annunciation: as I see it
Luke 1:26-44, 56
The Birth of Jesus Foretold
26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
Mary Visits Elizabeth
39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40 where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth.41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” 46-55 And Mary sang,
My soul doth magnify the Lord, *
and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.
For he hath regarded *
the lowliness of his handmaiden.
For behold from henceforth *
all generations shall call me blessed.
For he that is mighty hath magnified me, *
and holy is his Name.
And his mercy is on them that fear him *
throughout all generations.
He hath showed strength with his arm; *
he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat, *
and hath exalted the humble and meek.
He hath filled the hungry with good things, *
and the rich he hath sent empty away.
He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel, *
as he promised to our forefathers,
Abraham and his seed for ever.
56 Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.
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With the Song of Mary, Magnificat, shifted to the place of responsive psalm, above is our gospel reading for tomorrow, the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Mary Sunday. The art, which every year startles me anyway, is still and always my top favorite presentation of The Annunciation, which is what the church calls the angel's visit to Mary; my favorite because I think of Mary as just a girl, any young girl, someone's beloved daughter, perfect in her daddy's eyes. She's maybe twelve, thirteen, fourteen, no older than sixteen, some daddy loves her more than anything under heaven, more than anything in life, more than life itself, which is how I love my girls.
And the angel comes. Suddenly. She walks home from the schoolbus stop, reading her book, or more likely texting her boyfriend Joe on her cellphone, and is about to open the front door, when she hears a sound, looks up, and there he is. The next few minutes are the beginning of the rest of history.
But entering the house, she comes straight to me and tells me what happened: how do I feel? "What, you said 'yes'?" She is my one and only. I go berserk, absolutely insane frantic. About her. Wanting to protect her even from life itself. And now this: how do I protect her from God?
Long years ago in my Time, I read someone warning parents that "a child is a person who grows through your life on their way to becoming an adult" and I experienced it as the ultimate and painful truism. The morning she starts kindergarten? The day she says, "Dad! I'm a grader!!" The day she starts high school? OMG, there are boys there. The day some boy comes to take her on a date? The day you drive her far away and leave her at her college, and are quite sure that you are going to die, that your world has come to an end? The day you walk her down the aisle and have to face your tugging heartache that she's no longer yours?
Looking at John Collier's art though. I'm thinking of me, her daddy, with no idea what's going on outside the front door. I just got home from the office, shouted "I'm home" and am inside the house, back in the kitchen fixing myself a martini, with no idea that everything is about to change forever. I mean everything, and I do mean forever.
If there's a consolation about the story for me, it's got to be that the angel came with a message of love; he did not come for her, he did not come to take her away, as happens in so many families.
I'm thinking of that song, remembering the song. Remembering Harry Belafonte.
Where are you going, my little one, little one,
Where are you going, my baby, my own?
Turn around and you're two,
Turn around and you're four,
Turn around and you're a young girl going out of my door.
Turn around, turn around,
Turn around and you're a young girl going out of my door.
Where are you going, my little one, little one,
Little dirndls and petticoats, where have you gone?2
Turn around and you're tiny,
Turn around and you're grown,
Turn around and you're a young wife with babes of your own.
Turn around, turn around,
Turn around and you're a young wife with babes of your own.
I love Mary Sunday.
John Collier, Annunciation
John Collier, The Annunciation
And now for something completely different. In this extraordinary modern painting, Mary is a suburban schoolgirl who finds herself in an improbable situation. In her sports shoes and smock, she is greeted by a reverent Archangel Gabriel. He knows who she is and what she will be, even if she does not.
The angel does not seem to have spoken yet. Only its rapt gaze at the lilies, symbols of virginity, give the viewer a clue that something momentous is about to happen.
The artist, John Collier, jolts the viewer by making the scene immediate, now, not thousands of years ago. A Virgin with untied shoelaces and scraped-back hair? Surely not. Yet the painting has more dynamism than the work of many, more traditional, artists.
There is one little reference to the piety of the Middle Ages: Mary is reading a book. Medieval scholars suggested that Mary was no ordinary peasant girl: she had been selected to serve in the Temple of Jerusalem, where she studied among other things the Book of Isaiah. That is why you’ll see her reading or holding a book.