Another Disruption
Luke 1:26-38
26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’ 29 But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30 The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. 31 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 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. 33 He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ 34 Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ 35 The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36 And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.’ 38 Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her.
The argument is sometimes raised that Mary, a simple peasant girl, was naïve about the ways of the world and where babies came from. In her conversation with angel Gabriel, it is quite clear that Mary knows about babies. She asks specifically about how it is that she is going to get pregnant since she has “not known a man” (a literal translation of the Greek). If Mary knows where babies come from, then she also knows that her pregnancy will create problems with Joseph, and with her parents.
Mary lived in a world where having a child out of wedlock, because that is what it will appear like to the rest of the community, would be a very hard road indeed. The Christmas song, “Mary did you know?” does raise the fact that she did not know what Jesus was going to do – but was she more than aware that in saying “yes” she was turning her life upside down. That her life would never be the same again.
Her “yes” is not a simplistic “yes”, it is not a thoughtless “yes”. Maybe she does not know everything that her “yes” means, but she knows enough that she knows she needs to use the strongest language of commitment that she knows – “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let I be to me according to your word.” Her “yes” means a commitment of everything in her being, the commitment of her very self to the mission God is inviting her to participate in.
Mary is an example to us of what it means to commit ourselves to joining God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the mission that God is on in the world. Everything is on the line, we are invited to say, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord.”
PRAYER:
O Lord, we thank you that Mary said to her life being disrupted, so that she could join your mission in the world. Shape us into people who also say “yes” to your disrupting our lives so that we might participate in your mission in the world. In Jesus’ name. Amen.