How
did Mary feel when she found out she was to mother the Son of God?
Terrified…frustrated…uncertain…overwhelmed…beautiful…full of grace...probably
a strange assortment of all of these and more.
It
certainly could not have felt easy or natural. I find it extremely difficult to
imagine an angel of the Lord coming to me and informing me that I am to
miraculously be with child and that my child “will be great, and will be called
the Son of the Most High,” and that “the Lord God will give him the throne of
his ancestor David” (NRSV, Luke 1:32). In fact, Mary probably could not have
envisioned this happening to her, either, until it did.
Instead
of responding with confusion, incredulity, or fear, though (human reactions to
be sure), Mary simply takes a moment to “[ponder] what sort of greeting this
might be” upon the salutation of the angel (Luke 1:29). She doesn’t say anything. She just pauses and considers.
After her period of reflection upon the news she has just heard, Mary first
wonders “how…this [will] be” since she is a virgin, and then goes on to accept
the news: ‘“Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to
your word”’ (Luke 1:34, 38).
What
would this look like in modern society? Mary was not even technically an adult
when the angel of the Lord appeared to her. If a teenaged girl approached you
tomorrow and announced that she was pregnant sans relations with a man and that
her child was the Son of God, would you be able to accept that in stride
without blinking an eye? If your answer is yes, please teach me your ways. It
would take a great deal of wrestling, pondering, and seeing differently in order for me to come to a point of acceptance
if I witnessed such an event.
In
his Gospel, Luke is concerned with presenting Mary in a specific way: she has
embraced her freedom to ponder, to wonder, and to speak, and so she does so. Flipping back to the story of Abraham
and Sarah in Genesis 18, we can recognize Sarah’s barrenness as showing the
wonder of God’s work and the power of trust in the Lord. In Genesis 18:14, God
says, “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?” With this in her heart, Mary
wonders. There is a waiting for understanding, but not a fear or a doubt. This paints uncertainty as a beautiful thing in light of God.
Mary
is human, so by definition she does not have it all together. But she doesn’t
need to due to her utter reliance on the presence and action of God in her life.
The other day, I mentioned to one of my good friends that recently I have felt
much more comfortable with the uncertainty of my future. I am actively striving
to let go of my perfectionist,
always-have-to-be-in-control-of-this-situation-and-the-next-one tendencies and
hopefully allowing for a more organic process of character formation to occur
in the midst of ordinary life as a result of my habituation to a different
perspective.
My
friend simply nodded in response to my comment, remarking, “We need the question mark.” In the context of Marian Consecration
and a close reading of Luke 1, viewing the question mark as a trusting sort of
wonder, I absolutely have to agree with her. We have only to respond like Mary
did: “Here am I, servant of the Lord” (Luke 1:38).
No comments:
Post a Comment