The God and the Girl Who Wait

The God and the Girl Who Wait--December 13, 2018

"The angel said to Mary, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And 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. For nothing will be impossible with God.' Then 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." [Luke 1:35-38]

In this moment, something amazing happens.  Mary begins to wait for what the angel has promised... but so does God.

That's a strange thought, probably.  We tend to think that one of the perks of being God should be not having to wait for things.  After all, God could choose to snap a divine finger and make a baby appear, right?  God just speaks the universe into existence, right?  Jesus just shouts to Lazarus, and the dead man comes back to life, right?  Surely a God who can launch creation with a simple, "Let there be light" and pulls off a resurrection by simply saying, "Lazarus, come out!" can also make a fully formed human being at the drop of a hat.  Why even start with a baby, while we're on the subject?  Why not just speak a cosmic, "Bazinga!" and have a fully-grown adult Jesus appear out of the smoke?

Because, of course, this moment is about God's complete embrace of humanity--God goes "all the way down," so to speak, to be completely immersed in our human life.  And, whether we like it or not, human life involves existing within the bounds of time.  That means waiting... both Mary waiting for a child now growing inside her to be born, and also God waiting for the same thing.  God waits doubly, you could say: God waits on the outside, alongside Mary, for the nine months to pass, and God waits in the womb, too, as cells divide, as fingers form, as life grows there in the darkness.  God waits because God chooses to--because fully entering into humanity requires the time for growing, developing, and becoming.

This waiting is really an amazing thing, both on Mary's part, and on God's.  For her part, Mary commits to an entirely new course of her life with her "Yes" to the angel.  Her consent is important, and maybe we don't often consider what a wonder it is that God hangs the whole story of the universe's salvation on the consenting response of a teenage girl (and, to be quite frank, teenagers as a rule are not known for their excellence in patience).  But there, as everything depends on what Mary will say--and her willingness to live into the "Yes" she speaks.  Because with her sentence, "Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word," she consents to the waiting of the nine months... and then the years of raising this child... and the heartache and sorrow that are waiting along the way, too.  It won't be long once the child is born, after all, that old Simeon will warn Mary that there is a pierced heart in store for her, too, because she will ache over the suffering of her boy.  

Whatever other life plans Mary had made, whatever other cookie cutter vision of Plan A for a Successful Life she had grown up with, whatever other dreams for how her life would go, these things were set aside with her "Yes" to the pregnancy.  That is a wonder, just by itself.  It is a radical break from the childish way we have of demanding our own way, right away, "or else."  Children (and childish grown-ups as well) like to bellow threats that go, "If I don't get my way, I'll knock it all down!" We who live in this age of push-button ordering of merchandise on our phones and computer screens, we who can instantly download movies on a whim, we who are used to instant gratification, we demand our wishes be granted, and we want it now, like we are a whole society full of Veruca Salts.  But Mary doesn't insist on getting her way, right away.  Instead, she agrees to be a part of what the angel has asked her to be a part of, even when the first step of that plan is to wait... for nine months... allowing her body to be changed, her comfort to be set aside, her plans to be put on hold, and her life turned upside down.

And God waits, too.  After centuries of promises, centuries of working through (and working in spite of, sometimes) obstinate, ornery people, here the moment for the arrival of the Promised One was so close!  We might have been tempted, if we had been in God's shoes, to rush through this last step, to short-circuit human biology and just have a Messiah emerge from the wilderness a full-grown adult, or beam down on one of those fiery chariots.  But instead God waits as well--waiting even to have the angel speak to Mary first before just charging ahead with the divine design.  God waits--and all of creation, too, in that moment--for Mary's "Yes."  And then God waits the months of pregnancy, the years of childhood, the drama of adolescence, and the beginnings of adulthood, before Mary's boy Jesus steps onto the scene ready to live out the calling of "messiah."

All of those things--the teachings, the miracles, the dinner parties with outcasts, the foot-washing, the cross, and the resurrection--all of those are off in a distant future as the angel speaks with Mary here.  And yet, with her "Yes," something has begun, and now God is present in and with Mary, within her own body, her own life, even in the waiting.

We keep coming back to this surprising and life-giving truth: even when we are waiting for God to act in some big way, God is with us in the waiting now.  Unlike the childish voices of our day that shout, "If I don't get MY way, RIGHT away, I'm walking out!" ours is a God who stays with us in our waiting, who goes to Mary for her consent to share in the waiting too, and who endures the necessary waiting as a part of completely entering into our humanity.

For whatever places in your life you feel like you are waiting for big things to happen, or are caught in one of those big transitions in life where everything else is in flux, this is a moment to remember that God waits, too.  Not passively sitting on hands up in heaven, but waiting all the same.  God waits with us, and for us, and within us... even while we are looking ahead to God's great and promised future.  

What else can we say back to a God who goes through all of that with us, but, "Here we are, servants of the Lord; let it be with us just as you have said"?

Lord God, here we are, your servants.  Let it be with us as you say, and we will wait, while you wait, too, as you bring about great things among us and within us.