Fourth Tuesday in Advent (O Emmanuel)

O Emmanuel, our Sovereign and lawgiver, the desire of all nations and their salvation: come and save us, O Christ our God.

Samuel 2:1b-10; Titus 2:1-10; Luke 1:26-38

At the monastery Eucharist on Sunday we sang about the angel Gabriel coming to Mary.  You know the hymn.  In one verse it reads, “Then gentle Mary meekly bowed her head; so be it unto me as pleaseth God, she said.”  After a weekend with the Lukan story, it was hard to sing those words.  Gentle she may have been; but I don’t see her meekly bowing her head.  I see her gazing at Gabriel, full of fire, almost daring him to say more.  “Here am I,” she says.  

“Yes,” she says.  “Overturn my life.  

Make me an outcast, a stain on my family’s honor.  

Make people whisper about me and my child.  

Threaten me with predictions of his death.  

I will trust God.  

I will believe in impossible things.  

I will do my best in a situation I don’t understand.  

I will raise this child to believe that he is made in the image of God, and to give his life to call others back to that image and that God.  

I dare you to try and scare me away.  

Yes.”

Meek?  I don’t think so.  Think of the single mothers who raise their children against terrible odds.  Think of the fathers and mothers who work themselves to the bone, fleeing oppression, landing with nothing, trying to teach their children that they are holy and precious.  They may act meek in front of their bosses or tormentors, but they are oaks of righteousness who cannot be uprooted.  Gentle, yes: fierce, yes; determined, yes; Spirit-filled, definitely, and not just in her womb, not just after the confrontation with Gabriel.  This is a woman of strength and power, a fitting mother for the Beloved One who overturned a universe.  

Meek?  

This is the woman who raised him to believe he could change the world.  This is the woman who taught Jesus to overturn tables in the Temple, to challenge priests and Pharisees.   

This is the woman who stood by him while he died.

Then gentle Mary fiercely raised her head.  “Okay, you’re on, I’ll do it all,” she said.  

Be it unto me according to your word, God.  Bring it on.