Many of you have seen the news in recent weeks of a startling archeological find. It is an ossuary, and those of you who attended last year's Lenten dinners know from our speaker, Dr. Jonathan Reed, that an ossuary is a stone box that contains the bones of the deceased, as was the burial practice in ancient Palestine.

Now, this most recently discovered ossuary has provoked quite a controversy. It even made the cover of Time magazine. Why? Because inscribed on the side are the words: "James, brother of Jesus, son of Joseph." If this bone box proves out to be truly authentic, it will be the oldest, actual tangible physical evidence that exists pointing to Jesus. The debate is raging. Is the box for real? Is the inscription as old as the box? Why has this just now been found?

While scholars debate the physical evidence, I have been pondering the wording of that inscription on the Third Sunday of the Advent season, as we hear Luke's account of the Annunciation from the angel, Gabriel, to Mary. The inscription on this ossuary, authentic or not, represents the worldview of that most patriarchal era. "James, brother of Jesus, son of Joseph." Not a woman in the picture. And I submit to you one thing that we can say for sure about all this: Jesus had a mother. And her name was Mary. Surely, a headstone made in contemporary times for Jesus' brother, James, would more likely read: "James, brother of Jesus, beloved son of Joseph and Mary."

Now, the James Ossuary, as it's called, is not the only part of this family puzzle to have made a magazine cover. Life magazine, as recently as December 1996, featured as its cover story "The Mystery of Mary." And the cover headline proclaimed: "Two thousand years after the Nativity, the mother of Jesus is more beloved, more powerful, more controversial than ever."

Mary controversial, too? Virgin Mary, meek and mild? It's not her existence that's controversial, but the circumstances of this holy birth. And not any less so in 2002. United Methodist bishops, no less, are debating one another in the pages of our denominational newspaper about that perennial controversy surrounding Mary herself. "The Virgin Birth," the headline begins, "Two Bishops Speak." And then Bishop C. Joseph Sprague of the Chicago area and Bishop Timothy W. Whitaker of the Florida area go at it.

To take on that debate today is more than I could possibly manage in one sermon, unless I were to preach in the style of our forefather, John Wesley, and hold forth for several hours. So, let me just say for our purposes this morning that ,in my view, we Methodists are perfectly free to understand the birth of Jesus however we understand it, be that a literal interpretation of the story, a poetic interpretation, a symbolic interpretation, a mythic interpretation. Those details matter not.

The only thing crucially important to our faith in all this is that we come to grasp the "theological meaning" of the virgin birth, as theologian Rosemary Ruether puts it. The theological meaning of the virgin birth is the truth that opens us to living by faith, the truth that with God nothing is impossible.

You know the Gospel story. The angel Gabriel is sent by God to the Galilean village of Nazareth. He visits the young Mary and calls her "blessed," for the Lord is with her and she has found favor with God. He tells her about the baby who will be born to her, though she is still a virgin. And to her cousin, Elizabeth, long past child-bearing years, a baby will be born as well. And to explain all this crazy news, the angel simply declares: "Nothing will be impossible with God."

When we hear Luke's story, we're meant to think back to old Abraham and Sarah, our ancient ancestors in the faith. Remember how, when God told old Sarah that she would bear a son, she laughed and God said, "Is anything too wonderful for me?"

It's as if God delights in confronting us, his creatures, with the limitations of our minds. It's as if God enjoys reminding us in astonishing ways that this world is still God's, not ours. It's as if God needs to act sometimes in incomprehensible ways to wake us up and lift us out of our sadness and hopelessness and despair, and reassert the holy power to make all things new.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. And his name shall be called Wonderful God, Mighty Counselor, Prince of Peace. And Mary is his mother.

Mary, as one writer has put it, was "ordinarily sacred." It was in her unremarkable, day-to-day life that she "found favor with God." It was through the courage of her "Yes" to the angel's words that the power of the Holy One found entry into this life.

In Luke's Gospel, Mary is presented as a young woman, residing in an unremarkable village far removed from the centers of Jewish and Roman power. Her own family origin is not known. Her people are brutally enslaved and very poor. Rowan Williams, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, has called her a "person of intrinsic insignificance in her context."

