The Annunciation

Growing up in Christian community one hears things about Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Now, I did not grow up Anglican (my history is being baptized as a baby in a Congregational church, but moving to a Lutheran church from about age 3 to age 10, then moving to a Baptist church which was more fundamentalist bent, and having gone to a Christian school run by said Baptist church from K-12th grade), but it seems that most Protestant churches talk about Mary in one of a few ways. (Did I also mention I attended a non-denominational Christian university for my four years of undergrad and met Christians from a wide range of denominations)?

Either we Protestants venerate Mary (which does not equate to Mary worship, venerate means to revere or respect) or we don't really talk about Mary except at Christmas and Easter and when we do it's kind of in contradictory terms.

As Anglicans we venerate Mary. She's the Mother of Jesus Christ she was handpicked by God to carry the Savior of the world YOU BET WE RESPECT AND REVERE HER. But at the same time we can admit that she was still human and didn't know everything (take the time when Jesus was 12 and in the temple) and maybe she left anxiousness get in the way a time or two (see Jesus' first miracle).

But I have seen teachers take those imperfections of a human being and make them bigger than they are. As a child (and as a girl) it's very interesting to sit through a class where the teacher says "It's clear that while Mary was godly, she didn't have much trust or faith in God because she asks him 'How will this be, since I'm a virgin?' This shows that she while she was godly she did not have a clear trust in God."

Like how ridiculous does that sound? Let me tell you, as a woman and a virgin, if some angel appeared to be and told me I was about to have a child I too would be like "How can this be since I haven't had sex nor have I made any visits to a fertility clinic."

I also probably would have been super New England-sassy which is probably why God chose Mary instead of waiting 2,000 more years for me. She most likely kept the sarcasm in check and was clearly the better choice.

But Mary's question is not wrong. The strongest faith is not blind. Even Dante himself works through this in his Divine Comedy. I have heard many lessons on how we Christians shouldn't question God because it shows a lack of faith and shows doubt and that doubt is a sin. Too much doubt, sure, might lead us in wrong directions, but blind faith doesn't grow us.

Sometimes, of course, God won't answer us right away or we will still need to start doing what He has called us to do before we get an answer, but that's different because the whole time we're still having dialogue with God, we're not going in without continuously discussing the situation with Him.

Anyway, back to Mary.

Mary had tremendous trust in God. She lived during a time when betrothed women who were found to be with child (who was not the child of the man she was betrothed to) could be killed. Just for having a kid out of wedlock. KILLED. It is clear that she had complete trust that God would see her through this pregnancy, that somehow everything would work out and either she would 1. still marry Joseph or 2. be taken care of if he decided to break it off.

We see in the first chapter of Matthew that Joseph had his own visit with Gabriel in a dream which pushed him to keep the engagement with Mary and claim the child as his own.

Soap Operas got nothing on small town Nazareth.

What still amazes me, though, is that Mary was not anyone special. She does not appear to be the daughter of a rich man, she came from a backwater town in Galilee called Nazareth. Nothing about her family was special. Even Joseph's only claim to fame was that he could trace his family roots back to King David, but that's about it. He was still a poor carpenter from backwater Nazareth.

Can we just take a minute to think about the fact that God uses ordinary people to bring glory to Him? That He chooses ordinary people to help usher in the Kingdom of God, to raise the Messiah while here on Earth. That's what He does. Sure He uses kings and rulers, but the stories that stick with us are predominately about ordinary people doing extraordinary acts because they trusted God and faithfully followed Him - not without a few questions and occasionally not without a few arguments with God - because God is not interested in your lineage, He's not interested in how much money you have or who you know. He's interested in whether or not you are faithful and obedient to Him and if you're willing to risk everything to bring the Kingdom of God to all the world.

Think about that, next time you hear the story of The Annunciation.

Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.