This advent, our church has been journeying with Mary. Seeing things from her perspective and gaining our own. We've prayed a form of the rosary weekly. I've found myself becoming a character in the nativity story as we pray, as we sing and worship on Sundays, in communion, in worship planning even. But as I pick which character I am, I'm never Mary. Not at first. I've seen myself as Elizabeth, doubting Zechariah, a shepherd in a field, an innkeeper with a little compassion but no room. And yet, the more I pray...the more that God prepares the way of the Lord and makes a road in my wildernesses...the more I just sit with the story...the more surprised I become again and again as I begin to see myself as the most unlikely character for me--as Mary.
The four Sundays of Advent are a progression in our worship this year. Advent 1: God loves us (the Annunciation to Mary that she will bear a son). Advent 2: God loves others (the Visitation to Elizabeth). Advent 3: God loves in strange places (a journey to the most unlikely places where God already is...and ultimately to a stable in Bethlehem). And Advent 4: For God so loves the world (the message of the angels to common shepherds of the birth of Messiah).
And I sketch all of that out for you for this one reason...I honestly don't think I can get past Advent 1. If I can ever latch on to God loving me and seeing me the way God loves and sees Mary, the rest just makes sense. Of course if God loves me, then God loves others and God loves in strange places and God loves the world...because I AM the other, I've been in strange and disappointing places, and within my complex personality and being is a microcosm of all of humanity (and not just within me either, but within all of us). Yes, Jesus loves me, this I know...but do I really believe it? Sure, I feel and know that I am loved. But can I presume to see myself first as a Mary...first as a God-bearer...primarily as someone who is giving birth to hope, who has been the recipient of such unfathomable favor and grace? Isn't it arrogance to think that?
Or is it pure humility to acknowledge it? Is it not the singularly most important fact of my life that God has "chosen" me...loved me...favored me...poured out grace into my life without even an inkling of merit or qualification (and if me, then surely all the world)? The more I pray, the more I sit with Mary, the more I just be and become...I find myself letting my guard down, and just when I least suspect it, I'm Mary. The divine messenger shows up out of nowhere, and before I'm able to gather my pious wits about me, I'm hearing the pronouncement "Fear not! Hail, Mary, full of grace..." Then the questions come..."how can this be seeing as I am..."
Do I dare to be a Mary? Do I dare to tell the world that it's happening to me? What will they think of me? Will they ever see past the shadow of me that is easier to see than it is to see my Self? If I enter into this journey as Mary...as a mother of God...will anyone ever believe me? These must have been questions in Mary's mind, too, I imagine. I've got a long way to journey with the Blessed Mother. Advent probably won't be long enough for this journey I have begun. I still pray the rosary each week with others, and I still put myself in the story everywhere else except right next to the manger...I'm still trying to identify with everyone else in the story, because surely I'm not a Mary.
My vicar, Wendy, asked me one time "Why do you not trust sacrament?" Why, indeed? Why do I question and analyze these divine experiences in my life...why do I weigh them down with so much of myself...why am I hesitant to call them sacrament at all? Why am I so afraid?
God must have known it would be this way when God shows up in the lives of ever-holy and ever-wholly-unsuspecting people. That's why he sent an angel declaring "DO NOT BE AFRAID!"
May it be with me, according to Thy word.
