ADVENT REFLECTION by Anne Spooner

Last week, in one of our Fellows classes, we were drawn back to the Magnificat – Mary’s Song. The conversation sparked my interest, and I found myself mulling over the mysterious and complex role of Mary in the narrative of Christ’s birth. Could it be that we have lost some of the radiance of Mary’s life? Within her story there seems to be a promise for the ordinary days behind and ahead of us – that no act is shameful, or even insignificant, when done in obedience.

Surely there is much to be learned from the story of a woman who was chosen at the beginning of time to be the second woman to usher in a climactic shift – one that transferred us from Eve’s death to the life of Mary’s womb. Mary was a normal girl. Joseph was a normal guy. And God chose to come into the world through the projected shame of a teenage pregnancy. Has that ever struck you? God chose what was weak in the eyes of the world – a woman under the power of her family, reputation, and betrothal, to be the conduit of His Word.

The patriarchal structure of the culture at the time of Jesus’ birth was contrary to Mary’s relational and moral agency. The male voice had front and center stage. This was not unintentional on God’s part. Yet, to despairingly claim that the historical narrative is only male dominated is to disgrace and pity the strong female voice that has been speaking for thousands of years. The Christian narrative should be the place this is most clearly seen: it was not Moses who took the first step to free the Jews, but his mother who had faith. It was not Joseph who was asked to carry the physical weight of Jesus, but Mary. It was not men who were asked to first tell of the resurrection, but women. 

Rarely is it mentioned that the Creator of the universe chose a teenage pregnancy to be his first incarnational ministry. A woman was chosen to be the only person in the world God depended on for His development into the Person He would become. Her body, designed to protect, kept Jesus alive. The umbilical cord was not a spiritual reality, but one Mary could tangibly experience as the food she ate grew a Child who would set her free. This freedom was not just from the poverty of choice she most likely faced, but from herself. The widening of her womb and the tearing of her own flesh made the way for Christ. Through the tearing of His own flesh, Christ would rip the curtain that separated us from life. The images of are deliberate. Can you let yourself be awed by them?

What child is this, born in the arms of a teenage girl? This is Christ, who declared Mary’s broken body the instrument for redemption. This is Christ, who would be torn to provide a new way to life, through the blood and narrow way of salvation. This birth is the image we carry into our day. Nothing done in obedience is ordinary; it is all cosmic.

Made Flesh
After the bright beam of hot annunciation
Fused heaven with dark earth
His searing sharply-focused light
Went out for a while
Eclipsed in amniotic gloom:
His cool immensity of splendor
His universal grace
Small-folded in a warm dim
Female space—
The Word stern-sentenced to be nine months dumb—
Infinity walled in a womb
Until the next enormity—the Mighty,
After submission to a woman’s pains
Helpless on a barn-bare floor
First-tasting bitter earth.

Now, I in him surrender
To the crush and cry of birth.
Because eternity
Was closeted in time
He is my open door
To forever.
From his imprisonment my freedoms grow,
Find wings.
Part of his body, I transcend this flesh.
From his sweet silence my mouth sings.
Out of his dark I glow.
My life, as his,
Slips through death’s mesh,
Time’s bars,
Joins hands with heaven,
Speaks with stars.

Luci Shaw, A Widening Light: Poems of The Incarnation