Day 13 - Mary

​Mary. Mary...the MOTHER OF GOD. The MOTHER of God! Can you imagine? I can imagine being a mother, yes, (and what a wonderful thing it is to be a mother :)...but the MOTHER of God??!!

Every year in Advent we re-visit the story. The angel appears to Mary... "How can this be (that I will have a child?) since I have no husband?", she wonders.

And then, famously, "Let it be to me according to your word", and the angel departed from her, Scripture teaches.

When I was in Divinity School the church I attended had a Christmas Pageant. A teenage girl was Mary (tradition holds that Mary would have been a teenager - very young to be a mother by our reckoning). The look on this girl's face was anything BUT, 'let it be to me according to your word.' She looked as though she would have rather been anywhere else.

Maybe Mary felt that way too sometimes....a long trip she and Joseph had and then giving birth in a stable. Yikes.

The Roman Catholic tradition makes much of Mary, more, I think, than Protestant churches do.  Our loss, I feel. Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, we know that. But without Mary...no birth, no Jesus.

How does the word Mary, the idea of Mary, the images of Mary, the hopes of Mary, the questions of Mary and the faith of Mary help me get ready for Christmas?

She carried Jesus. I can try and do that too....(And what would that be like?)

She held him! I can try and do that too...(And what would that be like?)

She gave birth to God. (Let that sink in for a bit....)

I can try and do that too....

As I said in a sermon a couple of weeks ago....we are all meant to be mother's of God, for God is always needing to be born into this world.

Can you think of a place, or a person, or a situation for whom that isn't true?

- Laurie Krooss

Today's picture is something that my beloved middle niece, Diana, drew when she was very little, 'Mary Christmas' indeed!