December 1: Let It Be
♫ Music:
Day 4 - Wednesday, December 1
Title: LET IT BE
Scripture: Luke 1:38
And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her.
Poetry:
from Tidings
by Richard Jackson
- The Annunciation
Like a sentence you discover and read after too
many
years, after you think the world's heart has turned
to dust, the air shriveling from your lungs, though
you cannot understand some of the words
for they seem like stars with no owners,
something like the ache of flowers for their seeds,
and you begin to realize it is a sentence
that celebrates what you could only imagine
like the canticles of mountain streams,
despite the black hearts perched, years later, on
branches,
despite the moon thinning with hunger
then bloating like a starving child,
despite the tracer rounds streaming
like dandelion seeds the Child will blow across His
room,
this sentence with its riverbed of stars,
this sentence that carries you too
the way a leaf is pulled downstream, because this
you begin to realize, is not the song of a seed
fallen on stone, not some light scorched
into the dunes of the sky, but a phrase
whose wings fill the room, and you,––
you are that word which had remained
unnoticed in this sentence, and you begin
to speak with that light that quivers
like a branch, your own lips slightly moving
like a petal the bee has just left,
and you begin to realize you have lived
your whole life in this sentence
gradually unfolding towards its end,
the way the moon now ploys the sky,
}the way what you once thought was a mere star
now turns out to be a galaxy.
PRAYING WITH MARY
The reading of this passage in church during Advent–as with any hearing of a word from God—is meant in part to call forth a response from us, as it does here for Mary. Knowing this, Mary’s response to Gabriel’s call deserves our attention. She has been called “the model for all Christians,” “the exemplary disciple,” "the first Christian disciple,” the “one who provides a pattern for the Christian faith.” Why? Because in the mustard seeds of her few words lies the fecund heart of discipleship.
Luke wants to make sure we see this. This passage follows exactly the six-part structured narrative of other prophetic calls in the Bible (to Moses, to Isaiah, to Zachariah, etc.) —except in one way. Mary gets the last word. It is these words to which we should attend—three of them to be exact.
1) “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord.” ‘Behold’ is not a word we use much anymore. Literally, it means ‘look and see.’ We do not say now, when arriving at a party, “Behold, the guest and good friend you invited,” but if we did, we’d be using the word properly. However, the gist of such a word in relation to God is to say a little more than “Here I am!” It is to indicate a readiness for God’s purposes in our life, echoed by Paul’s command in Rom. 12:1, “to present your bodies as living sacrifices. . . . which is your spiritual worship.” To say ‘Behold’ in this way to God is an act of worship in a single word.
2) “The servant of the Lord.” Mary can immediately present herself in readiness and worship (“Behold”), because she knows who she is. She is a servant of the Lord. If we roll into this the other identities the Scriptures give us—friends of Jesus (John 15:15) and sons and daughters of God (Rom. 1:16)—we get the fuller picture: the life of a disciple is one of filial love for God, a family loyalty to and trust in purposes of the Father’s love and wisdom, even when the actual the immediate road ahead is less than clear and fraught with risk, as it will be for Mary.
3) “Let it be to me according to your word.”
In Greek, “let it be” is just one word, a verb. But it is a strange verb. It is not quite to do something, but to let something be done to me. It is similar to the command, “Be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18). To say ‘let it be’ is not to passively accept the circumstances of life but to carry within us the desire and hope that Christ in me (quite literally for Mary, and spiritually for us) can in all circumstances (Rom. 8:28) transform us, allowing Jesus to touch those around us. And so we pray:
A Prayer:
Lord, Thank you for Mary’s words. May we live into them as poet Richard Jackson writes, “our whole life in this sentence gradually unfolding towards its end.” May we sing, in a way perhaps more than The Beatles knew (but that Aretha does, I think), “Let it be."
Behold, here I am, a servant of the Lord—amid these diapers, among these needy children, this laundry, like so much cotton manna needed to be collected. let it be to me according to your word.
Behold, here I am, a servant of the Lord—in this labyrinth of cubicles, my colleagues like so many sheep partitioned from a shepherd, playing my small part in larger commercial purposes whose motives at best are mixed, let it be to me according to your Word.
Behold, here I am, a servant of the Lord—in a world that seems sometimes impossibly far from you, infinitely beyond my control, humbled by my own humanness and finitude. Let it be to me according to your word . . . because Jesus has come and overcome the world. Let it be.
Amen.
