I don’t know if I would like to hear that I had found favor with God… God’s favor often seems to come with a request for a favor! And in the case of Mary of Nazareth, a rather big one: to allow her body, her womb to be the vessel for the Son of the Most High.
“The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’”
Did Mary hear anything after the words “womb” and “son?” Where would you even start with an announcement like this? With the pregnancy? With the predictions of greatness, of divinity, of Messiah-ship? That’s what “the throne of his ancestor David” means – and no doubt Mary understood the code. Or would you focus on the words “reign” and “kingdom?” I don’t know that I would have heard any of it – after all, it was an angel speaking! My senses would already have hit “tilt.”
So even more credit goes to young Mary for not only taking it in, but responding in a most down-to-earth, matter-of-fact way: “How?” “Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’”
How indeed? Gabriel’s answer is short on details,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you…”
Mary is left to sort through all the words, the past, the future, the fear, the excitement, the bafflement. She ignores all the grand and cosmic mystery of identity about this coming child, and focuses on the reality closest to her: her body. This wondrous event is to take place in her body – a body, she insists, that has not experienced much intimacy. Is she to endure the wear and tear of childbearing before she’s had a chance to savor the joy of child-begetting?
How will this be? How indeed does God work through the frail and fallible flesh of any person? Mary’s mission may be the most intimate in our whole crazy story of redemption, but nothing in that story happens without God working through a person. People are asked to yield their time, livelihood, home, safety, security, voice, identity… we are called to make ourselves available to the Spirit of God.
What has God asked of you, probable or improbable, difficult or simple? What aspects of your life and self have you made available to the Holy One to fill and use? What have you held back? What are you willing to offer?
In prayer today let's work through one of those litanies of “oblation,” offering in turn our minds, our bodies, our time, our gifts, our resources, our relationships, our networks, and, of course, our spirits. As we offer each area, we might wait for a word on how God wants to use that in us.
Mary was called to be a vessel of Christ’s body, to bear him into the world. We are called to be vessels of Christ’s spirit, to bear him into the world in our own ways and circumstances. That includes our bodies as well as everything else that makes us who we are. We can invite the Spirit to fill us – and then see how we make space for grace.
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