Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Tuesday, March 25, 2014 - The Annunciation 

Hebrews 2:5-10

The story could have ended before it began.  An encounter between two characters: one an alarming emissary of the all-powerful God, and the other a young girl, alone and afraid.  Yet despite God’s ability to compel Mary’s co-operation with the divine plan, everything depends on Mary’s decision.  Even in this most crucial of moments, with our redemption hanging in the balance, Mary’s consent is required.  And Mary says “yes”.

Consent to God’s plan will be required again, near the end of the story, when Jesus wrestles, in the garden of Gethsemane, with what God is asking him to do.  As it was in a garden that Eve and Adam said “no” to what God asked, thereby estranging themselves from him, it is in another garden that Jesus must say “yes” to God’s most difficult request, in order that the way of reconciliation with God might be opened for all.  And Jesus, too, consents.

Consent to what God asks of us is perhaps one of the more overlooked essentials of the Christian life.  God can send any number of opportunities to us, but we don’t consent to them, we miss out.  Perhaps one of the main reasons we don’t consent is that we don’t recognize these opportunities as they present themselves.  But we are also very full of our own plans for our lives.  And so these requests, these opportunities from God can seem to us like interruptions of the real business of our lives.  Do we imagine that Mary was idle and aimless when the angel appeared, or that she was busy with her duties? Do we imagine that she had no plans of her own when the angel appeared?

God is a God of interruptions.  If we want to serve God and know God better, we have to be ready to put our own pre-occupations aside when the call comes.  Even when we do that, we still have a choice to consent or not.

Even our prayer lives can also be oriented round our own agendas–even when they are focussed on the needs of others–if we do not attend and consent to the Spirit present and moving in our lives.   When we are ready and willing to consent, we may be led down unexpected but fruitful paths whose richness surpasses what might otherwise have been. 

-Ken Hull