’t feel inspired, but I know you will be here waiting for one.  I feel the impossible challenge of Being creative when I am out of juice; or Forgiving when that person has done the same thing to me over and over again; or Speaking my mind and standing up for myself to someone who does not respect me; Or trying to get my side of things across to someone who is so self absorbed it feels like such a waste of time to talk to them;  How about this impossible challenge – trying once again to break on old pattern or habit? Or heal a broken relationship with a family member.

What is your impossible challenge? Because here is the message of this Advent season of waiting for Christmas: God wants to send Jesus to help us face our challenges. God wants us unclench our fists, take a deep breath, to open our hearts and make more room for the power of love to come into our world.  The love of Jesus to fill us up. That is how we will have the strength of character to face those impossible challenges of life. 

Mary was the first one to do it. The angel told her that God wanted her to literally make space in her body to be the mother of God, so that the world could receive the child of God. She could have resisted. She could have tried to run away. She could have refused, and God might have decided to move on to another young woman because God would not have wanted the Mother of God to be someone who was not ready. But Mary trusted God. And because of her faithfulness, we all received the most wonderful gift in the world. 

What gift do you need this year? What is the impossible challenge that you are facing in your life? The challenge you can meet only with God. Maybe it is one of those every day impossible challenges that is wearing you down. 

As the band comes up here to sing a song about Mary, I want to ask you to try to identify for yourself one impossible challenge in your life. You’re not going to have to share it with anyone; this is just for you. Remember, the angel said, “Nothing is impossible for God.” What is your impossible challenge that only God can make possible this Christmas?