Overshadow You
Then Isaiah said: Listen, O house of David! Is it not enough for you to weary people, must you also weary my God? Therefore, the Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel, which means "God is with us!" Isaiah 7:13-14, 8:10C
“I delight to do your will, my God; your law is in my inner being!” Psalm 40:9
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” Luke 1:35
Study
We might be guilty of oversimplification. Today’s Psalm reads: “Here I am. I come to do your will.” And indeed, I am guilty of using exactly that phrase as the theme of the Men’s 128th Cursillo Weekend. When you really read Psalm 40, this is not a hymn of mere presence. The spirit goes far deeper than that. This is a hymn that demands radical humility complete obedience.
We need the Lord to rescue us for the same reason today as three millennia ago: “But evils surround me until they cannot be counted. My sins overtake me so that I can no longer see. They are more numerous than the hairs of my head; my courage fails me.” The Psalmist of y could not even imagine the temptations of modern, western society. Sloth (television/Internet). Unbridled consumerism (shopping malls/Amazon/eBay). Envy (movie stars, careerism). Lust (advertising and entertainment). Television. Shopping Malls. Gluttony (fast food/expensive food and the opposite -- food deserts). Trust in the wrong direction. Lack of respect.
If ever we need a new song, now is the time.
All who trust God will experience the Lord’s Holy Protection.
How then are we to express our thanks for such protection? Not the old-fashioned ways but through the open and enthusiastic proclamation of the salvation we experience. Giving thanks is not merely a human response but is itself a divine gift. For Gob, humble obedience is far more welcome an expression than any sacrifice.
Our salvation is a very physical act. The Lord picks us up out of the muck we are in (March Madness anyone?) and sets us on firm soil.
The Lord bends down from distant heaven to touch us as if we were Michaelangelo’s Adam in the Sistine Chapel. The Lord reaches out to call us from distant heaven as if we were Levi in the counting-house. The Lord whispers in our ear from distant heaven as if we were Mary, scare, alone and obedient in her clay hut. "Be not afraid!"
Now, with our feet on the ground, our ears are opened. The scroll is opened before our eyes. Doing God’s will is not just a New Year’s Resolution. It compels my inner being replacing every deadly sin and temptation.
When I sing of your righteousness in a great assembly, See, I do not restrain my lips; as you, LORD, know. I do not conceal your righteousness within my heart; I speak of your loyalty and your salvation. I do not hide your mercy or faithfulness from a great assembly. Psalm 40:10-11
When we are so thoroughly predisposed to obedience and humility, the Lord has no choice. Our rescue is inevitable.
Skip ahead to the Good News – because the town crier appears in the form of Gabriel. "Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you." We say the “Ave Maria” so many times, we are probably numb to the meaning that comes out of Psalm 40. The Lord is with Mary precisely because the Lord has no choice. He has looked upon his handmaiden and found out how so thoroughly she turned over her life to God’s will. The Annunciation is inevitable. The miracle was not that the angel appeared to Mary. The bigger miracle was that Mary was born at all in a world so filled with temptation all around.
Gabriel had no choice. There might have been 150-200 million people living on earth at the time. Yet only one was to be the recipient of such a message…such a grace…such a blessing.
In return for putting herself in the present moment with the Lord, she gets the ultimate gift: The spirit of the Lord is upon her. This also is the mark that sets Jesus apart from the world throughout Luke’s Good News at his Baptism and during forty days in the desert. The Spirit of the Lord is upon Jesus when he is reading from Isaiah in the temple. Jesus senses the woman with hemorrhages because the power of the Spirit is drawn out of him to her faith. On the cross.
In fact, at the very end of his life, the “spirit” is what Jesus sets free when he commands from the cross: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
In its absence, fear and sin can overtake us as it did to Zechariah. By our faith-in-action, the finger of God will save us. That is the lesson of the Annunciation.
Action
What do we need to do to be so blessed that the Spirit of the Lord overshadows us? If ever we need a new song, now is the time. 
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