What Is our World Without a Savior?
A Sermon by the Reverend Mother Crystal J. Hardin on The Fourth Sunday of Advent (A), December 18, 2022.
Matthew 1:18-25
The poet W.H. Auden once wrote, “Nothing that is possible can save us; We who must die demand a miracle.” Or, in other words, only what is impossible will flip the script and make all things right.
In Advent, we prepare for an impossible intervention.
This may seem a kind of magical speak, a longing for enchantment in a world full of what is expected and ordinary. After all, many of the problems and situations we face in our everyday lives are of the sort that we can fix. Whether we can make it happen, well, that’s a different matter, but we often have a solution for our problems in mind.
Auden’s miracle is not needed for what is ordinary. What he is speaking to are those problems so complicated and deeply rooted that no solution is readily apparent. You know these situations –they’re the ones that keep us up at night [1].
Complexities within our family systems that turn our stomachs to knots. Relationships so fraught and tangled that they feel irreparable despite our desire that they be anything but.
Nothing that is possible can save us
From those plagues which haunt and horrify us: addiction, mental health struggles, despair, gun violence.
Just last week, we marked the tenth anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I remember standing as a parishioner at the back of this nave and listening to Shearon read the names of those lost one by one. Certainly, this will drive change, I thought. (I think we all thought). Who could look away? But then, at some point, we all did. It just keeps happening.
I’m certain we all have opinions about the necessary solutions, and many of us believe this is a problem solvable by human means. And yet, something lies beneath the plague of gun violence. An anger, a despair –a problem so complicated and deeply rooted that no solution is apparent. And without question the loss of life and the grief that forever marks those who survive knows no solution this side of heaven.
We who must die demand a miracle.
Christmas is close. A season of magic that often falls victim to a busy sort of predictability. And yet, the birth of Jesus the Messiah is as far from predictable as one might imagine.
When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:18).
What a statement!
Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel (Matt. 1:23).
A few things are happening here. We are being told the story of a birth. That is believable and quite ordinary. Babies are born all the time. Babies are born all the time even to unexpecting and inexperienced and ill prepared parents. Babies are even born out of wedlock to be sure. Every day and predictably.
But look again. A virgin shall conceive. There is nothing ordinary about that. Nor about what happens next.
Her husband, Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream (Matt. 1:19).
A virgin birth and the appearance of an angel. Impossible.
This morning, we gather around an impossible story. In the words of Fleming Rutledge:
An angel, and a virgin. A heavenly messenger, an obscure young woman, a child who will be the Son of God. A beautiful story, an inspiration for hundreds of Old Master paintings, the centerpiece for a zillion manger scenes; but it could not possibly be true [2].
And thank God for that –because nothing that is possible can save us.
Recently, I found myself in Target surrounded by all the trappings of Christmas (which, to be clear, I love), and I noticed the following quote written in fancy script on a decoration:
“Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.”
Christmas magic. That’s what we all long for. It’s certainly what retailers, advertisers, restaurants, and entertainers sell us at this most wonderful time of the year. A magic wand –waved so that we might forget the realities of the world as it is right now.
This is why I cling to Advent so fiercely –a time of preparation in which we look clearly at the world, the evil and the good, even as we anticipate a yet more glorious day. Advent does not shy away from the realities of this world and wants nothing to do with a “magic wand.” I have been called many things for my devotion to Advent: a scrooge, a member of the Advent or liturgical police, a purveyor of a theology of sorrow (that’s a good one, and not incorrect), and, my personal favorite, a poop in the Christmas punchbowl.
But I believe fiercely in the impossible intervention of a Savior, born of the Spirit one otherwise normal day in Bethlehem, who is come to defeat evil conclusively and forever. Anything made softer and more beautiful in this season is down to that –an echo of the original impossible incarnation.
And for those for whom this season is anything but soft and beautiful –those walking the way of grief, for example—well, Advent is a season for you, a journey, if you will, into an ever-deeper awareness of our shared situation, of the pain of this world, and of the reality of sin and death. Advent begs the question, what is our world without a Savior?
