The Courageous Yes
An angel.
A young girl.
A domestic scene.
A frightful time.
A choice.
This is the story that remains with me this Advent.
We are now one day before Christmas Eve and the story of Mary’s encounter with the angel hasn’t left my mind.
What I sit with is Mary’s courageous yes when presented with this choice.
Mary was indeed free to say yes or no. God was present to her the way God has always been present to humans from the beginning - with a loving open heart. Not as a puppeteer.
Mary’s yes was a very big deal!
It released certain things to happen.
She said yes to pregnancy - a scandal to everyone else, but she saw it as a sign of God’s favor.
She said yes, suspecting, maybe deeply knowing, that her life would be in danger.
She said a courageous yes to a life of not being exactly sure what she said yes to.
Her yes would change everything for her and for the rest of us.I don’t think I have ever been visited by an angel while folding laundry, but I do know that I am nudged frequently to say yes to God throughout my day and all my days.
Maybe we can call these nudges, little annunciations.
Some days I am courageous, like Mary. Some days I am less likely to cooperate.
When Mary said yes to God she released Jesus into the world.
She made room.
There would be no room for her and her family, but her yes carved out a space for Jesus to enter into her reality and eventually, into ours too.A portion of the poem Annunciation by Denise Levertov wonders…
Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?
Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.
More often
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.I do not want the gates to close or the pathway to vanish.
I want to be an entry point for Jesus to be with us. Like Mary, I want to say yes.
Come, Immanuel.