"O you, beneath life's crushing load" -- Luke 1:26-38, 46-55 (2nd Sunday in Advent)

Dec 8, 202410 min read

Updated: Dec 22, 2024

Artwork: Mary’s Golden Annunciation, by Carmelle Beaugelin

(used with licensed permission via A Sanctified Art).

To listen to the sermon, you can click here.

Here we are in the second week of Advent, and we come to our second angel encounter in the Gospel of Luke.[1] Our Advent theme comes from the line: “O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing.” And we’re trying to do just that. We are listening in the Gospel of Luke (1) to the messages that the angels bring to humankind, and (2) to the response that those hearing the messages say or sing.

Now, a couple of reminders, as we turn to this second encounter: We are still in the world of the Gospel of Luke. It is a world of layered power-over – that’s particularly important to remember this week. Right at the start of the Gospel, the writer sets the gospel in the time of Emperor Caeser Augustus and the time of King Herod the Great, and the gospel begins in the Temple. There’s the power of empire; the power of a local puppet king; the power of religious authorities – each extracting something from the people. And as a result, the people live lives of bare subsistence – hand to mouth – just hoping to find enough food to feed their family day to day to day.

The angels speak their message into that world. And those messages typically follow a pattern: (1) an angel appears; (2) the people are afraid (and the angel says, “Do not be afraid”); (3) the angel announces what God is doing in the world; (4) there is a response of resistance; and (5) the angel offers a sign.

Last week, the angel Gabriel came to Zechariah. The angel announced that Zechariah and Elizabeth – both well along in years – would have a child. Zechariah asks, “How can this be, for we are old?” And the angel gave Zechariah the gift of a Holy Hush – nine months of quiet to mull the angel’s message.[2]

And right after that – right after Zechariah goes quiet, and Elizabeth conceives – in this morning’s scripture, the angel Gabriel comes next to Mary. Mary is in her hometown of Nazareth – a young girl, engaged, but not yet married, to a man named Joseph.

· And (1) an angel appears, and says “Greetings! You who are highly favored. God is with you.” (Now, that word greetings, could also be translated “Rejoice!” )[3]

· (2) The angel says, “Do not be afraid.” While Zechariah was terrified; the text says that Mary is “greatly troubled” and wonders at what kind of greeting this might be.

· (3) And the angel brings their message: “Mary, you are going to be with child, and give birth to a son, and name him Jesus. He will be the Son of the Most High. He will sit on the throne of David, forever.”

· To that, (4) Mary responds with a question – “How can this be, for I am yet a virgin?” So the angel says more: The Holy Spirit will come upon you. God will protect you. The child will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God.”

· And (5) The angel gives Mary a sign – “Behold, your cousin Elizabeth – who is old – is pregnant. Nothing is impossible for God.”

We know this story. As we hear it fresh today, let’s notice a couple things.

The writer of the Gospel of Luke gives us these two stories back to back – Gabriel comes to Zechariah, Gabriel comes to Mary. Gabriel brings big, good news from God to both of them. Both respond with a question. Zechariah gets nine months of silence. But not Mary. What’s up with that?

Now think back, if we are thinking of Zechariah’s silence as punishment for disbelief, we could say that Mary’s reaction wasn’t quite to the level of Zechariah’s. And a good number of scholars say that. But I read a couple feminist scholars who suggest that, in their world of patriarchy, maybe Zechariah’s male voice is hushed so that Mary’s female voice can be heard.[4]

I might put it like this. Remember last week – we’re thinking of Zechariah’s silence as a gift. It’s a gift to him. It’s also a gift to those whose voices have been too-long silenced – or ignored. Zechariah the priest’s voice becomes quiet, and the voice of this young woman emerges. In their world of layered power over, the voice that announces what God is doing in the world comes from not from the pinnacle of power, but from the depths. This good news comes from one who stands among those who feel most intensely the brunt of all those layers of power-over. From among those “beneath life’s crushing load,” Mary’s voice – to use her word – is magnified.

Notice all the remarkable things that are happening here. History has been a bit obsessed with the part of this story that announces a birth to a young woman yet a virgin.[5] There’s that. There’s the angel message, always remarkable.

But what may be most worth noting here – is that Mary in her youth and with her relatively little power – Mary sees. Mary is able to understand – from the angel’s relatively few words – the magnitude of what God has said that God is doing here. Mary gets it – not just a little bit – she sees it whole – Mary grasps the world-churning good news the angel brings. Mary sees her world in all its brutal nuance – the systems of layered power-over – the pain and suffering of those held low. The angel speaks – and Mary sees that God is tearing those structures down – and raising up something new. She sees the liberating power of God on the march – poised to turn the world rightside up. What may be most remarkable here is Mary’s clear prophetic vision.

She sings it out in what we’ve come to call the Magnificat: My soul – my whole being – magnifies God. Mary sees God’s saving faithfulness down through the generations – God’s mighty hand acting on behalf of the vulnerable – and she sees that coming to life in the present moment. Mary says, in effect, “what is happening here to me is a sign of how God works in history.”[6] Mary names the powers she sees grinding away in her world every day. She names the power-over of colonial, imperial, military, political domination. God is bringing down the rulers from their thrones, and lifting up those who have been held low. Mary names the power-over of economic exploitation. God is filling the hungry with good things, and sending the rich away empty.

Mary names the powers and magnifies the angel’s message to those powers: God is turning the world – and those powers – rightside up.

