Luke 1:26-38

Christmas began when Mary said..."Yes!"

Now, she could've said, "No!" According to Michael Farris - one of my favorite commentators on Biblical texts - it probably would have made more sense for her to say "no". "Ah, God, thanks for askin', but I don't think so. This is all too much, too soon, too weird. And besides, there must be someone else better suited for this kind of thing."

Think about it for a moment. See it from her point of view. Fourteen - fifteen years old. A young girl whose boyfriend would not want anything to do with her when he found out she was pregnant. A daughter of parents who would in shame surely send her away to the country to live with relatives - which is, of course, exactly what they did. A child of a religious law which called for stoning to death fornicators and adulterers alike - either category for which she would surely qualify. Wouldn't it make better sense for Mary to simply take up Nancy Reagan's drug-prevention slogan and just say "no"?

Not only that, but one thing you never hear about Mary is what her name means. Mary, of course is Miriam in Hebrew. And it means "one who is obstinate". Literally, her name means rebellion. Do you know some of those kinds of Mary's? Rebellious ones? I do, and they're not always named "Mary." And usually, they don't readily say "yes" to anyone in authority.

She could've said "No!" It made sense to say "No!"

But she didn't.

Mary said, "Yes!" and Christmas began!

Martin Luther saw three miracles in Christ's nativity: God became human; a virgin conceived; and...Mary believed. And in Martin Luther's mind, the greatest miracle of the three was the last.

Mary said, "Yes!"

I wonder if you can appreciate this morning how powerful that word can be in your life with God. Saying "Yes!" to God is the genesis of every miracle, the beginning of every ministry, the start of every journey toward healing - both for yourself and others.

So I want to invite you today to say "Yes!"

Say "Yes!", first of all, to the magnificent universality of God's love.

I must confess to you today that, when I first came to faith, I became acutely aware of God's wonderful love for me. It was sort of like when Sandy and I first met. She was a cheerleader and I was a basketball player. One of our mutual friends arranged a party, and it was there that our hearts first connected. We spotted each other across a crowded room, and suddenly old blue eyes himself - Frank Sinatra - mysteriously appeared in the room and started singing:

It was incredible! When I went home that night, my parents were befuddled by two things. One was the residue of an angora sweater plastered all over the front of my shirt, and the other was that I could no longer communicate with people except by humming something that sounded like, "Dooby dooby doo..."

Oh, my parents knew something was up, but it was a few days before they discovered it was love. And I walked around in a kind of hormone-induced catatonic daze. It was like all reality had been condensed and boiled down into that one experience of me and my beloved. And nothing else mattered.

Well, we're over that now.

But then it happened again! The minute Christ's love broke into my life. And my own personal experience of the love of God became so powerful that it didn't really matter what was going on all around me anymore.

But it should have. You see, salvation is not personal. Salvation is not a matter of me and God - me and my beloved. Salvation is a relationship between me, God, and you! Jesus did not come to save just me. Jesus did not come to save just you. Jesus came to save the world.

A writer by the name of William O'Brien rightly points out that the largest single barrier to our understanding of God, the Bible and our very faith is our culture's devotion to a kind of ultra-individualism. Now, healthy individualism grows out of the biblical teaching that each person is valuable, created in the divine image of God. In fact, this is the very source of human rights and personal freedom. But unhealthy individualism fuels the fires of consumerism and deteriorates one's sense of community. What matters most is whether I'm saved...not whether the hungry are fed. What's most important is that things are right between me and God...not whether the society in which I live oppresses the poor. What counts most is that, if I were to die tonight, I know I'd go to heaven...not how I might bring a touch of heaven into the life of my neighbor who's battling alcoholism, or to the thousands of Iraqi children who are dying because of sanctions we support.

Oh, its easy to live an isolated and insulated life of me and Jesus.

But that's not an option God offers. That's not Christian faith. Why, when the angel Gabriel invites Mary into this amazing Advent experience, he tells her up front that what will be born in her will mean life for others.

