1 Allen Pruitt My wife loves to jump out and scare me. She loves to hide and try to get me. I suppose she loves the look of terror on my face, replaced quickly with a look that says, really? Really? She loves to scare me. I, in turn, am terrified that I will one day instinctively punch, or kick, or tackle my assailant, and wind up hurting her. And I ll save her penchant for April Fool s Day pranks for another sermon. And now I m remembering that April Fool s Day 2018, is also Easter Day. If we are very lucky, there will be very few times in our lives that we are genuinely terrified. Times when, out of nowhere, we see the vision of something that takes our breath, that leaves us talking in a squeaky voice, that clenches our stomachs and our throats.
2 When s the last time you saw something that made your ears ring and your vision start to go black? When s the last time you were terrified? Almost everyone who meets an angel is terrified. Just look at all the stories in the Bible. In every one of them, the person sees the angel, and the angel says, fear not. Fear not. All of them say it, Fear not. When I was in middle school, there was a popular show, Touched by an Angel. Two sweet women would go from family to family, helping them out of rough situations. In reality they were angels. Then there was also Highway to Heaven in the 80 s. A show about Michael Landon and his rugged good looks, wandering the countryside of middle America to offer assistance when needed. Angels were always helping people. Bugs Bunny had an angel on his shoulder, opposite the devil, each doing their best to win the day. The angel trying to help defeat the devil.
3 Angels never offer to help people in the Bible. Angels are always wrestling with people. They are always looking for hospitality. They re always asking people to do the impossible for God. Be careful when you imagine a good looking angel who s there to help. It probably isn t an angel, more likely it s a movie star. No, angels must not have been all that attractive, might have even been downright scary looking. After all, the angel doesn t ever say anything, doesn t ask the person to do anything before starting out with: Fear not. They might as well say, Listen, if you re going to be afraid of how I look, just wait till you hear what I m asking you to do! Angels don t ask us to do ordinary things. They ask us to do the impossible.
4 Maybe it starts with that very first thing the angel says, Greetings favored one, the Lord is with you Do not be afraid Mary. The Lord is with you Do not be afraid. Maybe when the Lord is with you, maybe that s just when your troubles start. Maybe when the Lord is with you, maybe that s just when terror descends. After all, the Lord God is all about the impossible being made real, all about the unlikely coming to pass, all about the world getting turned upside down. Death leads to resurrection, graves are emptied. The Lord is with you you ll be afraid do not be afraid the Lord is with you. But what about Mary? There s something about her that does not seem afraid. Mary seems confident. Mary seems unperturbed. How could that be? How on earth could Mary possibly be ok with all this? And if she is, if she is ok with it, how come Gabriel says, Do not be afraid?
5 Frederick Buechner offers this possible explanation, She struck the angel Gabriel as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child, but he d been entrusted with a message to give her, and he gave it. He told her what the child was to be named, and who he was to be, and something about the mystery that was to come upon her. You mustn t be afraid, Mary, he said. As he said it, he only hoped she wouldn t notice that beneath the great, golden wings he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of creation hung now on the answer of this girl. To imagine, Gabriel projecting his fear onto Mary, trembling at the sight of this young girl who is to bear God into the world. And it was her choice. She had a choice in the matter, had to. If Mary had no choice, then the God who s doing the asking isn t a loving God, and if it s not about love, then it s not about God.
6 We always have a choice. And we are faced with the same choice as Mary. Will we bear God, out into the world? Will we carry God out into the world, despite the difficulty, despite the impossibility, despite the strangeness of the whole ordeal? Will we? We always have a choice, and heaven trembles for our answer.