Walter Wink calls these powers “the powers that be” – what Scripture sometimes calls “the powers and principalities.”[7] Part of the reality that Mary sees and names here is that we live and move and have our being in a world of structures and systems of power. Political systems, economic systems, religious systems. We are, at the same time subject to those systems – they act on us. And we are part of those systems – they act through us – they are embodied in us. Those systems are complex and interconnected, and to the extent that they are centered on values of power-over, scarcity, and violence, they do great harm.

In his book “The Powers That Be,” Walter Wink encourages us to consider the spirituality of those systems – how they are at work for good or for ill, and how they might be redeemed.[8] Redemption of those systems – systems made up of us – involves (1) being liberated from oppression – to the extent we are harmed, and at the same time (2) ending and being forgiven for our complicity in those systems – to the extent we benefit from those systems, and then (3) engaging in the transformation of those systems – of the world in which we live.[9]

This is what Mary is naming in her world.

We don’t need to think hard to name the systems of our day that work to harm so many. We speak regularly here about American systemic racism – systems designed from the birth of this nation to protect White economic interests by wreaking havoc on Black lives. We try to do our work. We know and name how power-over is at work in systems that privilege some and harm others on the basis of gender, and national origin, and who we love. We know and see the economic systems that result in poverty, hunger, gross disparities of wealth, that perpetuate economic and ecological exploitation.

We can name those systems in our world, and we can see that those systems are not moving toward liberation. Those systems are retrenching – all around the world – as the extreme right in so many nations seeks to consolidate authoritarian power. Just this week, in South Korea, the elected President tried to impose martial law.[10] In France, the Far Right brought down a prime minister in an attempt to force the elected President to resign.[11] In our own country, we watch the new administration emerging in nominees for office who promise a more violent foreign and defense policy, the dismantling of protections for the vulnerable, and revenge on any who have opposed them in the past.[12]

So when we hear a message from Scripture that announces turning the world rightside up – deconstructing power-over and lifting up those held low – it feels as momentous and counter-cultural today as it did when it was first sung by Mary. The powers are not going to let that happen without a fight.

Mary sees and names the systems of power over, and announces their upheaval. Hers is remarkable, prophetic insight.

And just as remarkably: Mary sees the systems, and she sees herself in those systems, and Mary says, “Yes.” Did you notice that? We have those 5 elements in an angel story – an angel appears; people are afraid; the angel brings a message; people question or resist; and the angel offers a sign. Five elements in these stories.

Mary adds a sixth. Mary says yes.

And she doesn’t do so lightly. Mary knows what it will mean for a young unmarried girl to show up in the world pregnant. She lives in a patriarchal world, in an honor/shame culture, a world where women have very little power. She will be more vulnerable than she has ever been.

And, we should also note, Mary is not at the very bottom rung of power; she names that too. As one writer says, Mary is poor, but not dirt poor.[13] Her family has a home; they have means to travel to Bethlehem. And so it is striking when she says “yes” and says, “I am the servant of the Lord.” Because the Greek word there is actually “Slave.” (For all manner of reasons, translators clean it up and go with the milder “servant.”) She says, “I am the slave of the Lord.” Mary is not an actual slave – but with that one word she chooses to identify with those who are.[14] To the extent that she is vulnerable in these systems, Mary chooses the courage to be more vulnerable – to stand with those most in need. To the extent that she has any shred of power, she chooses to let it go.

Mary says “yes.” She is all in. Let’s turn this world rightside up, including me. And that’s really the whole point. I’ve said a lot of words in this sermon, but this is the point:

The angel tells us that God is on the way. In Jesus Christ, God is turning the world and its systems and structures rightside up.

We live and breathe and move within these systems of power-over; they are embodied in all of us together; and all of that is about to be turned rightside up. All of that.

The necessary next question that comes to Mary and to us, is this:

Are you willing to be turned rightside up? Are you willing to risk being more vulnerable and to risk your privilege to join God in setting the world right? When the powers come crashing down, and those too-long held down are set free – are you willing to be there in the midst?

The sermon title comes from another line in It Came Upon the Midnight Clear – “O you, beneath life’s crushing load.” The song remembers the angel’s song at the birth of Christ – and then names the ache that still pulses throughout the world – the war, the suffering, the strife. This morning’s angel song – and Mary’s – place God, in Jesus Christ, right there in the midst – standing alongside those beneath life’s crushing load – standing with those feeling the brunt of power-over – standing with those “whose backs are up against the wall.”[15]

Are we willing to stand there, too? In the midst of the suffering and strife.

Yes, yes, “rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing.”

And. Listen to what they have to say.

God is sovereign over every power – right here, right now.

And God is on the way.

Be ready.

Be ready...to rise up.

[1] For background on this text and the Gospel of Luke, see R. Alan Culpepper, “The Gospel of Luke,” New Interpreters’ Bible Commentary, vol. ix (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995); Justo L. González, Luke (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010); Joel B. Green, The Theology of the Gospel of Luke (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Barbara E. Reid, OP, and Shelly Matthews, Wisdom Commentary – Luke 1-9 (Amy-Jill Levine, ed.) (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2021 (Barbara E. Reid, OP, Gen. Ed.)); Sharon Ringe, Luke (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995); Courtney V. Buggs, Commentary on Working Preacher at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-of-advent-2/commentary-on-luke-126-38-5 ; Niveen, Sarass, Commentary on Working Preacher at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-of-advent-3/commentary-on-luke-139-45-46-55-4