And Mary says, "Yes!" Mary says "Yes!" to yielding her life to God's incredible love for Jews and Gentiles, for believers and unbelievers, for successful people and failures, for law-abiding citizens and convicted felons, for liberals and conservatives, for those who are pro-life as well as those who are pro-choice, for Christians and Muslims, for Tennessee Volunteers and Florida Gators.

There isn't anyone who God doesn't love!

And what the world needs more than anything else are people who say "Yes!" to this unlimited love for every human being! Like Mary did. And Christmas came.

I wonder if you'll say "Yes!" this morning to the new divine reality that what God is growing in you means new life for others? And I challenge you to become a vessel of that universal love to every person on this planet.

But not only must we say "Yes!" to the grand universality of God's love, we must also - like Mary - say "Yes!" to God's relentless love!

Do you understand the incredible challenge that God and Mary faced together? Why, the whole scheme of Christmas teetered on the precipice of whether they could get Joseph to change!

You see, she was pregnant, and he wanted nothing to do with her anymore. In his mind, she was a.... Well, you know what they call people who sleep around. You know what they call people who cheat on and betray the people who love them. Joseph was wounded as deeply as a man can be wounded. So the Scripture tells us that he resolved to quietly divorce Mary from their engagement vows. But I wonder if the "quietly" was really for her, or for him. How humiliating it must have been for Joseph!!

Some of us know what its like to be betrayed by another person. The injury is usually so deep, the indignity so profound, the anger so hotly justified that we want nothing to do with that person ever again! So there goes Joseph, putting on his helmet, getting on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, and thundering away - never to return again.

And yet, without Joseph, Christmas cannot come. Without a husband, Mary will be put to death - child growing within her and all.

Everything hangs on God's being able to change Joseph, and getting him to turn around!

I love this part of the Christmas story because it illustrates that God has resources for changing people that are far greater than our capabilities for changing them. God's love for people is relentless and never rests! Why, Matthew tells us that - even though there was nothing Mary could do or say to change things - God had not given up on Joseph! Even as he slept at night, God was working on him. God used Joseph's troubled psyche. God used Joseph's troubled dreams. And God even used an angel to try to turn Joseph around.

And God's relentless love-assault eventually won! Finally, Joseph saw Mary not as a disgrace, but as a blessing! And Joseph came home, and made Mary his wife, and they got on that motorcycle together and roared off to Bethlehem. And Christmas came.

To say "Yes!" to God is to say "yes" to the possibility of change in every person - your spouse, your child, your parent, your neighbor, the stranger, your enemy - and even yourself! God's love is relentless and is able to change people who seem on the surface to be unchangeable!! To say "Yes!" is to practice this love in your own life every day, and to trust God in life and even beyond life to persuade change in the lives of seemingly unchangeable persons!!

Perhaps you've heard of Bryan Stevenson. He's a young Christian man who grew up in Delaware, went to college in Pennsylvania, and then went to Harvard Law School. Despite the fact that Bryan could have brought his abilities to just about any law firm in the country, and been richly rewarded for it, when he graduated from Harvard in 1985 Bryan chose instead to represent poor death row inmates in Alabama. He rents an apartment there and lives on an annual salary of $25,000. And why does he do it? "I believe God has placed me here to be a witness for hope...," he says.

Then Bryan Stevenson continues: "When you see redemption in a place where people only want revenge, (when you see) healing where people only want hate, (when you see) mercy and forgiveness where people only want retribution and destruction, you encounter God's love in a way that's very energizing and heartening." And then Stevenson adds, "No one is beyond hope, no one is beyond redemption."

You see, Bryan Stevenson is experiencing first-hand that God's relentless love is at work all around us in the lives of even those we have given up on, who seem to be beyond the possibility of change! God doesn't give up on anyone!

Will you say, "Yes!" to God's relentless love?

In just a few days now, we'll gather together on Christmas Eve. We'll sing carols. Light candles. Celebrate again the birth of our Savior.

But as you come to Christmas this year, remember how Christmas came to us.

In a world full of people who regularly say "No!" to God's universal and relentless love, someone said, "Yes!"

And now the question becomes, "Will YOU say "Yes!" to God?"