Day 32 - Wednesday, December 28
Title:  MY GIFT TO CHRIST
Scripture #1: Luke 1:38
Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.
Scripture #2: Revelation 3:20
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.”

Poetry & Poet:
“Birth of Christ”
by Rainer Maria Rilke

Had you not simplicity, then how
should this befall you which illuminates the night?
The god, who thundered above the peoples, now
makes himself mild and comes in you to light

the world.  Did you imagine him as greater?

What is greatness?  Straightway through all matter
where he passes moves his downright fate.
Even a star has no such highway.  See,
these kings are great.

They drag before your lap

treasure which they deem the very greatest,
and you’re astonished at these gifts perhaps—
but see here in the foldings of your shawl
how he already has surpassed them all.

All amber that ships carry far away,
the golden ornaments and overcloying
spices stealing in the senses: yet
all these were fleeting things that made no stay.
and finally one has little but regret.

But—you will soon know it—He brings joy.

“LET IT BE UNTO ME”

Mary presents one of the most inspiring but also, perhaps, befuddling examples of faith found in the Bible.  Inspiring because Mary’s submission to God is so total and seems so effortless—“Behold the maidservant of the Lord.”  Luke’s account especially heightens our sense of her faith, introducing it immediately after relating the angelic annunciation of Zechariah’s imminent fatherhood.  “How can I be sure of this?” he asks Gabriel.  “I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”  It’s not doubt.  It’s old fear disguised by the request for evidence in a hope to fend off disappointment.  Zechariah is a man who respects the power of sorrow and attempts to manage it—as we all do—by hedging his bets and asking for assurances.

Not so with Mary.  Mary’s faith is befuddling because her obedience seems so total and sudden, emerging without apparent backstory.  We learn only that she is “highly favored.”  What has she done to be regarded with such favor?  What life of faith has she led?  How does such faith follow favor when Luke tells us that Zechariah and Elizabeth, too, were “righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly”?       

Comparing them, Luke invites us to see there are some occasions where success is not a matter of past experience, training, or knowledge.  Indeed, sometimes these prove obstacles rather than aids.  They can foster hesitation when the call of God is immediate and clear.  As with Gabriel’s visitation to Mary, the passage from Revelation announces that the call of Christ often comes in plain terms whose meaning we comprehend on a visceral, sensory level.  “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”  The example is a universal experience: minding your own business in your room or home, you hear an unexpected sound at the door.  Someone is out there.  Will you open the door or not?  We recognize the sound for what it is, and almost immediately decide whether or not to open the door, performing a basic action in which experience, training, or knowledge are irrelevant.          

What Mary seems to possess, among other things, is, in Rilke’s words, simplicity.  We see simplicity in Annunciation by Laura Makabresku, where Mary’s dress has been woven—and continues to be woven—from a single thread.  The dress is unadorned and uniform in color—like the jade wall, the brown bed, and the blue floor.  The uncluttered, unbusy state of her clothing and room emphasize the painting’s focal point as the open space between her gaze and the Spirit in the form of a dove.  And like her room, Mary’s posture itself is relaxed and modest.  She is focused—undistracted.  The second painting serves as a counterpoint, offering the emotional perspective of Zechariah.  The door has been opened conditionally—to cautiously appraise the visitor.  Christ’s countenance mingles recognition with sadness, beginning to comprehend that though He deserves welcome and hospitality, He is instead regarded with suspicion.  The cracked door might yet close Him out again.         

I stand too often at the brink of this half-hearted threshold.  My Lord, whom I know, knocks, beckons, invites.  But I have questions and reservations.  Rilke’s poem anticipates and dispels them with his own: “Did you imagine him as greater? / What is greatness?”  When Zechariah asks Gabriel, “How can I be sure of this,” he is asking Gabriel—and therefore God—to certify his promises by appealing to evidence; to a “greatness” that Zechariah has come to know and trust.  Rilke’s poem scornfully dispenses with the things upon which we found our credulity: “golden ornaments and overcloying / spices stealing in the senses…fleeting things that made no stay.”    

Mary believes Gabriel, at least in part, because she can dismiss her experience and expectations.  They do not establish conditions God is obliged to meet; they do not define what is possible or impossible.  His providence operates, indeed, wholly outside them.  Yet my experiences and training have taught me to reckon various forces, people, or events as “great.”  And this is useful in some of my day to day affairs.  But when God knocks at my door, or makes His invitation, I cannot walk in faith if I hold God hostage to human standards.  He will not meet them.  I, instead, must submit to His greatness, though it defies all I know, remember, or imagine.

Prayer:
Lord Jesus Christ, we hear you knock upon our door.  We know you invite us to walk by faith in fellowship with You.  But we often hesitate or stall because we are afraid and insist that you submit your plans and methods to our approval.  We often do this without even realizing it. Please forgive our arrogance and doubt.  Help us recognize these instincts and habits, and to submit ourselves in joy to your invitation and to your greatness.  Help us to recognize and believe that nothing is impossible for you, and that in your greatness is greatest joy. 
Amen.

Dr. Phillip Aijian
Adjunct Professor
Torrey Honors College
Biola University

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