Written by L. Gail Irwin, Performed by Vicki Joan Keck
Luke 1:26-38
26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”[b] 29 But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30 The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 34 Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”[c] 35 The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born[d] will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36 And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38 Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
(A bible sits on the Communion table; Gabriel enters in a disheveled angel costume)
Hello! (looking at congregation) I know, I know! You’re all sitting there thinking I’m some kind of maniac dressed in an angel costume. Some pathetic holdover from Halloween. For God’s sake, no one believes anything anymore, even when they see it with their own eyes!
Well, the fact is, I am an angel. And not just any angel, either. I’m Gabe, or Gabby, aka the archangel Gabriel. You know, the one you read about in the good book (points to bible); Maybe you’ve seen me in all those paintings in the museums? Well…they didn’t get the resemblance exactly right, but you know how those artists are; they always paint things the way they wish they looked.
Anyway, I can prove I really am the Angel Gabriel. I’m gonna tell you the story of my most important assignment; the one that made me famous.
How I got that assignment I’ll never know. I never have figured out how jobs are given out. We’ll be sitting around playing Hearts or something and the Big Cheese just plucks one of us out of the blue and–poof!—we’re on the road.
So anyway, God tells me to go to Nazareth, to somebody called Mary, to deliver a message. So far, it all sounded pretty routine. But then I got the message! And I guess you know this was no ordinary message! It was sort of a prophecy mixed with a question. God even said to me, “Gabriel, you ask Mary if she’s willing to do this. If she says no, come on back and we’ll find somebody else.”
Say no to God? Who would dare to do that? (shrugs and mutters) I know… it happens sometimes. And it never ends pretty – remember Jonah??
But maybe this time was different. The Big Cheese seemed so gentle, so schmaltzy about the whole thing! Maybe on account of it being God’s own child that was gonna get born. Anyway, all I could think was this Mary character must be pretty special if she’s allowed to say no to God if she feels like it!
So, I went. And the first thing that surprised me when I got to Nazareth was the part of town she was from. Any woman important enough to be the mother of Jesus oughtta live in a respectable part of town, don’t you think? But my directions led me to kind of a seedy neighborhood where the houses weren’t much more than shacks.
So I get to her house and I peek in the window to see if I can catch a glimpse of her. But inside, all I can see is this girl spinning wool all by herself. No woman in sight. At first I thought I had the wrong address, but no, this was the place. And then I realized that little wisp of a thing in the kitchen was the Mary God sent me to visit!
I stared at her for a minute. She was a tiny creature. Fourteen, maybe? Not at all cut from the same cloth as the great women of history: Sarah, Deborah, Esther & Ruth. This one looked so ordinary. Homely even Sometimes I wonder if the Big Cheese hasn’t gone a little batty in the head!
Well, anyway, I had a job to do. I try not to ask too many questions. So, I just barged into the house like I usually do. She was startled, of course, but she didn’t run away. Just stood there almost frozen and asked “who are you?”. That showed she had a little chutzpah! I told her I was the angel Gabriel, and not to be afraid. Ha! What a joke! I mean, we’re supposed to say that whenever we deliver a message, but honestly, wouldn’t you be afraid if some glowing creature stormed into your house unannounced? That’s one of the difficult things about being an angel: people are always afraid of us!
So anyway, the girl settled down a little and I started giving her the message from God about how she had been chosen to bear a child who would become a king. And then I told her how her baby king would inherit the throne of David and how his rule would never end and then…I looked at her and she’s just staring off into space like she wasn’t even listening. She had this strange look on her face, kind of dazed and confused. Gosh, she was just a kid, really. So I go, “Mary, what’s wrong?” And she goes, “What do you mean I’ll bear a child? I’m not even married?”
Woah. For a second there, I wanted to crack up! I mean, even angels know you can get pregnant without being married! And then I felt kinda bad. I had gotten way ahead of this poor kid! Here I was mouthing off about the future of Israel, and she was just worrying about the future of her body!
Looking at her there, so wide-eyed, I thought for sure that God has made a mistake this time. This Mary was so simple, so naïve, so small! She looked like a good wind could blow her away! She just didn’t have the makings of a heroine. What would happen to a girl like that if she went out to the marketplace 7 or 8 months pregnant? Who would defend her from the crowd? From getting stoned? What would happen to Joseph, her fiancé? Or her parents?
