Optimistic Prognostications
“Nothing will be impossible.” Does that sound familiar? I feel like I’ve heard it before somewhere. Was it an advertisement for some new piece of cooking ware? The Instant Pot, maybe? Cheesecake, yoghurt, rice, roasted chicken, barbecue, baked potato…what can’t it make? Nothing will be impossible in your kitchen with an Instant Pot.
More likely I heard the phrase “Nothing will be impossible,” or something similar, in the advertisement for some new piece of technology. At the launch of one of the Samsung Galaxy smartphones, the Samsung CEO referred proudly to the company’s innovation and explained, “This is how…the impossible becomes possible.”
“Nothing will be impossible” might well be the implicit motto of our optimistic tech industry. Sam Altman, the CEO of Open AI, talks about artificial intelligence as though it will be the salvation of humanity. “I believe the future is going to be so bright that no one can do it justice by trying to write about it now; a defining characteristic of the Intelligence Age will be massive prosperity. … [A]stounding triumphs—fixing the climate, establishing a space colony, and the discovery of all of physics—will eventually become commonplace.” “Eventually we can each have a personal AI team, full of virtual experts in different areas, working together to create almost anything we can imagine.”
Whether it’s on behalf of cooking ware that promises to simplify and speed up your cooking or on behalf of artificial intelligence that promises to fix every problem, the proclamation “Nothing will be impossible” ultimately trains our eyes—and our hearts—on an object of power. When that object, that power, finally intervenes, the battle will be won. Our problems will be over. Life will be good.
The God of Power and Intervention
When religious folks hear these overzealous promises from the tech industry, we usually take them with a grain of salt. As much as we might enjoy the comforts and conveniences made possible by new technologies, not to mention the health benefits of correlated advances in medicine, we know that technology cannot save our souls. No number of years added to our lifespan, no amount of luxury and ease would satisfy our spiritual yearning for transcendence.
Yet it strikes me that our religious fixation on God’s salvation is often structurally the same as tech enthusiasts’ fixation on technology’s salvation. In other words, religious folks also are waiting for an intervention. We too are hoping for the eventual arrival of a power that will overcome all our problems: war, sickness, sin, death. In one sense, we may be worshiping the same god as the tech enthusiasts. A god of power and intervention.
Mary Has a Choice
Let us turn now to the scripture where we actually hear the promise, “Nothing will be impossible” (Luke 1:37). What captivates many readers in today’s passage is the extraordinary depth given to Mary’s character. She is perplexed. She ponders. She doubts and questions: “How can this be?” (Luke 1:34). And ultimately, she consents, with the famous words, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).
In poems and paintings of this scene, Mary is almost always depicted with a lily and a book nearby, as though to indicate that she is scenting and reading this strange guest, this incredible message. She is interpreting what this means. She is deciding how she will respond. Which is all to say, she has a choice. God gives her a choice. This is not an imperial God imposing his way upon her, decreeing a Word that will happen regardless of her response. This is a God of relationship, a God who gives space for feelings, for doubts, for a response. This is a God who desires consent.
The fifteenth-century painter, Sandro Botticelli, gives exquisite expression to this dynamic of relationship in his painting Cestello Annunciation, where we can see Mary in the throes of her decision. Her body is simultaneously pulled away in fear and doubt and drawn forward in wonder and love. The painting foregrounds the real drama of this scene. The real drama is not about God doing whatever God wills. It’s about God begging, hoping, waiting—and Mary deciding.
Tzimtzum
The god of Greek philosophy, the god that most of our world thinks about when it thinks about god, is the god of omniscience and omnipotence. God all-knowing and all-powerful. But for Jews and Christians alike, the God of the Bible has long challenged and complicated the image of this all-powerful, all-knowing God. Rabbi Isaac Luria, a Jewish mystic of the sixteenth century, interprets the mystery of the biblical God with a Hebrew word, tzimtzum, which means something like “diminishment” or “withdrawal.” He explains that the process of creation requires tzimtzum. Creation requires God to restrain Godself, to reduce Godself, to withdraw and make space. God makes space for the world and humanity. “Human freedom … exists because of divine self-limitation.” Thus Adam and Eve have the freedom to eat from the fruit of the tree. Cain can kill Abel. Great harm can be done. But in the same way, in the same space, Joseph can show to his brothers the same grace God has shown to him. Ruth can stay with and support her mother-in-law, Naomi, and embody the steadfast love of Naomi’s God. Great good can be done too.
What we see in today’s scripture—and what is captured in Botticelli’s painting—is God’s tzimtzum. God does not impose God’s will on the world. God waits for a response. God makes space for the pondering, the questioning, the deciding. God is reduced to the powerlessness of asking, begging, hoping, waiting.
A Love Story
When my dad proposed to my mom, she was not expecting it. So she responded, in all honesty, “Let me get back to you.” She needed space to be perplexed. She needed space to ponder. In the meanwhile, my dad was left with the painful consequences of his vulnerability. To ask, to propose, to make space for a response is to make oneself vulnerable to indecision, to rejection. My dad waited on pins and needles. Even so, he suffered just a fraction of what God must suffer as God makes space for us.
When she eventually responded, her heart assured and mind made up, “Yes,” they shared their joy. Perhaps there was even a hint of the feeling that, together, nothing would be impossible.
When I read today’s scripture, more and more, I see a love story. Not just between God and Mary, but between God and all of us. I see a story of God’s desire and how God’s desire comes to fruition. Not with a sword, not a wave of the wand, but in the vulnerable space of relationship. The traditional god of our world, a god of omnipotence, could just snap his fingers and get what he wants. But there would be no space for us in such a world. It would be like a computer program. It would be devoid of love and life.
Much of our world worships a god of power and intervention, whether that takes the shape of technology or the shape of a Greek god of omnipotence. Our world believes that “nothing will be impossible” when power comes, when some object—some great tool or weapon or god—arrives and erases all our problems. It thinks that there’s nothing we can really do until this power intervenes. But Advent reminds us that the truth is nearly the opposite: there is nothing God can do until we consent. Because our God is the vulnerable God of tzimtzum. Our God is a God of love, who makes space for us.
“Nothing will be impossible” is not the proclamation of a force that will one day arrive and fix all our material problems. It is the ecstatic proclamation of love. It declares that the power of the heart is greater than the power of the hand. It glorifies not the mindless obedience of a soldier but the loving consent that makes possible the abundant life of relationship. It holds within it the space of pondering and questioning…and ultimately responding, “Yes!”
Prayer
Tender God,
Who desires not empty obedience
But a heart that reciprocates,
That says “Yes!”—
This Advent, we have tried to make space for your arrival.
Now we find that you are making space for our response.
Grant us the honesty to share our heart with you
…
And to trust in the power of your love,
With which you say nothing is impossible.
In Christ Jesus, who was conceived by God's love and Mary’s consent: Amen.
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