In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” – Luke 1:39-45

Christmas Eve, 1974
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Huntington, L.I., N.Y.

The candlelit sanctuary was silent as night as I walked to the center of the altar robed in blue. I was escorted by Richard Ohlenberg, Joseph to my Mary. We were surrounded by angels and shepherds and wise men as we took our place in the age-old pantomime of the living crèche. Baby Sam Swisher was my Jesus, and as I took him in my arms, I rose and began to sing in a trembling soprano: My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

It was a moment in and out of time: in time, that I was a senior in high school applying to elite women’s colleges with a long-time boyfriend and plans for a future; and out of time, that I was touched by grace, chosen to represent the Mother of God, Mary-in-absentia singing alone.

I cannot begin to know what Mary felt, at 15, to hear the words that she was to become the mother of the Christ Child. But now, all these decades later, as a mother and grandmother, it is no less terrifying/thrilling remembering when I was first told that I was with child (or when my daughters broke the news to me that they were expecting). My very soul singing! To bring into this world a helpless baby to love, nurture, train, and discipline to then—after all those hours and days and weeks and years (and skinned knees and tuna fish sandwiches and help with homework and drying tears)—to send them out into the world without us is life’s greatest joy and sorrow.

But Mary bore the greatest joy and the greatest sorrow of all. I am humbled to have had her voice for one brief moment, that moment of moments when she declares her joy to all the world.

I pray that I am able to raise my voice in tandem with Mary’s, for as long as I draw breath.

Help me, Lord, to magnify you daily in my words and actions. Amen.
-Ashley Sweeney

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 1:38

My cohort online is mostly Catholic and female, so I have heard all about this verse, Mary’s fiat, in which she says a resounding “yes!” to God’s plan and her part in the incarnation. It was weird to me as a Protestant originally, but I soon developed a bond with Mary.

My bond with her began in December 2008 when I was pregnant with Daniel. I was living on the Montana Hi-Line at the time, and we were in the midst of a spell of temperatures around -20º F in the day time and -40º F with windchill at night. The cold caused my joints to ache, and I was driving to work one day, complaining to God about the cold and pain when God smacked me upside the head with a holy clue-by-four. The picture of Mary on a donkey, 9 months pregnant, came to mind, and I started getting a small understanding of the magnitude of what Mary was asked to do. My car would warm up eventually. The bitterness of the cold night in Israel would remain with her.

With every twist and turn of my life with Daniel, this image of Mary saying “yes” has come to me. When Daniel was born prematurely and I almost died, I thought of Mary. When he almost died at age 2 from RSV and I was in the pediatric intensive care unit taking care of him, the image of the pieta, Mary holding Jesus’ body when he was taken down from the cross, came to me. Mary said “yes” not fully knowing that she would watch her son be an outcast in some places, cause struggle within the power structure, and ultimately be tortured and killed in one of the most gruesome manners imaginable. I said “yes” not knowing that I would have a child who challenged me daily and who would give me some serious scares in terms of his health. Her faith and confidence in God’s plan are what helps me to say “yes” daily, even when I want to give up at times.

Lord, thank you for the example of Mary and her faith in your plan. Help me to continue saying “yes” to your plan, even when it scares me. Amen.
-Jen McCabe

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.” – Luke 1:36-37

As I read this passage, I realized that Elizabeth and I had a lot in common.

We were both “old” when we conceived our babies. Old is a relative term, for Elizabeth, old may have been past her teens, for me, I was thirty-six and medically passing by my prime fertility window. I believe her culture may have pitied her because she had no children to help the family, take care of you when you are old, and carry on the family genes so I can imagine her great delight in finding herself with child. “She said, ‘This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.” For myself, I spent nine years without any birth control, painful, embarrassing, expensive medical procedures and tests with no viable pregnancies while watching my two brothers, sister, and more than a dozen friends start or add to their families. I was miserable. angry, and hard to live with.

I had a major meltdown in August 1984, one of many but this one was a doozy. Dennis and I had to euthanize our nine-year-old beloved cat Sam because of advanced cancer, I had what I thought was a nasty flu bug, I had blood drawn for the hundredth time for a pregnancy test and I finally hit rock bottom with my emotions, and went behind our garage to have a major screaming fit at God. Ok, maybe I felt this was the way to get his attention. All these years, my feeble attempts at praying to God for a baby hadn’t worked. He wasn’t listening to me. He didn’t care.

Feeling very strange and tired, I went back inside my house, and at 4:00 pm that afternoon, my doctor’s office called and Karen, his ARNP said: “you’re not going to believe this, you’re pregnant”. The call was life-changing, first, a case of the soft warm fuzzies, an uneventful pregnancy, a healthy baby boy, and I sort of forgot about God. Life was busy with a baby, and working full time, and time just slipped by.