I gotta tell you, one problem with my job is that we usually don’t get answers to most of our questions. We angels know a little more about the Big Cheese’s plans than you do, but that’s not saying much! Usually, we just have to trust God has a plan.
Anyway, this Mary just seemed wrong for the job. For a minute, I was thinking I should retract my message to her. “Oh, never mind,” I would say. Maybe I would go visit one of the older matrons of Nazareth, someone who’s been around the block, who’s respected in the city. If someone older, experienced, and virtuous said she was carrying the Messiah, people might believe her.
Who was gonna believe this little slip of a thing?
Well, of course I couldn’t take back the request. That’s against the rules. So, I just stood there dumbly, trying to figure out what to say to explain to her how God was gonna make her pregnant. I mean, questions like that were not in the instruction manual!
So, I decided to wing it (no pun intended). I just said, “Well, Mary…the Holy Spirit is gonna come over you…like a shadow, sort of…and…help you conceive the Child. Yeah! That’s it!” I admit it didn’t sound too good, but it was the best I could do in a pinch.
She gave me a big up and down look then. I’m surprised she didn’t kick me out right then and there, thinking I was some kind of a wierdo!
But then, I remembered another part of the message: about her cousin Elizabeth! So I told her how Elizabeth was already 6 months pregnant, even though everyone thought she was too old to have babies. That baby would be special too! Mary looked at me closely then. I think knowing about her cousin gave me a little credibility.
So then I said to her, more gently, “Mary, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. But if you agree, it can be done. I know it doesn’t seem possible, But with God, everything is possible.”
She stood looking down for a while. But I noticed her face slowly changed. I could tell she was thinking about it. The little tense places around her eyes started to soften, and then her shoulders relaxed a little, and finally she broke a slight smile. Kinda like that Mona Lisa painting!
What happened when she smiled like that? I saw something in her I hadn’t seen before; some kind of tough hope. I could see she was just young enough, naïve enough to believe in God’s impossible. And old enough to believe a little in herself.
Then I knew it: it was for that smile, that impossible hopefulness, that God chose Mary. God chose exactly the right person after all. And I worried for a second that she might say no. After a moment of pondering, she looked up at me with an unexpected confidence in her face, and said, “Well, I’m God’s servant. I guess I’ll do it.” Just like that. Well, my heart skipped a beat! Mission accomplished! I wanted to hug her! I wanted to tell her she’d make a great Mother of God! And how brave she was. But I see now it wasn’t bravery. It was something else; something that had existed between her and God long before I ever came to her house. It was trust. God didn’t demand anything from her. God asked her and trusted her to say yes. And she trusted God to make it work out.
Asking is different than telling. God asked, and she got to decide. To say yes to the unknown. So, then it was something she and God got to do together.
And I guess you could say the rest is Herstory! (laughs)
(pauses and sighs) Unfortunately, I don’t see a lot of people like Mary in my line of work these days. Being an angel is no picnic! No one listens to us these days. No one trusts anything we say. The world has gotten so cluttered and skeptical. I could barge right into your house and you’d be too busy watching “Wheel of Fortune” to even notice me.
Sometimes, I’ll speak right into someone’s ear and they just swat at me like I was some kind of mosquito! And even when you do listen to our voices, and repeat things we say, no one trusts the message anymore.
But let me just add while I have the floor here: if you don’t trust that still, small voice in your ear, head or heart sometimes; or trust the words in the good book (points to bible); if you don’t trust a natural disaster, or the miracles of science, or the word of your neighbor because they’re a different color or a different political party, who or what are you going to trust? You’re all walking around down here doubting everyone and everything you see and hear, and secretly scared out of your wits that no one is worthy of your trust. Sometimes I think you doubt everything because if you did believe, you might be asked to do something scary, like Mary did.
I was wrong about my first impression of her. And more importantly, I was wrong about the criteria God uses to choose people. God didn’t choose Mary because she was brave or smart or experienced or because people would believe her. It was because she made just enough space in her life so that, when I walked in, she had room for me. And that, when Jesus needed a place to be born, loved and protected, she trusted that she would have room for him. I wish everyone trusted us angels the way Mary trusted me that day.
Well, I better go. The Big Cheese has given me another assignment. This one in some God-forsaken place in the frozen north…
(pulls out a slip of paper and reads) it says “Uptown. Springhouse something or other. Hmm…I haven’t been there lately. Better be on my way!
(Gabriel exits)
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