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But Mary was very perplexed by Gabriel’s words…’How can this be, since I am a virgin?’… {Mary}

I love the story of God born to a virgin because of how utterly outrageous it is. If we were aiming to create a religion perfectly suited for the modern mind, we failed with gusto. Our vast intellect, rigorous experimentation and unflagging chutzpah have conquered the moon, polio and more than a few mysteries of the atom. We have debunked old delusions and learned to snicker at the naivete of older generations. And if we know anything at all, it’s this: virgins don’t have babies.

Of course, this brilliant observation would not be news to Jews of the first century – or to anyone at anytime for that matter. Our primal urges as well as our survival as a human population means that, in every age, we possess a clear understanding of at least the basic components required for a child to find its way into a woman’s belly. Yet here we have our first story of Jesus, and it is absolutely ridiculous.

When we review Jesus’ life, however, we know that his arrival simply had to be absurd. Everything Jesus would teach us, every way he would move in this world, would be entirely nonsensical to the established truths and entrenched powers. If we think the virgin birth was Jesus’ most ludicrous moment, we’re not paying attention.

But the question for us, the tension this story and all Jesus’ stories create for us, is this: will I receive the absurd and fantastic love of God? Will I, like Mary, say, Here I am, crazy as it sounds. I’m in. And will we stay put so that we can welcome with wide arms the joy, the love, the wonder?

I treasure the story because it forces me to ask: When the mystery of God’s love breaks through into my consciousness, do I run from it? Do I ask of it what it cannot answer? Shrugging, do I retreat into facile clichés…Or am I virgin enough to respond from my deepest, truest self, and say something new, a “YES” that will change me forever? {Kathleen Norris}

This reflection comes from the Gospel reading from this week’s lectionary: Luke 1:46-55. Many thanks to John Blase and Kelly Hausknecht Chripczuk for being my cohorts this Advent.

I hope that you play and laugh, that you give and receive much love over these next few days. Have a very merry Christmas.

From this day, all generations will call me blessed… {The Virgin Mary}

On this third week of Advent, the virgin Mary sings her song. This courageous woman bore, through sweat, ridicule and the travail of her own body, the One who would save us all. It is no small thing that in a world where men controlled every sphere of power it was a woman who carried the hope of the world.

To be sure, Mary was no passive woman only familiar with the way of the meek and mild. Mary knew a fierce gentleness. She sang of how her child would overthrow empires and unravel systems of injustice — even as she sang hope over all who were hungry, all who were desperate for help, all who had been cut low by the grief of life. Mary was a friend to the weary and a threat to the powers. Women of tenderness and strength always are.

Today, I cannot think of Mother Mary without thinking of my own mother, the wonderful woman who carried me into existence, the woman who nurtured me and prayed over me, the good woman who released me into my future with more than a few tears. I think of the woman who shares my life, the woman who labored so that our two boys might know this world, a woman who labors over them still.

It is a costly thing to surrender your body so that another might live. Jesus knows this, but Mary knows this as well. Mary bore our one hope into this world, a cosmos shot through with both wonder and misery. No wonder we call her, even as she foretold, the Blessed Mother.

Each Monday during Advent, John Blase, Kelly Hausknecht Chripczuk and I reflect on the same Advent text from the week’s lectionary. This week, it’s Luke 1:46-55, Mary’s Magnificat.

Tag: mary

Absurd {fourth week of advent}

Blessed Mother {third week of advent}