9 Months to go!

Happy Feast of the Annunciation!  Only 9 months until Christmas! (You can go ahead and scream, now.)
While it might seem like I am rushing the season, it is actually an intriguing notion to consider the gestation period prior to the birth of our Lord, especially as it overlaps the end of our Lenten journey and the start of our Easter celebration.  In this way we see that life in Christ never really ends but is always beginning anew in one way or another. 
Even more importantly, we acknowledge that things take time.  Modern medicine tells us that it takes 40 weeks for a human child to gestate.  Even in this day and age of short attention spans and desire for instant gratification, this process cannot and should not be rushed.  Each moment is necessary for the creation of a new life, one capable of living on its own after birth.  In some ways, it seems miraculous that it only takes 40 weeks to accomplish that feat! 
It definitely takes longer than 4 weeks, the standard length of the season of Advent.  Indeed, even September, when the secular culture starts merchandizing Christmas, is only halfway through the gestation period.  We need to come all the way back to this point to consider the start of it all.
Consider for a moment the tableau of the angel Gabriel making the announcement of the coming Christ child to the young Mary.  Imagine that it happened not in the middle of the night, as many artists have depicted, but in the light of day, perhaps even at the well in the middle of town where all news was exchanged.  Now contrast that picture of a newly pregnant Mary with her kneeling at the foot of a cross upon which her first born son is nailed. It is shocking and almost cruel, and yet that is what had prophesied to Mary and which she pondered in her heart.  And I cannot look at a Pieta, an image of Mary holding her dead son, without also seeing the similar image of Mary cradling the baby Jesus.  In some ways, they are the same image – separated only by time.
For this moment, let us stand in solidarity with the young Mary, frightened and yet utterly courageous in her willingness to serve God, going to her cousin Elizabeth for consolation. And perhaps we can take on the challenge to think about that blessed child, growing in his mother’s womb once a week for the next 40 weeks.  By then, hopefully we will truly be prepared for his birth!
In Christ,

Rev. Valerie+

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