Oh, to have been a fly on the wall and to have witnessed the most important encounter between heaven and earth since the creation of the human race! All done in a fleeting minute, with a very insignificant person in a, then, insignificant town, in a relatively insignificant country.
How odd of God. Or rather, (when we take our darkened spectacles off) why should we be surprised?
All through the oral and written history of our religious tradition, God chooses the weak to confound the strong or you may prefer the words of the Magnificat, “He casts the mighty from their thrones and raises the lowly”.
But…always in God’s time, at God’s pace, and in God’s way.
And there’s the rub.
We want it now, immediately and on our terms.
Maybe that is why we have four Sundays in Advent. To slow us down a little (we have nearly rushed into pre- Covid speed in Victoria), to help us really look at the Lucan story and notice more keenly that Mary took her time, asked pertinent and respectful questions before she answered, “let what you have said be done to me.”
And the world changed as it awaited the Saviour.
As God offered Mary a choice, in many similar ways we, too, are offered opportunities to side with God and to bring sense and peace and hope to our world.
Let us resolve, again, to give the Angels good news of our responses to report back to heaven!
Have a very happy family and prayerful gathering this Christmas.
Mons Frank