I spoke in church this morning. My pastor had asked me many moons ago to give the sermon today, the Sunday where we reflect on Mary, the mother of Jesus. Geesh--
big pressure. Thought I'd pass along my spoken words in print should you, my oddly anonymous readers, feel like reading them. It's long--I'll warn you--cause it's a
sermon. It was written to be read aloud, so don't get all grumpy pants about fractured sentences and such (which is usually how I write, anyway). This was my virgin voyage standing up on that pulpit, and it felt quite vulnerable to speak such intimate words to the masses. There is something far safer about writing. But I did it and, better yet, I was successful at not tripping coming down all of those steps in my heels.
Noemi was a star in this morning's Christmas pageant at church; and though I'll write more on that and our fun-filled weekend with a visit from
The Orens in a later post, I'll at least share a few photos of her spending the remainder of the day in her "crown". She could barely see half of the time, but insisted on wearing it. Reason #763 to love this age.
And now...
If you've got 15 minutes and have the gumption to keep reading, go ahead--scroll down and read away...
(OK, so the emphasis on particular verses are not mine --I had a hard time copying this passage successfully and it's too late for me to fool with editing it any more. So, there. Deal with it.)Mother of Eleousa
Luke 1: 26-38 NRSV
26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’Blessed are you among women29But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. 31And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ 34Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ I do not know a man 35The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born of you will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37For nothing will be impossible with God.’ 38Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her.
The Birth of Jesus Foretold
In Luke’s account of Mary being told that she would give birth to a baby named Jesus the deliverer was an angel, a messenger from God. I’ve heard this passage since the time I was a young child--every Christmas we heard how Mary was given the good news. Usually the focus of this passage is how favored Mary was to have been chosen to be the blessed mother of Jesus or how miraculous of an event it was for a young girl to give birth to the Messiah. But as I read this passage again with fresh eyes the last sentence struck me the most: Then the angel departed from her.
I don’t know if Mary was asleep or awake when that angel came to her, but either way she must have been confused. I’ve had conversations with friends about their impressions of angels and they differ so much from person to person. I envision angels to be nymph-y creatures, fluttering and life-size. They usually have stars sparkling around them and always have well manicured feet. I’ve never thought of angels to be scary. But after polling friends on this topic, I learned that some see angels as large gargoyle-type creatures, perched above us on guard and ready for battle. Others see them as kind human-like beings among us. I’m sure we each bring our own experiences to the table, which effect how we see angels in our minds’ eye. Our impressions would tell us a lot about each other’s personalities. But any way you envision them, nymph-y fluttery things or warrior-type things, that angel surely shook Mary to the core. And then the angel was gone. Did you catch that part of the story? It’s a quick little verse at the end of the passage, so it could easily be missed or deemed insignificant. It’s easy to be distracted by the dramatic words that Mary was told, her humble response and then news of her cousin also being pregnant. But the part of this passage that I am most struck by is how the angel came to Mary, dropped a duzzie on her and then “departed”.
I do believe in angels. I also believe in the power of dreams and that God can use the time when our minds have turned off from the business of the day to send messages. After all, God spoke frequently to people through dreams in the Old Testament. Why would that not still be an effective mode of communication today? The trick is whether or not I am in tune enough with what is being spoken to me to do anything about it. I’ve been a vivid dreamer as long as I can remember and I’ve long used my dreams as a way of deciphering God’s will in my life (or at least I try).
Years ago, when Donovan and I were in the midst of a 3-year span of doctor appointments in an effort to conceive a child, I had a dream that came to me repeatedly. Week after week. Month after month. I don’t know that I can really call it a dream. It was merely a clear loud voice that I heard during a sound sleep and it woke me every time: I did not make you for this. It was as simple as that: I did not make you for this. At the time, I was not sure what it meant. Certainly the longing for a child and the invasive doctor appointments to see if it was safe for me to carry a baby caused me great stress. It was obvious that these words had something to do with this anxiety. Was God telling me not to worry about my medical concerns and that a biological child was the right path for us? Or was God leading me in a different direction? I wasn’t sure because Donovan and I had always planned on adopting children, in addition to having biological children; so it wasn’t like I hadn’t thought a lot about adoption along the way. What was it that I was not made for?
