A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. These are the texts which you know are so controverted. Notice I did not say controversial. So in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary.
Upon arriving, the messenger said to Mary, rejoice, oh highly favored daughter. The lord is with you. Blessed are you among women. By these words, Mary was deeply troubled and wondered what this sort of greeting might mean. The messenger then went on to explain, do not fear, Mary.
You have found favor with god. You shall conceive and bear a son and give him the name Jesus. Great will be his dignity, and he will be called son of the most high. The lord god will give him the throne of David, his father. He will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and his reign will be without end.
Now notice how Mary replied to this. It's an epistemological question, just with Saint John and Zacharias. So Mary said to the angel, how can this take place since I don't know man? Meaning, she wasn't married. The angel answered, the holy spirit will come upon you, and the power of the most high will overshadow you.
Hence, the holy offspring to be born will be called son of god. Know that Elizabeth now that remember, this is taking place up near the Lake Of Galilee. It's in the Nazareth. It's about an hour's less than that to the west of the Sea Of Galilee. Now her cousin Elizabeth is down near Jerusalem.
So the messenger, the angel says to Mary notice Mary says, how can this happen? There's no man in my life. And you see, these people were not able to where babies come from. We didn't you know, we didn't have to wait for doctor Spock. So just just exactly as Zacharias said, how can this take place?
My wife is old. She's sterile. So does Mary say, look, how can this take place? How do I know? So the angel said Mary said to the angel then, how can this take place?
And the angel says, well, the holy spirit will come upon you. The power of the most high will overshadow you, and hence, the holy offspring to be born will be called the son of god. Now, here is the answer to Mary's question. The angel is saying, look, if you don't believe what I'm saying, then you just go down there and and and look at your your elderly cousin Elizabeth. A woman who's up in years, way beyond the childbearing state, and was sterile all her life, she's pregnant.
That's exactly what happens. The angel says, know that Elizabeth, your kinswoman, has conceived a child in her old age. She who was thought to be sterile is now in her sixth month. Notice it was not an illusion, as Mary, queen of England thought she was pregnant. She is in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible with God.
This is strong stuff, you know. Mary said, I am the maidservant of the Lord. No. She says, I don't under she she's not saying, yes. Thank you.
Now I understand. But she's gotten the word. She's not irrational. She's not absurd. So Mary says, I am the maidservant of the lord.
Be it done to me as you say. And with that, the angel left her. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. I wanna say just one word and then I wanna get on something else.
But last night, we had a penitential service here. The church was pretty well filled, which was extremely, I think, encouraging and inspiring. We don't hear as many confessions as we used to. But I tell you that one of the things that impresses me when I'm sitting there listening to confessions, sometimes I'm on the other side giving the confession, is this. People are more aware of the of what they've done, that is the sin business, than they are of Christ's healing power.
And let me tell you, this healing power is important. It is not enough, and this is what is so significant. It is not enough to know with an intellectual certitude that my sin is forgiven, that I'm made that my that I am now I am now once again in union with God. That's fine. But how about what we what the church in calls the wounds of sin, that Christ came not merely to forgive sin, but to heal the wounds of sin.
Do do you know what that means, the wounds of sin? That wound can be terrible for some people. We call it sometimes guilt. I you see, what we have to remember is that God so loved us that he gave us his son. What to do what?
We say to save us, to bring us salvation. That's what the word Jesus means. It comes from Joshua. Jesus is a Greek word coming from the Hebrew Joshua, which means he who saves or something like that. Christ came to save us from what?
We say from sin. Fine. What do you mean by that? It means not merely that you have the conviction, persuasion that sin is forgiven, and that's frightfully important, of course, but that the wounds of sin are healed. Healed.
That your life is integrated again, that you're not wasting your time and remorse and and going back over the past. That can be a that can be an absolute scandal, meaning an obstacle. And and and it's just as good as a temptation to to sin again. Because you notice it's diverting you from your savior. It's diverting you from God.
And that's the devil, when he can do that, he's really succeeding. That's my point number one this morning. Don't forget you have a savior. That's the whole story of Christmas. The second thing is what I started with.
I said these are controverted but not controversial. These are the what are called the text of Saint Luke, which are today in some mist even by Catholic, you take father Brown, Raymond Brown. Oh, they're they're just treated almost as what we would call myths. What we would call myths. That word has all kinds of meanings, you know.
But let's get back to some hard facts about this matter. And one of the hard facts is that women have babies, and that the people of our lord's time were not ignorant about that kind of business. They knew this. They knew all about it. Secondly, the time interval between the things we are hearing about that is Saint John's birth I mean, Saint John's conception, Saint John's birth, our lord's conception, our lord's birth, the time interval between those events, the actual events, and when this was written is not more than about seventy five or maybe ninety years.
Now, that's not a long time. And in the in in the context of our lord's own day, it was even a shorter time in the sense that people remembered more. And will you please notice how detailed this is? Names are given, times are given. It's very very circumstantial, very circumstantial.
This is about third generation when it was written. Well, long before this stuff was written, it was it was held as a as a tradition handed down, tradition handed down. It was known, it was discussed, it was remembered long before it was written down. Because even the critics of these texts admit that and there you've heard of this document Q, which is supposed to have been preexisting to the to the synoptic gospel. Nobody has found a document q.
But they talk about it as if you could go out down there in the in the Smithsonian and pick it out of a museum case. But the point I'm making is these things were circumstantial. These were prominent people. Zacharias was a prominent man. His wife was a prominent woman.
And in her day, not to have a child was looked upon as a very grievous and saddening thing. It wasn't And here when she, a woman in her old age and sterile as a baby, that was tremendous. You couldn't get away with making those things. And notice how that is brought back again. Then our Lord's own.
I'm not trying to give the details of who the angel was, how did Mary recognize it was an angel, how did Saint Luke get it. I see no problem how Saint Luke, of course, wasn't present at all this. But ye Gods that neither was mister Hayes present at the at the American Revolution, yet he wrote a history on it. There are other ways of getting knowledge besides seeing it yourself. And so the basic ideas of these texts which tell us about the beginning of the conception of God in a womb of a Jewish girl, The the basic ideas are, I think, beyond dispute.
If you take a human point of view, if you take a point of view of looking at the thing realistically, looking at it not just as a pages in a book, but as reality viewed against human beings. What human beings know, what human beings reject, what human beings accept as proof. Notice how both Zacharias, how our blessed lady says, look, how can this happen? How do I know what you're talking about? Isn't that a sensible question?
Supposing you had a vision, I'm not one who believes in visions, but supposing you have a vision, and you come to me or you call you say, or even to yourself, how do I know that that thing was authentic? How do I know this that this came from God? And then in some way or other, you're told, look, your grandmother who is old and sterile is now having a baby and she's six months pregnant, go on down there and take a look yourself. That's what the this this is what the messenger is telling Mary. Notice to to come back to the to work.
Mary is asking for motives of credibility, and the angel gives them to her. And I mean they are motives. Wouldn't you believe if that kind of motive of credibility was given to you in a situation? We would say, well, that's a miracle. Of course, it's a miracle.
And so don't be too much worried or disturbed about what some of these biblical critics have to say about these early texts of our blessed Lord, especially in Saint Luke. And remember the synoptics, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They are in while there are differences, those differences are minor and they are in new and the essentials, they agree on. They agree on. These these texts are powerful.
Even from a in any court of law, in any court of law. I'm not explaining it. Notice, the angel didn't explain it to Mary. All the angels said this is the way it is. And Mary said, be it done to me according to your word.
In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.