Most of us know this story ... we know about the angel telling Mary that she will bear the Christ-childand we know Mary will say "yes".

It is pretty familiar stuff but have you ever wondered what if Mary had said, "Uhh, no thanks!" What would have happened then we can only guess ............ perhaps God would have gone to the next house so instead of the Virgin Mary and her husband Joseph the carpenter and we would be reading about the Virgin Debbie and her husband Tom the brick layer!?

Yes, if Mary and Joseph had said "no", then perhaps some other lowly folk, like Mary and Joseph would have been chosen and that is what Mary and Joseph were; lowly peasant people who lived in a pretty lowly out of the way place in a backwater part of the Roman Empire ...

The lowliness of Jesus birth is very important to understanding God. For it is through the lowly places that God chooses to make God's self known in the world. In an lowly mother like Mary and with the help of an lowly step-dad like Joseph and in Jesus who live among the lowly and who would die a lowly death on the cross.

This is not the kind of thing that most people expect from the God, the big "G", the Holy One, the Almighty God. We do not expect God to come in the lowly.

Yet, this Good News has also been a source of scandal,"How can the Almightly; the "One God" be born into the world in Jesus? That is outrageous!" And why would God chose the lowly, the outcast and the sinner to call beloved. This is not what God is like they say. Indeed throughout the ages there have been people who have been scandalized by the idea of God being a child. And scandalized that through Jesus Christ, God could suffer a death on the cross.

Even to this day, when we say that Jesus is God, there are people who are scandalized by the idea, even in our own United Church of Canad, sad to say it.

And perhaps this is partly why Mary ponders this offer by the Angel. Mary is not stupid, she knows that the offer of bearing Jesus is laden with scandal not just for Go but for her personally.

Mary knows her culture. She knows what having a child out of wedlock means. It could mean the end of her marriage to her Joseph. It could mean being cast out of her family and it could mean even her very life. Perhaps this is why she ponders whether to accept the offer to bear Christ. There are risks she knows about and then there are the risks she does not yet know; there is the night escape of Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus as the flee to Egypt as refugees to escape King Herod's bloody attempt to kill baby Jesus. Then when it is safe to return they have to find a community that would be safe to raise Jesus and then there is the greatest suffering; Mary would have to face the death of her son as a criminal on the cross. And there is perhaps nothing more painful than losing a child. There was a cost to Mary in bearing the Christ child; Mary might be lowly buyt she is not stupid.

Certainly Mary did not know All that she would suffer in being the mother of Jesus and all that bearing Jesus would mean but she must have known that the choice would involve life and death consequences. Listen to how she answers God's request.

"Here am I, the servant of the Lord, let is be according to your word."

Mary replies to God by saying, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord, let it be according to your word." To God's request she uses the language of the prophets. She says "Here I am ... your servant".

For this is how the Great prophet Isaiah responded when God spoke to him and so Mary responds as a prophet. And that is also why she has reason she might be afraid; did you hear the angel tell her not to fear?

For Mary knows what happens to prophets, they often get killed. They get killed because people do not want to hear the truth. People throughout history have chosen to follow their own wisdom and their own truth, rather than listening to God's truth and God's wisdom. When faced with the truth of God, we often have responded with anger and violence such has been our history with prophets.

Yet the situation is even more risky. Mary is to become the mother of the Prophet of prophets ... she will bear God's Word. She will bear Jesus, God with us and to this she responds simply with "Here I am, the servant of the Lord, let it be according to your word." But she is also given the reassurance that God goes with her. What she does, she does not do alone, but with the presence of God within her and surrounding her. She says "Yes" to go, in order to give birth to God's "Yes" for us.