If we were in Mary’s position in today’s Gospel reading, would we see the Angel Gabriel? If we’re honest with ourselves, would we hear the message from the angel and would we accept Jesus into our bodies and our lives?
The reason I asked this is because hiding from God is what we sinners tend to do. When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, what did the do? They hid from God. The hiding from God that began in the Garden of Eden continues still today with many of us sinners hiding behind our screens and our phones from God.
I don’t know about you, but if you’re anything like me, you spend way too much time with a screen in front of your face. So many times I find myself lying in bed like this with my phone about a foot in front of my face. As I lay in bed with my phone in front of my face, if the Angel Gabriel came to me and was positioned somewhere behind my phone, I wonder if I would even see the angel. From God’s perspective, God may view the screens in front of our faces as being designed to literally screen out God’s from our lives.
And then there is the hearing of God’s message. With headphones in our ears, from God’s perspective, God may view this as the adult equivalent of us saying, “La, la, la, la, la, la, la, I can’t hear you, I’m not listening.”
All this makes me wonder if these are simply outward manifestations of the inward disposition of our hardened hearts that are closed off to God’s messenger, God’s message, and God himself. Jesus the divine physician desires to come inside us to do some open-heart surgery to cure us of this fatal ailment that plagues too many of us. Jesus the divine physician comes to us to make a house call, and as he knocks on our door, all too often he encounters a do not disturb sign we hung on our door.
If we practiced our faith as much as we practice our sin, would we leave Jesus on the outside looking in? By allowing ourselves to be constantly distracted, I believe we are missing out on a life-changing encounter with Jesus. Perhaps all the amazing miracles we hear about in the Bible, which we desire for God to come do in our lives today are left unfulfilled because we are blocking God’s blessing.
Friends, for the love of God, we need to take the do not disturb sign off our door. We need to stop hiding behind our screens. We need to stop being constantly distracted from the one who truly matters. We need to take a break from looking for gifts online to be open to the great gift God is trying to bring into our lives this Christmas by giving us his son as our savior.
If grace is the great gift that is offered to us, then faith is receiving this great gift. Mary shows us how to do this. Mary realizes that God is the divine giver of the grace with which he fills Mary. It is Mary in all her humility who is simply the receiver of this divine grace. Mary, like us, is dependent on God for divine grace.
When Mary is troubled by what the angel said to her, instead of responding to the angel right away, Mary pondered this. As she pondered this, I believe Mary was thinking back to the time when the first woman, Eve, was visited by another angel, a fallen angel, with a troubling message.
I believe Mary was thinking about how she could learn from Eve’s mistakes in hopes of undoing the original sin Eve brought into this world that sent herself and her descendants into hiding from God. I believe she pondered how in the Garden of Eden it was a fallen angel with a message designed to cause distrust of God and how that was very different from the Angel Gabriel in front of her who was bringing a message of trusting that God is with her. Because of Eve’s distrust of God, Eve sinned and hid from God.
But with Mary, she trusted that nothing will be impossible for God, not even the apparent contradiction of being a virgin and a mother. Because of this trust, Mary made a choice to have God hide inside her. In this moment, the most blessed man who ever lived and the most blessed woman who ever lived became united for all eternity. With this choice, Mary helped undo the original sin of Eve, opening up a new path for each of her children through Jesus. It is because of Mary’s choice that the whole human race has the hope of heaven.
Jesus comes to us today in the Eucharist desiring to enter inside each of us and to become united with us for all eternity. Just as Jesus desired 2,000 years ago to have a good place to call home inside Mary, he desires today to have you as his good place to call home where he can live, grow, and overflow to go out into the world to share his good news. Jesus is God’s gift to us and faith means accepting this gift. Choosing to receive this great gift like Mary with openness and trust is the most important decision we can make in our lives.