It is through this Mary that the gospel shows us how God enters into this life in a way to set us free. This is how God chooses to pitch his tent among us and dwell with us. This is how God takes on our flesh and life. This is how the divine becomes human. And how more truly human could the Messiah possibly be, than to be born of such a mother? How more connected to the pain and sorrow and toil of this life? How more empathetic to the vulnerability and fear of those who live on the margins of wealth, power and fame? This is, indeed, the Savior of the world.

And at the very same time, Luke's story teaches us that through Mary, this same Jesus is truly divine. His conception and birth cannot easily be explained by the limited categories of the human mind. This is a story full of mystery and holy energy that ought never be explained away. Mary herself shows us the way to understanding such a great thing. In hearing the news from angel Gabriel that she has found favor with God and will bear a holy son who will be called Jesus, the Son of the Most High, the Son of God, to reign over the house Jacob forever, Mary responds first in perplexity, with fear, with incredulity. "How can this be?" she asks.

Astonishingly, even in the very midst of her total surprise, she can comprehend the truth of the angel's words: "With God, nothing is impossible." Hearing the angel, Mary has the faith and the courage to be able to respond, "I am the Lord's servant. May it be as you have said."

In that moment, Mary becomes not only the mother of Jesus, but the mother of the Messiah, "the mother of God," as the church has called her since the Council of Ephesus in the year 431. She is the theotokos, as Orthodox Christians call her, theotokos, the God-bearer. This earthly body and soul become God's sanctuary. The human becomes divine. In Mary, the divine becomes human and the human becomes divine. In her, we see the first glimpses of just how the Good News of Jesus Christ is so very good.

Another Mary of the modern age exhibited the faith and courage of this young Mary. Mary McLeod Bethune, born to former slaves a decade after the Civil War, devoted her live to the education of young black Americans. A teacher, she opened the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute for Negro Girls in 1904. Tuition was fifty cents a week, but she never turned away a child too poor to pay.

She went on to open a high school and a hospital for blacks, and later served a distinguished career and worked in the administrations of presidents Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt and Truman, as well as the NAACP and many other civic organizations. Along the way, Mary McLeod Bethune oversaw her school's growth and eventual merger with the Cookman Institute to form Bethune-Cookman College, today one of our thirteen historically black United Methodist colleges. A life-long Methodist, she once said, "Without faith, nothing is possible. With faith, nothing is impossible."

Mary McLeod Bethune lived her life after the example of Mary of Nazareth. Mary, who shows us how to trust in God's grace and promise of salvation. Mary, who shows us how to open our hearts to big dreams, dreams of a creation made whole and new. Mary, who shows us how to count on God to do what God has promised. Mary, who shows us how to live in faith and hope. Mary, who shows us how to be God-bearers right in the very midst of our own ordinarily sacred lives.

Most of us live out our lives far from the public stage, far from fame and fortune. We will never be charged with huge decisions affecting national security or war and peace. Like the young Mary, we will live out our lives in a relatively anonymous way. Lives full of small moments and ordinary happenings. Lives punctuated by births and deaths, by joy and sorrow. Lives lived amidst family and friends, work and leisure, reality and dreams. Lives of many private "yeses and noes" which reveal the true measure of our character.

Ordinary lives. Ordinarily sacred lives. Lives hallowed by the presence of the holy in every moment and every relationship. Lives empowered by strength to endure whatever may come. Lives pregnant with possibility and charged with purpose. For, in Mary, we see that nothing is impossible to God. With her, we learn to embrace that which seems impossible and trust that God is working for the redemption of the world. With Mary, we find the conviction that the desire to believe and to be true to all that is best in ourselves and in our world will, indeed, bring forth new and deeper life.

This is the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, son of God, son of Mary. Rejoice, servants of God. A new world is waiting to be born. Rejoice! With God, nothing is impossible.

NOTES:

1. Beverly Roberts Gaventa and Cynthia L. Rigby, eds. Blessed One: Protestant Perspectives on Mary. Westminster John Knox Press. 2002.
2. "Ordinarily Sacred." Homiletics. December 19,1993.
3. Rosemary Radford Ruether. Mary: The Feminine Face of the Church. The Westminster Press. 1977.
4. Rowan Williams. Ponder These Things: Praying with the Icons of the Virgin. The Canterbury Press. 2002.

© Patricia E. Farris, 2002. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution. All other rights reserved.