Devotion Author:
Todd Pickett
Dean of Spiritual Development
Campus Pastor
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, poetry, and devotional writer selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork:
Annunciation
Betony Coons
2016
Collage and acrylic paint
About the Artist:
Betony Coons is an American artist who describes her life in these words: ”You know how people joke about being born in a barn? Well, I was born and raised in a barn on an apple orchard in Kansas. My parents unschooled my four siblings and me. Our house was full of wonders—puppet theaters, zip lines, tightrope walks, a functional stage and more. My entire childhood was one whirlwind of living and breathing; art and creation. We baked and gardened and played until the flour covered us and the dirt was caked under our fingernails. We built rafts and sailed across the pond, had fairy tea parties, and sang songs until my parents were about to go crazy. Now, as a mother of three spunky girls and a little boy in Greeley, Colorado, I find myself compelled to make beautiful things and to bring those around me into the process. Be it baking crazy concoctions, collaborating with my husband’s songwriting, guerrilla gardening, or letting my children paint on my canvases, I want everything I do to involve creativity and engage people. My work encompasses bits and pieces from my life and story. My goal with my art is to begin writing a better story for our lives and to share that story with others.”
Instagram: @betonycoonsart
https://www.betonycoons.com
About the Music:
“Let it Be” from the album This Girl’s in Love with You
Lyrics:
When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree
There will be an answer, let it be
For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
There will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be, be
And when the night is cloudy there is still a light that shines on me
Shinin' until tomorrow, let it be
I wake up to the sound of music, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
And let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
And let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
About the Performer:
Aretha Louise Franklin (1942–2018) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Referred to as the "Queen of Soul," Franklin began her career as a child, singing gospel at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan, where her father was a minister. At the age of eighteen, she embarked on a music career as a recording artist for Columbia Records. While her career did not immediately flourish, she found acclaim and commercial success once she signed with Atlantic Records in 1966. Her commercial hits such as "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You),” "Respect,” "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” "Chain of Fools,” "Think," and "I Say a Little Prayer" propelled her into stardom. Franklin recorded 112 charted singles on Billboard, seventeen top-ten pop singles, one hundred R&B entries, and twenty number-one R&B singles. She won eighteen Grammy Awards, including the first eight awards given for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance (1968–1975) and a Grammy Awards Living Legend honor and Lifetime Achievement Award. Franklin is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 75 million records worldwide. Franklin received numerous honors throughout her career, including the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1987, she became the first female performer to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and she was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2012. In 2010, Rolling Stone magazine ranked her number one on its list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time'' and number nine on its list of "100 Greatest Artists of All Time.” The Pulitzer Prize jury in 2019 awarded Franklin a posthumous special citation "for her indelible contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades.”
https://www.arethafranklin.net/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aretha_Franklin
About the Composers/Lyricists:
Lennon–McCartney was the songwriting partnership between English musicians John Lennon (1940–1980) and Paul McCartney (b. 1942) of The Beatles. Their partnership is the best known and most successful musical collaboration ever by records sold, with The Beatles selling over 600 million records worldwide as of 2004. Between 1962 and 1970, the partnership published approximately 180 jointly credited songs, of which the vast majority were recorded by The Beatles, forming the bulk of their catalogue. Unlike many songwriting partnerships that comprise a separate lyricist and composer, such as George and Ira Gershwin, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, or Elton John and Bernie Taupin, both Lennon and McCartney wrote lyrics and music. Sometimes, especially early on, they would collaborate extensively when writing songs, working "eyeball to eyeball" as Lennon phrased it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennon%E2%80%93McCartney
About the Poet:
Richard Jackson is an American poet. An author of ten books of poems, he has edited two anthologies of Slovene poetry, as well as the journal Poetry Miscellany. His work has been translated into fifteen languages. He was awarded the Order of Freedom Medal for literary and humanitarian work in the Balkans by the president of Slovenia for his work with the Slovene-based Peace and Sarajevo Committees of PEN International, and for his editing of the journal Mala Revija as well as his Slovene Poetry Chapbook series. He has received Guggenheim, NEA, NEH, and two Witter-Bynner fellowships, a Prairie Schooner Reader’s Choice Award, and he is the winner of five Pushcart Prizes and has appeared in Best American Poems ’97 as well as many other anthologies. Originator of VCFA’s Slovenia Program, he was a Fulbright Exchange poet to former Yugoslavia and returns to Europe each year with various groups of students. He has been teaching at the River Pretty Writers’ Conference, The Prague Summer Workshops, and regularly at UT-Chattanooga (since 1976), where he directs the Meacham Writers’ Conference. He has taught at Vermont College of Fine Arts since 1987. In 2009 he won the AWP George Garret Award for teaching, writing, and arts promotion, and in 2019 the Barnett Prize for Distinguished Author.
https://vcfa.edu/faculty-staff/richard-jackson/
About the Devotion Author:
Todd Pickett
Dean of Spiritual Development
Campus Pastor
Biola University
A native Californian, Todd Pickett has been an English professor for many years and is now the Dean of Spiritual Development at Biola University. He has degrees in classical languages and literature from Stanford University and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland; an M.A. in Spiritual Formation and Soul Care from Biola University; and a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Irvine. He leads retreats, undertakes group and individual spiritual direction, preaches regularly, and speaks frequently to groups on Christian spiritual formation from an evangelical perspective. He lives in Costa Mesa, California, and is married to Dottie Cox Pickett, a marriage and family therapist.