1 Samuel 1:19-28; Psalm 113 or 122; Luke 1:46-56
Mary’s Song: or is it? Some early manuscripts attribute this to Elizabeth. The difference matters. If Elizabeth is singing, we have overtones of Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel. The barren woman rejoices because she has longed for a child. And Elizabeth is the one filled with the Holy Spirit here. Makes sense.
But if Mary sings it, the meaning is deeper than “sense.” For Mary to sing this, she has to have shifted context as Elizabeth invited her to do. For her to sing this, she has to have moved from submission through obedience all the way to joyful participation. Her first “yes” might have been simple acceptance of what was to be, the way people today say the Serenity prayer: I can’t change it, but there it is. I’ll do my best with it. But this “yes” is much more. This is the “yes” where Mary grows up into the stature of the Theotokos, the Mother of God who brings forth divine life not as a receptacle but as an agent. She is not just a womb. She is a co-creator of the new life flowing through her.
You know the difference in your own life between the first “yes” and the second. For centuries the Church(es) modeled that the first “yes” of submission was the ideal for women (and for non-elite men). But that “yes” is not the deepest “yes” God calls out of us. The second “yes” is where we come fully alive, where God is incarnate in us.
If you aren’t sure you’ve experienced the second “yes,” there’s no time to waste! Your life is waiting for you to claim it and celebrate it. Look back at yesterday’s post and see where your context needs shifting. What do you need in order to say the big “yes”?
May God give you the grace and strength to be all that you are meant to be.
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