How?
/Mary said to the angel, “How can this be?” -Luke 1:34
The angel had just laid out a pretty preposterous situation to Mary. Hi Mary, you’re favored by God the Almighty. And, as a matter of fact, you’re now going to carry and bear God’s own son, and God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and there will be no end to his eternal kingdom!
Um… what? How can this be? I mean, pregnant? I have never done what everyone knows you need to do to get pregnant! So how can this be?
Oh, don’t worry, the angel says to her. The Holy Spirit will take care of everything, and this child will be called holy, because he’ll be the son of God. OK?
Um…
A lot is made of Mary’s saying yes. But I often think about how she really didn’t have much of a choice. Anyone who’s ever had a positive pregnancy test knows the sense of having gotten onto a train that’s not going to stop. Mary may not have had a choice about whether or not she’d been put on the train, but what she did have control over was how she was going to react. And she chose to go with it and receive it as a gift, even though certainly she had no idea how things were going to go once others, including her unsuspecting fiance, found out!
Have you ever been thrust into a situation you did not feel at all prepared for? A challenging situation you were not sure you’d be able to handle? Have you ever unexpectedly found yourself on a speeding train that you couldn’t get off? A situation in which the only choice you had was about how you would react? It could be something like a serious medical diagnosis, or a job loss, or an accident, or…. How can this be? And how am I ever going to get through this? When this happened to Mary, what she did was give it all back to God. OK God, here I am, willing to go through what you’re putting me through. I’m just going to trust you’ll show me the way.
Mary seems to adjust to this situation very quickly in the Scriptures, though, and most paintings of this moment depict Mary with a serene body position and a peaceful, calm and knowing look on her face. I have a hard time believing that’s how it really went down. That’s why I love the painting above by Henry Ossawa Tanner. The angel is depicted as a mysterious bright light and Mary’s face is full of confusion and worry. She looks so lonely there in her room.
We only get a few bible verses to tell this whole story, so who knows how long Mary cried and fretted, pacing the floor in private before deciding to run to Elizabeth’s house for some support? Who knows how many fearful and sleepless nights she suffered before she heard that Joseph wished to remain engaged and had decided he would support the child as his own? And who knows how many jeers and insults she might have endured after the rumors got out there? All we see is a brief description of a well-adjusted Mary, delighted to be of service to the Lord.
Well, the rest of us are certainly a little more cranky about the overwhelming, life-altering changes that come our way in life. But nonetheless, when we can put our trust in God as Mary did, even if it’s only little by little, we too will be brought through all our trials, and we’ll even find some blessings and unexpected joys along the way. For with God, nothing is impossible.
