Advent: How Can This Be?
Tim Okamura, Courage 3.0.
“And Mary said to the angel, ‘How Can this be, since I am a virgin?’'' And the angel answered her…‘Nothing will be impossible with God.’”
-Luke 1:34, 37
by Dr. Gregory Thompson
It is one of the central claims of the Christian scripture, the central humiliations of the Christian gospel, and the central consolations of the Christian faith: That God brings something out of nothing. And not just something, but everything. And not just everything, but the thing—the making new of all things in Jesus Christ.
Remember. Our story begins with the nothing that—by God’s love and through God’s power—became the manifold glories of the universe. But this was, so to speak, just the beginning. The people of Israel first took shape in the barren and aged womb of Sarah, bringing forth not only a child from her body, but laughter from her heart. The era of Moses began in the murder of children, and yet flowered into a nation. The kingdom of David began with a young shepherd in a Bethlehem field, and yet grew into a light for the nations. We are, the Bible says, a people whose nothing is transformed into everything.
The clearest expression of this is, of course, the story of Mary. Like Sarah before her she bears a lifeless womb. Like Moses before her, she witnesses the murder of children. Like David, she finds herself on the forsaken outskirts of Bethlehem. In Mary, all of the ancient stories of nothingness converge.
And yet, like each of them she finds not only that God is present in the nothingness, but that He is at work there, bringing His very life into being in its midst. In God, her spirit-hovered darkness becomes light. In God, her silent wonder becomes song. In God her new shepherd friends become attendants of the King. Mary, in all of her ordinary and emptiness, stands as an eternal and shining witness to the glorious truth that our God brings something, again, everything, out of nothing.
Which is good news for me, for you, for all of us. Especially at this time of year, and at this time of this year, when we all feel like we have been reduced to nothing. In a time like this, a time when we have nothing for God, nothing for our families, nothing for our co-workers, and nothing for ourselves, it is tempting to quietly give up on this season, to simply get through it, and to hope that next year can be better. As strong (and understandable) as that impulse is, however, I want to urge you to see this nothingness not as the enemy to a fruitful Advent, but rather as its precondition. To see that here, HERE, in this emptiness is where God is present. And not only present but knitting together His own glory within us. This is the story of the Bible. This is the story of Mary. This is the story of your life. And it is true. Alleluia.