The Christmas story usually opens with Mary and Joseph and the sweet babe in the stable. Shepherds are bowing down and a star shimmers in the sky.
But the timeless tale actually started months earlier when an angel appeared to a teenage girl in Nazareth. And make no mistake – this wasn’t a cute, glittery, Hallmark-card angel. Which is why his first words after greeting her were, “Do not be afraid, Mary.”
What was she doing when her unexpected visitor showed up? Praying? Brushing her hair? Sweeping the floor? We don’t know.
She was troubled, and who wouldn’t be? This fearful apparition would shake up her life. And he didn’t mince words when he said, “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son.”
This had to be a huge, earth-shattering shock. This girl is a virgin, you see, who is soon to be married. I would have posed dozens of questions to the angel, but she had only one. How could she become pregnant without a man? In Luke’s gospel, the rather ethereal answer is the power of the “Most High” would overshadow her.
In this simple encounter –between a girl and an angel– there is a vast lesson. She surely suspected that her sweetheart, Joseph, wouldn’t look lightly on this. She could have stalled by saying, “Let me ponder this a while.” Instead, she immediately made a decision: “May it be done to me according to your word.”
Saying yes to God doesn’t always make life easier. For Mary it meant telling Joseph what had just happened. Can you imagine that scene? “Joseph, there was this angel!” I picture tears and shouts and someone storming out the door.
And later, if Joseph had not married her, she’d need to tell her father. And if he was anything like mine, the roof would have blown off the house. Worse yet, she might have faced a horrendous death by stoning, reserved for unmarried women in her condition.
Bowing to God’s will sometimes entails accepting terrible, heart-breaking events. The loss of your spouse, the death of your child. A shattering medical diagnosis. Bone-crunching loneliness because you can’t find a mate. Rejection for being fat or poor or ugly or slow.
But it can also lead to untold wonders. The birth of a child. Following God by becoming a pastor. Helping a poor and hungry person.
In my life there was a priest, a very busy teacher, who agreed to help me when I was devastated by a cancer diagnosis – and scrambling to get my spiritual house in order. My world completely changed because he saw counseling me as part of a bigger plan.
Mary’s embrace of God’s plan is the real opening to the Christmas story. Yes, the tale is about the wondrous babe in the manger. The simple couple seeking shelter in a stable. The shepherds and wise men and mysterious gifts.
But the story is also about a young girl who faced down her fears. A girl who trusted God enough to say “yes.” And with this simple affirmation, that girl changed the history of the world.
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