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There is an old story which some of you may have already heard, but is worth repeating. The story is about a conversation between an old man and a young man on the existence of God. The two men are sitting together on a park bench when the young man turns to the old man and says, “I just don’t understand how you can believe in God when there is no proof?” The old man looks first at the young man, then at the sky and finally at the surrounding flora and fauna and says simply, “I do not understand how you can live in this world with all of its beauty and not see God.”
It is all a matter of perspective on how we choose to see the world. Do we see the world filled with poverty and misery or do we choose to see the beauty of creation and all the possibilities it holds. This is a personal matter. Each of us has to decide for ourselves whether or not God is real or just a convenient myth to encourage folks to be good.
In the gospel reading for today from Luke, we are told the story about the Visitation. It is called the Visitation because it is about the story of the Angel Gabriel visiting the Virgin Mary to announce to her that she has been chosen by God to become the Mother of the Son of God, the Messiah. Now there were many virgins at that time in Judea and there had been many virgins in Judea before Mary was born. So why out of all of history was this particular young woman chosen to bear the son of the Most High God?
Gabriel simply tells Mary, “You have found favor with God.” The universal underlying question that is not brought up here is ‘How does one find favor with God?’ The scriptures tell us that to obtain God’s favor, one must first believe that God exists. From the Amplified Bible in the Letter to the Hebrews, chapter eleven, verse six, we read these words, “But without faith it is impossible to please and be satisfactory to Him. For whoever would come near to God must [necessarily] believe that God exists and that He is the Rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek Him [out].”
This seems rather easy until we explore the reality of God that many of us experience in our own every day lives. Are we living in such a way that we can state without a doubt that we know the reality of God, because we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is real? Or is God more of a concept, instead of a reality to us? The Word of God teaches us that the key to believing in God is faith. Jesus even tells us that if our faith is only as much as the tiny size of a mustard seed we can move mountains. Apparently, the faith of the Virgin Mary of Nazareth found favor with God.
This young woman who lived in the outskirts of Judea in a remote border town loved the Lord with all of her heart, mind and soul. Her faith in God was solid. God was as real to her as the morning sunrise. It is because of her belief in God that her eyes are open to even see and hear the Angel Gabriel, who was sent to her from God. Yes, there were many virgins in Judea at that time, but not many who had the vision to see into the spiritual realm. Only Mary of Nazareth was chosen to bear the holy child who would redeem humanity from bondage. Of this young woman, the Catholic theologian Karl Rahner writes “the Church does not know Mary’s life story.” If we seek Biblical knowledge concerning Mary’s life, we find this to be quite true for she is mentioned less than twenty times in the New Testament. It is to the stories written down in the second century that we turn to for some kind of background information. Even then we must remember that these stories were not authenticated by the Church as Holy Scripture.
After thousands of years of waiting for the coming of the Messiah, an obscure young woman living in a border town is chosen by God because she alone has found favor with God. Yet, it is this young woman who had the courage to carry the Holy Child in her womb, even though this meant that her very life would be threatened; because the world would claim that she had conceived this child out of wedlock, marking her as an adulteress. The sentence for adultery was stoning by death. Yet, in spite of the risks to her very life, Mary said ‘Yes’ to her Lord.
This step of faith on Mary’s part was not a decision of wishful thinking on her part, but an opening for the Divine to intercede and bring about the reality of conception in the virgin’s womb. Luke writes, “The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called the Son of God.” Mary’s faith allowed the Almighty to become Man. The impossible became possible. The Living God became a vulnerable baby inside the Virgin’s womb. This is the miracle of the Incarnation that God became Man, because of the faith of a young woman. The fate of humanity rested in the decision of this young woman from Nazareth who believed in the reality of God.
Today the Lord God continues to seek those who believe in His existence. We too have been given a choice. We can believe like the Virgin Mary and see the Presence of the Holy Spirit in our own lives and allow Him to birth through us the good and holy works of the Almighty God. This is a belief that looks at the world and sees the hand of God in all of creation.
Or we can choose to believe that God is only a concept birthed from the minds of men to direct people to be good to one another and live our lives without the hope of eternal life. Placing our hope not in a god of mythology, but hoping in the goodness of people as the secularists would have us to believe. This is a belief that looks at the world and does not see God.
For Mary the question was not whether or not God exists, but how the news of the angel would happen without the natural intimacy between a man and a woman since she was still a virgin? Mary’s question was about how not about who, because for Mary God was a Living God. May we follow the example of this young virgin who had the courage to say to the Lord, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according your word.” May we who have not seen angels have the faith to believe in the existence of the Living God and give ourselves to Him completely.
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