My husband wrote some music using Luke 2:26-30 as the text. It’s a 6 movement a capella piece for women, and his church choir premiered it this past Sunday.  I’ll try to post the recording here as soon as he edits the audio file.

The text reads,

“In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph...and the virgin’s name was Mary.  And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee...And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favor with God.”

The pastor, David Wood, followed the piece by reading the Magnificat (Luke 2:46-44) and giving a sermon about Mary.  It was a great service; the only thing that would have made it perfect would be to have had the choir also sing the Magnificat in G by Charles Villiers Stanford.

It got me thinking about miracles.  I am not a natural believer in miracles and supernatural things.  I tend to expect an explanation for everything, which is really the opposite of having faith.  For me faith is more of a choice than an inclination.  I believe it’s the right choice, but I have to really attend to my spiritual life or I tend to settle into skepticism. 

Christianity really rests on two miracles, the virgin birth and the resurrection of Jesus. I think both of those miracles are dismissed or glossed over pretty often, like, “we have a lot to learn from Jesus, but those miraculous birth and resurrection stories are a bit much.”  But just think about the reproductive technologies we have now that would have been unthinkable to someone 100 years ago.  It’s technically possible to have a virgin birth now with in vitro fertilization, so we should give God a little credit for being able to figure out how make a miraculous birth happen.

The angel Gabriel told Mary, “With God, nothing shall be impossible.”  And she said “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.”

Then, in what could be considered the first Christmas carol, Mary said, “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.”  And then she goes on to list the great things God has done.  Sometimes it seems to me that Christianity is a religion of deferred satisfaction.  God is supposed to scatter the proud, put down the mighty, exalt the low, and fill the hungry, but the world is still full of injustice and hunger.  But as David Wood pointed out in his sermon, so much good has happened in the world, too.  Apartheid and slavery ended even though people thought they never would, women can vote and hold public office in most of the world, life expectancies are way up, infant mortalities down, and people are more free than they’ve been in the history of the world.  All because inspired people believed change was possible.  With God, nothing shall be impossible.

That makes me glad to be a Christian.

Merry Christmas.