Then Dennis and I had a serious conversation about going back to church and baptizing our child and when Bayard was two years old, we joined St. Paul’s in Mount Vernon. On Easter Sunday, March 30th, 1986, our son was baptized.

This is how Dennis and I started our religious journeys. Dennis eventually joined the Order of Deacons, and I became a Eucharistic Minister and Visitor. With God’s help, all things are possible. Thanks be to God!

Thank you, dear Lord, for working in seemingly impossible situations for our good and for your purposes. Amen.
-Mary Ann Taylor

Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The 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 will be holy; he will be called Son of God.” – Luke 1:34-35

Of all the miracles ascribed to Jesus throughout the New Testament, the most miraculous to me is still his fulfillment of the prophecy that a Hebrew Messiah would be born of a virgin. My disbelief of miracles such as this was one of the main reasons that for decades of my life I steadfastly refused to identify as “Christian” — and why I used to envy the “faith of my fathers.” Going back a millennium or so ago, it seems as though reconciling empirical knowledge with the miracles described throughout the Bible would have been less of a stretch to one’s credulity. Or so I thought. As it was, belief in the “magical thinking” of the Bible created a litmus test that I simply couldn’t pass — and out of respect for the Christian faith, I couldn’t sign on with a sense of integrity.

My absolutism changed in a moment of epiphany during the most unlikely of circumstances. Carol and I were at a dinner theater performance with some congregation members of All Saints Episcopal Church in Boise, where I had tentatively begun dipping my toes in its liturgical waters. At some point in the dinner conversation, the topic turned to the Immaculate Conception, and I was shocked to hear a respected and long-standing member of All Saints state, very matter-of-factly, that he’d never believed in that particular miracle. “Excuse me,” I remember asking, “but isn’t that kind of a de rigor article of faith?” While I don’t remember his reply, I do remember coming away thinking that the particulars of Christ’s birth ultimately don’t enhance or detract from what really matters most to me today as a professed Christian: the relevance and power of the Gospel Message, and Jesus Christ as the Word Made Flesh… however conceived.

These days, even as we are dazzled by the pace of scientific discovery, I find myself less pushed around by the need to reconcile the miraculous and the scientific. Quite the contrary: that duality itself seems more suspect to me these days than belief in miracles. In fact, the more we learn about the origins of the universe, the more susceptible we should be to the miraculous, and the more our faith should reflect the words of Paul:

“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

Lord, you give us solace in our faith. Thank you for sending your Son among us to teach us your will and may the power of the Holy Spirit dwell in us as it did in Mary. Amen.
-Michael Boss

“He 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. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”– Luke 1:32-33

What a promise! Think of being Mary and hearing this promise from God!

He will be great – an encouraging promise for Mary.
He will be called the Son of the Most High – more hopeful, reference to God.
The Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David – Wow!
He will reign over the house of Jacob forever – Better & better!
And of his kingdom there will be no end – His kingdom will last forever!

Can you imagine what Mary might have thought? Or what she believed? The angel’s message was unbelievable, except that it obviously had to come from God. And, so, Mary believed it.

Have you ever heard an unbelievable message from God? Stay tuned—God still delivers seemingly-unbelievable messages, sometimes from an angel, sometimes in a dream, sometimes from another person. Stay tuned for God’s messages to you.

Dear God, help us to stay open to your messages to each of us, so that we will believe and act on your plans for us. Help us to listen! Amen.
-Barb Cheyney

But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.” – Luke 1:29-31

The story sits on the margin between history and legend, persistent in its ability to tell a story greater than itself. It is 1531, ten years after the fall of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital. The Spaniards ruled, and the Indians were exiles in their own land.

On December 9th, Juan Diego, an Indian man, was on his way to Mass at dawn. He was met by the hill of Tepeyac by the Virgin Mary, who appeared to him as brown like he, and spoke to him in his own tongue, not Spanish. She asked him to tell the Bishop to build a church in her honor on the place. Who was Juan Diego to make such a request of the Spanish Bishop? But she had chosen him, and he went three times at her bidding. On the final visit, he took with him the sign she had provided, roses of Castile. When he opened his tilma or serape, in which he had wrapped them, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was emblazoned on it. The miracle cut the Spanish bishop to the heart, and the next day the Indian man took the Spanish bishop to the place, where a church building was commissioned.

As Episcopalians, what do we do with a story like this? We can read it as an Advent story. During this time, we read a lot of prophecies of God’s advent in our world, which turns the social order right-side-up, changes the course of human history, and gives birth to a new thing: a remade humanity. Similarly, into the darkness of the world of the conquered, God sends a heavenly emissary, the Mother of God, to give a downtrodden man power enough to change the course of Latin-American history. The powerful listens to the powerless, and a new thing is born: a Christianity native to this land.

God of liberation, give us grace to do justice. Amen.
-Fr. Paul Moore