| Advent 4 | | Date Created: Dec 13, 2005, 10:15 AM |
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The Gospel reading for this coming Sunday is Luke 1:26-38.
At least John the Baptist's mother wanted to get pregnant. Poor Mary. From the very beginning, the salvation of the world meant nothing but trouble and heartaches for her personally. Couldn't God have waited a year until they were married; or couldn't he have caused Joseph to pop the question a few months earlier? So much for the idea that God is going to work in culturally appropriate ways, eh? An unmarried woman -- pregnant -- in that culture? Forget about it.
Yet she's gonna start singing about it, praising God, within the space of a chapter. Why?
The trick is not letting culture determine what is good about your relationship with God. The trick is letting your relationship with God determine what is good. The people you talk with down the pub find "sin" or "the cross" a stumbling block? Do you imagine Mary and Joseph had an easier time with her pregnancy? As Mary and the earliest Christians would have an easier time with a Messiah who'd been hanged on a tree, humiliated as a criminal by the Romans. Most of this stuff has never been culturally appropriate. If you're looking for something marketable and safe, you're gonna have to look somewhere else. |
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