Mary's Choice: An Advent Reflection

Every year in the Chetek Alert's annual 'Tis the Season publication, local pastors are asked to contribute reflections. This is my contribution for 2019 (which you may read free of charge here).

“In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

“Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

Luke 1:26-33, NIV

At a recent gathering at Refuge after reading the preceding text as a way of provoking meditation I asked the following question: “Did Mary have a choice?” That is, when Gabriel announced to her that she has been chosen to bear Messiah could she have declined the favor? What followed was a long reflection on the mystery of free will and God's sovereignty. On one hand, she was not simply a biological incubator pre-programmed to bear the Christ Child for nine months. She was a human being born with the gift all men and women are graced with, the power to choose. But God, who knows each of us inside out, knew that Mary was so humble and devout of heart that she would ultimately submit to his invitation. Still it's clear from the rest of the story that Gabriel awaited her response to his incredible announcement before reporting back to headquarters (or why else does she get to have the last word in their conversation?)

Jewish girls in Mary's day and age didn't dream of growing up and becoming scientists or business owners. They lived, really, for one purpose: to marry and bring children into the world. That we live in a time when a woman can and do serve as professors, scientists, corporate CEOs, US representatives, senators and, one day certainly, president we call progress. But for Mary only one path lay ahead of her and while she and Joseph had yet to make a home together legally they had already tied the knot. All that was left was the wedding.

So what Gabriel was asking her to do was, in effect, lay aside her dream for herself and submit to God's dream for her, one that beyond her wildest comprehension would ultimately lead to the salvation of mankind. But before that there would be crosses of her own to bear. For starters, she was a virtuous maiden living in conservative Nazareth. Today we may take it as a matter of course that couples cohabit and procreate prior to marriage – if they ever marry at all. But not then. For a girl to be found in the family way would invite public shame and outcry and, in some cases, death for bringing such reproach on her family and her village. And we know from Matthew's version of the story the threat was real: why else would Gabriel speak to Joseph in a dream to not divorce her?

The way Luke tells it the optics couldn't be worse: Gabriel announces the honor being bestowed on her and immediately she leaves town to spend a few months with her relatives, Elizabeth and Zechariah who remarkably in their old age are also pregnant. Upon her return to Nazareth she would have already had a baby bump. Imagine what her parents must have felt when she informed them that God had given her a baby. So, apart from her husband and her relatives downstate, Mary would be in this pregnancy pretty much alone without the normal support of family and close friends.

Of course, public shame is bad enough – especially when it's undeserved – but on the day they dedicate their new born son old man Simeon emerges out of a throng of worshipers in Jerusalem and warns her that her boy would be both misunderstood and controversial, causing the falling and rising of many, many people and, oh yeah, “...a sword will pierce your own soul, too” (Luke 2:33-35). It's a lot for a young teen age girl to bear (in those days, once a girl began her monthly cycle it was time to settle down and begin “adulting”, as kids are wont to call it today).

In J.R.R.Tolkien's classic trilogy The Lord of the Rings, while journeying to Mount Doom to save Middle Earth from the reign of the Dark Lord Sauron, Frodo's constant companion, Sam, reflects upon the grand quest they are on and how unlikely a pair they are to be playing a part in it:

The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures,

as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually – their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn't. And if they had, we shouldn't know, because they'd have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on – and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end...But those aren't always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we've fallen into?'”(from The Two Towers)

As I read Mary's story again safely separated from her time by two thousand years of hindsight it's easy for me to quickly gloss over the scandal, the shame, the risk, and the confusion that was her's to bear by submitting to the invitation presented to her that morning by Gabriel. We, of course, know how the story ends and just what kind of epic tale Mary and Joseph had fallen into, as Sam would put it. I suppose had she said no, it's likely we would have never heard of her but would celebrate and, in certain traditions, venerate another young woman's choice to bear the Son of God. As we read her response to Gabriel that day it's necessary to acknowledge that we may lack the proper awe and respect owed her when her reply was simple and forever succinct: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.” (Luke 1:38, KJV). It is the same surrender and submission that God requires of each of us to choose each day regardless of the kind of tale we may find ourselves in.