Many months later, I got my answer. After a series of very difficult doctor appointments, Donovan and I decided that growing our family through a pregnancy was not safe for me. That evening I sat on his lap at the kitchen table and a good, hard cry--you know, the real ugly cry--mourning the loss of a life-long dream to carry a baby in my body and feel it grow. We decided that evening to move on to the other path that we had always wanted --adoption. That night, as I lay in bed sleeping soundly, I was jarred awake by the same voice. This time, it spoke different words to me as clear as a bell: This is what I made you for. I woke only to find a sleeping Donovan by my side and the cat at my feet. The house was quiet. No angel was fluttering around my head or perched on the woodwork above my closet door. The message was relayed loud and clear. Even though I only ever heard it that one time, I know that it was God’s way of telling me that I was finally following the plan He had for me. This is what I made you for.
Some could say that is the end of the story. Just as it is easy to romanticize Mary’s journey once she accepted the call from God to carry his son. But the problem with messages from God is once we listen to them and the hard part of the journey that requires faith and follow-through begins, we may feel very much so on our own. We may feel like the angel--or even God--departs from us. Goodness knows it would be a whole lot easier to gloss over that part of the story. But struggle is part of the human condition and without it we lack the opportunity to find redemption with our God.
Now I’m no Biblical scholar, but I could not find where the angel returned to Mary to give her advise along the way. You know, when she sparked a scandal by being the girl who was unmarried and pregnant and started getting all of the heckling from the ladies in town. Or when Joseph’s buddies put doubt in his mind over whether or not Mary had been faithful to him. Or when her friends scoffed at her for being so high and mighty to have thought that she was actually carrying a holy baby. Or when she started having some serious labor pains on that donkey. Let’s not forget that she fled after Jesus was born out of fear that her child may be slaughtered. And then, to take the cake as if her faith had not been rattled enough--did the angel appear when her grown son was persecuted and tortured publicly? Where was the angel then, giving her encouragement and reminding her of those soft words spoken years earlier? The angel departed from her.
This is the real part of the story where Mary needed that angel to return and give her some words of assurance along the way. How could watching her son suffer and die not shake her faith in God to the core? It’s in the working through the muck that the rubber hits the road and our faith slams us in the face. It is then that we are forced to come to terms with whether or not we truly believed in the words of that angel and the path that God has created for us. It’s in those moments that holy has the potential for being born within us.
Mind you, I’m not comparing me to Mary (oh goodness no) or Noemi to Jesus (oh, goodness gracious no) but I draw this parallel because I have gleaned a lot from this woman of faith and strive to find her patience and strength.
I thought my years of traipsing around to 13 different medical specialists was tough, but the past year of mothering my sweet child is where I have really needed the voice of an angel rooting me on. Now those of you who know Noemi would agree with me when I say that she packs a serious cuteness punch. There is no arguing that I am blessed to have been gifted the wonder of my daughter. But mothering a child who lost her parents, was institutionalized in an orphanage and was then asked to trust and love 2 strangers, her new parents, has brought me to my knees more times than I can count. It’s commonly expressed that babies are resilient, but brain research is revealing that babies who have experienced early trauma like Noemi are neurologically altered and require significant care to work through their loss.
My amazing daughter-- my charming, strong and incredibly kind daughter continues to show that she is unconsciously grieving and working through the rough events of her past. Just as anyone who has lost a loved one knows that grieving doesn’t ever go away, it just changes, Noemi went through and continues to do some serious sorting out of her feelings. And I grieve for her grief. She’s learning to trust us. She’s learning that I am not going to leave her. She’s also learning how to try me to my ends now that she has entered the world of terrible twos. But toddler-hood aside, her challenges have made our first 16 months together far more exhausting and isolating than I had ever expected. She is healing, no doubt--I see evidence of that every day and I have confidence that these struggles do not and should not define her. But what about those sleepless nights of an inconsolable, frightened and angry baby? Where was my angel then? Where was my messenger reminding me, This is what I made you for, Julie? Maybe that voice didn’t show up because it knew that, in those moments of serious stress, I wouldn’t have believed it. Watching a child suffer rocks one’s faith like nothing I have ever experienced. But all I can do in those moments is rely on those words from years ago: This is what I made you for.