The ways of sin and death are complicated and deeply rooted to say the least. Nothing can save us from them that is possible.
In confirmation class recently with a group of our youth, we had a rich conversation about Holy Scripture. What it is, what it is not, and what it can be for those who spend time with it. The topic of miracles came up, as it so often does in these conversations. And a question was asked of me that can be simply paraphrased: RevMo, do you really believe this stuff? Like, all of it?
Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel.
The virgin birth is one such thing that shows up in Scripture this time of year. The question becomes: did it really happen or not? Or, perhaps a different question is at play: is it important or not? In my conversations with people, the virgin birth seems of little consequence –a take or leave it sort of thing – except for those deeply polarized on the subject, of course. In the Episcopal tradition, I’ve never heard much made of it either way, which always led me to believe it wasn’t vital to the story of Christ and his coming. Except that we do acknowledge the virgin birth every Sunday in the following words from the Nicene Creed.
I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God . . .
Who for us and for our salvation, came down from heaven,
By the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.
We make this same proclamation often in the Eucharist:
For in these last days, you sent him to be incarnate from the Virgin Mary, to be the Savior and Redeemer of the World.
And in Advent and Christmas, we raise our voice in song, announcing:
God of God
Light of Light,
Lo! He abhors not the Virgin’s womb
Very God
Begotten, not created;
O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord [3].
Wesley’s “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” also affirms the virgin birth, as do numerous other carols and hymns.
This is just a taste of the many affirmations of the Virgin Birth we make throughout the year and particularly at this time of year.
The question is, do you believe it? Do I believe it?
Seems impossible.
And thanks be to God, because nothing that is possible can save us.
Two thousand years of Christian tradition testify to this truth: we are not dealing with a run of the mill human birth. We are dealing with something else entirely. Jesus, the Messiah, born fully human, yes, but begotten directly of the endless power and incredible love of God. It is beyond human capacity to produce such a child. You and I cannot bring forth Jesus. Only God can and will produce a Savior –this is what the Virgin birth testifies to:
In God, human impossibility is overcome by irresistible power and love.
We who must die demand a miracle.
And that is just what God provided: a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. Come, let us adore Him.
I don’t know about you. But I really believe this stuff. Honestly, I can stand here and talk to you about theology until Christ comes again. I can read all the books, listen to all the theologians, spend my life dedicated to the study of the Bible, and it won’t be any of those things that convince you or me that the impossible has come to pass. What I can do is share with you the reason for my belief and it is this:
I cannot fathom a world where this thing, the birth of the Christ child, did not take place. What is this world without a Savior?
And I know in my bones and have seen in the world around me this truth: our redemption will not come through us but must come from somewhere else entirely. We cannot save ourselves.
Is the Virgin Birth impossible? Certainly.
And yet nothing that is possible can save us.
We who must die demand a miracle.
And that is just what God has provided. Impossibly, God has intervened. We have not gone towards God, God has come to us, delivering a Son who is our hope and our comfort. Jesus, the Messiah, in whom that which plagues us, that which haunts and horrifies, that which deeply grieves us, is redeemed finally and for all time.
This is the real magic of the season. This is what the virgin birth signifies. This is where our truest hope lies, it is, as we sang earlier “of the father’s love begotten”.
O that birth forever blessed, when the Virgin, full of grace, by the Holy Ghost conceiving, bore the Savior of our race; and the Babe, the world’s Redeemer, first revealed his sacred face, evermore and evermore [4].
Amen.
[1] David Zahl, “Nothing that Is Possible Can Save Us: An Advent Devotional,” Mockingbird, 5 Dec. 2011, https://mbird.com/bible/hopelessly-devoted-matthew-chapter-one-verse-twenty-one/.
[2] Fleming Rutledge, “Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ” (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2018), 386.
[3] John Francis Wade, O come, all ye faithful, The Hymnal 1982 #83.
[4] Marcus Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, Of the Father’s love begotten, The Hymnal 1982 #82.