To those who wait for Emmanuel,

During Advent we are invited to ponder all the ways we are waiting for something new to unfold in our lives.  Sometimes our waiting is purposeful and focused: we await a new job, a new child, a new opportunity or relationship.  And sometimes we find ourselves drafted into a role that is quite unexpected; a surprise which we hadn’t considered and for which we feel unprepared.  Yet, when we experience God’s presence at the root of this newness, we may be able to move from a reluctant “HUH?!” to a soulful “YES.”  So, it seems, it was for Mary.

Nearly all we know about Mary comes from the first two chapters of Luke’s gospel.  Mark’s gospel doesn’t mention her.  Matthew does—but his birth story revolves more on around Joseph than her.  John’s gospel includes Mary in scenes at the wedding in Cana and at the foot of the cross, but says nothing about the circumstances of Jesus’ birth.  So it’s here in the opening chapters of Luke’s gospel that we find our most complete portrait of her.  And still we’re left full of questions. How old was Mary the day the Messenger came?  Was she washing clothes or hanging laundry?  At the well getting the day’s supply of water?  Working in the fields?  Tending goats?  Preparing dinner?  If Luke knows, he’s not telling.  So it’s left to our imaginations to fill in the blanks, and many artists, poets and filmmakers have.

My favorite depiction of this scene in film is in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1977 classic “Jesus of Nazareth.”  In the still of the night Mary is woken from sleep by a brilliant light streaming through the small window of her peasant home.  Frightened at first by this unearthly Presence she tries to hide in the shadows.  But then, slowly and deliberately, curiosity moves her beyond fear to ask “Who are you?!”  Moving by degrees into the fullness of the light Mary is privy to a Voice she alone can hear.  As the message sinks in Mary slowly sinks to her knees and accepts her new vocation with humility and deep conviction.[1]

This scene of the Annunciation is a favorite subject of Medieval and Renaissance artists; second only to Madonna and Child.  We saw scores of versions of the scene in galleries we frequented during our sabbatical last spring.  A favorite was the depiction by Fra Angelico, which we saw at the Museo Diocesano in Cortona, Italy.   Angelico, a pioneer of three dimensional perspective in painting, places Mary and Gabriel in the foreground of a columned portico, facing one another and leaning toward each other.  The words uttered by the divine Messenger leave his mouth as streaks of gold, and Mary receives them eagerly.  In the left back corner of the canvass Angelico depicts Adam and Eve being driven from Paradise, as if to alert us that the old, old story of our estrangement from God is about to receive a new chapter.[2]

During this season of waiting for Emmanuel, we are invited to imagine this intimate encounter between Gabriel and Mary in our own minds and to imagine, too, how we would respond if God were to call our name. And make no mistake, God does call our names.  Though our encounters with the Divine may not be depicted in film or on canvas, nonetheless, in Advent we tune our ears for that Voice, and learning to receive its message with humility and grace.  During these weeks of Advent and Christmas, the message goes out once more: God has come among us and will again, in the most surprising ways.  In the words of poet Gerard Manley Hopkins:

Of her flesh he took flesh:

He does take fresh and fresh,

Though much the mystery how,

not flesh but spirit now

And makes, O marvelous!

New Nazareths in us,

Where she shall yet conceive Him,

morning noon and eve:

New Bethlems, and He born there,

evening, noon and morn.

Waiting with you,

Pastor Erik