(Coming to this a day late, sorry)
Yesterday was the festival of Mary, Mother of Our Lord.
Observation: after learning that she will become mother of a Savior, and that her cousin Elizabeth, too, will also give birth to a prophet (John the Baptist), Mary sings a fiery song about God who lifts up the lowly and tears down the powerful, who feeds the hungry and sends the rich away empty.
Application: Pictured above is one of my favorite blankets, which I won at a white elephant Christmas party. But I worry that many Christians see Jesus' mother as a soft, gentle "security blanket." Too much Christian art depicts Mary as God's doormat, whose single job in life was to listen to an angel's pitch and say, "Okay."
That's not the Mary I know from Luke's Gospel. The Mary I know from Luke's Gospel is far from timid or submissive. Her faith is a bold, unflinching trust in a God who shows up for those whom the world forgets, who rolls up God's sleeves when it seems the strong, the careless and the ruthless have had the last word. This is the type of woman who could raise a Savior who would let nothing--not even a cross--stand in the way of reconciling the world to God and to itself.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, your mom is awesome. Thank you for her witness, and the witness of other fearless, faithful women, who see the world not as it is, but as God wants it. Amen.
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