…a son
I find myself part way through writing a sermon this morning on the conversation between a terrified young girl and an angel. How quickly an ordinary evening turned into a moment to change eternity. Been trying to picture the scene:
In the little house late Summer is starting to give way to autumn. Outside, a light breeze shakes the leaves on the olive trees and they hiss and clatter. The smell of cooking fires drifts from one small house to another. In one of them, a young girl, just a teenager, sweeps the beaten earth floor as shadows lengthen through the open doorway. Reaching the far corner, she turns back to look at the sinking orb of the sun -and finds it replaced by a brighter light still.
The light takes shape…the shape takes a voice, and the walls of the little house seem to shake as it speaks. “Greetings to you, o favoured one, the Lord is with you’. “Isn’t he with all of us”, she wondered “with my father and mother, and my grandmother and all the rest of the family here in the village? Why should I be greeted like this?”. Words begin to form on her lips – words like how and why and who – but they don’t come out – like shouting in a dream when no voice comes
She grips the broom a little tighter – the roughness of the wood reassuring in this strangest of moments. The voice is speaking again. “Mary”. “How does it know my name”, she wonders? The voice goes on to speak about promises of a bygone age; about David and Jacob and thrones and kingdoms and a son to be born. This is getting scary now. She looks around her, anxious for someone to break the moment and make it stop.“The son will be born to you”
At this she lowers her eyes and half turns away. She has never known a man – not like that. What if her mother overheard this…or worse still, her father? His brow would furrow, his heart would break, and the family would be forever clouded by shame. Good girls don’t do that. “How”, she whispered “how can I”?, eyes still cast down.
This time the voice seems more reassuring – like the warmth of that low sun spilling into the room. “Elizabeth knows all about this”, it said “she will bear a child too”
Daring to look up again at this, Mary sees only the full glare of the orange sun, filling the doorway as it sets. Feeling its warmth on her face, she feels those last words driving the chill form her heart “Nothing is impossible with God” Head up once again , she speaks in a clear voice to the now empty room. “Let it be so. Let it be as you have said”
With that, the course of history, like a river diverted by a newly placed boulder, begins to chart a different course…