And maybe, just maybe, this is where God asks me to rely on the Holy Spirit to intercede and do its work. I may not hear voices in the night directing and encouraging me, but in my silent moments God asks me to trust in a plan far greater than my understanding.
A dear friend of mine who I will not name (but may sometimes go by Amy Schultz) gifted me an icon of Mary pressing an infant Jesus to her cheek. Mary looks somber and stressed in this image. It is an icon that is considered to be one of the Marys of Tender Mercy and is meant to represent the mother who feels anxiety for her child. I took great strength from this image and promptly hung it in Noemi’s nursery. Each day as I painstakingly rocked my inconsolable baby, I stared at this image of Mary and asked for the Holy Spirit to surround and protect us. Whatever that meant--I wasn’t quite sure. To bring Noemi peace. To wash away my self-pity and restore me with conviction. To soak up Mary’s tender mercy, as she knew that her child was born of greatness and trusted in that. I like to think that Mary had moments of self-pity and fear, but the scholars decided not to include those juicy details in the Bible. And maybe she did; but the bottom line is that the woman persevered. And that is what I take from Luke’s account. The angel may have departed, but Mary was one tough broad to carry on. And that turned out to be my prayer--to become one tough broad in the name of Jesus.
So was there a duzzie dropped on you this year? Or does it seem that you are not being given a message, despite your pleas for guidance? Are you feeling like your angel is nowhere to be found? In this season of advent, in this season of holy waiting, what answers are you longing for? What is to be birthed within you? For me, this Christmas, Mary’s courage, perseverance and tender mercy are my sources of strength. In a way, Mary has become my angel. The Holy Spirit is teaching me to use her hope as my own.
I think it’s no coincidence that Noemi’s favorite character from her little toy nativity scene is the angel Gabriel. She totes him all over the house-- having breakfast with him, becoming distressed when he gets lodged behind the toilet and storing him in the pockets of her sweaters. She misplaces him multiple times a day, but she persists in looking for him until he is found. Noemi knows a secret that has taken me over a year to figure out: It is important to believe that even when your angel seems nowhere to be found, it doesn’t mean that he is not right under your nose. In the dark moments of these past several years, the Holy Spirit has been there whether I felt it or not. Perhaps you’re unsure of what this advent is supposed to be teaching you just yet, but trust that God will not abandon you. He has gifted us with the constant presence of the Holy Spirit--even after it seems to have departed-- and that trust can sustain you. That is God’s promise to us.
"Our Lady of Vladimir", ca. 1131, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
CHRISTMAS morning! Happened with a bang. so. much. joy. We spent the quiet morning as a threesome then had brunch with family. It was likely our first and last year of showering before we descended the stairs for gift exchanging. Well, D and I showered--Sosi spent the day, and the majority of the next day, in her snowman jammies. Why argue with comfort?
SNOW! We traveled to my parents' house in the Philadelphia suburbs later on Christmas day and were slammed with winds and snow the day after. We were not prepared for the storm, so Noemi wore her rain boots (a Christmas gift from Nana and Pappy) and some other throw-it-together-and-make-it-work snow clothes. She didn't care--she was as happy as a clam hobbling around in her multi-layered ensemble in the wind. Whereas I have to be coaxed to show face outside in such horrid weather, my girl found it magical to be whipped around in the cold. Snot, snow, snot, snow--she ate a hefty mixture of both. The next day, after the sun came out (and it was appropriate to take the camera outside), Noemi made her first (long-awaited) snowman and snow angels. She insisted on cradling that snowman, complete with an old-man whiskery nose, like a baby.
There you go. Not too many details, but lots of cute pics of the kid. That's what everyone wants anyway, no? Hoping your holiday week was merry and bright!
