Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.”
Luke 1:38
In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis says, “Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is.”
If this is true for a grown man, what about a teenaged girl? Listen to what the Blessed Virgin Mary said when taken off her guard. What are her first recorded words in the Bible?
Well, her first sentence is exactly what we’d expect from anyone sitting there in Nazareth, minding their own business when an Archangel appears, declaring that God is about to use them to bear Love into the world and to change everything.
Like most of us facing the unimaginable, Mary basically says, “HUH?!” “How can this possibly happen?” But then we witness one of the greatest acts of human faithfulness ever recorded.
The angel says things to her that still have theologians scratching their heads. I mean, what in this world does it mean that God will “overshadow” her? And who can claim, then or since, to understand the Holy Spirit? That’s a huge amount of pressure for anyone, to say nothing of a terrified teenager who could not possibly know in that crucial moment that she was about to inspire untold songs and statues, tattoos and tapestries.
The entirety of earthly history hung in the balance. If ever anyone faced a pregnant pause, Mary did, with ranks of angels standing tiptoe, leaning in to learn what she would say. So what did she say when taken off her guard?
First, she said, “Look - I belong to the Lord.” And next, she simply said, “Whatever you say... From your mouth to God’s ear... Okay, sign me up.” She said, “Yes!”
I think that courageous answer forms one of the best prayers we can pray, a prayer perhaps especially poignant during an unprecedented pandemic. Mary said “yes!” with no idea what would happen next. All she knew was that she belonged to the Lord.
So maybe as we face this COVID Christmas we can take a cue from Mary and her monumental labor of love. Maybe we too can look around at a world we don’t understand and say, simply, “I belong to You, Lord - and so yes.”
Love still wants to change the world. Through you. Why not say “yes”?
God bless you!
Andrew