Reflections on how to respond, and how not to respond, when visited by an angel
Here at Christmastime, I've suspended my regular morning readings for Advent devotions. This year, I'm using Christianity Today's Advent: A Time for Wonder, and Victoria Emily Jones' Art and Theology Advent materials.
These are good. Very good.
So, I left the books of Judges and Acts mid-stream, the bookmark indicating that I was about halfway through each before my Advent readings started.
I'm home sick with a head cold today. Finding a little more time than normal, I found my bookmarked pages...
Mary and Manoah
I flipped to my bookmark in Judges 13 and read about Samson’s birth. I was struck with parallels between Mary’s annunciation and the announcement of Samson’s birth to his mother.
Check it out: Judges 13 as an intriguing foreshadowing of the birth of Christ.
In both accounts, a young woman is visited and given a message from the Lord. This message is only directly given to her and the men in their lives hear things secondhand. The divine messages are kind and clear. Both women are given detailed instructions, which they remember accurately. Both then have to talk to a husband and fiancé, respectfully, who have concerns about what the women heard...
The Model of Mary and Joseph
This season, we remember another woman who was even more amazing than Manoah's wife, and a fiancé who humbly submitted far more readily than did Manoah.
Mary, when visited by the angel Gabriel, is "perplexed" and "pondered" (Luke 1:29, NRSV) Gabriel's words. She needs to take it all in and doesn’t rush to push this hard task onto others. Instead of prematurely pushing this at Joseph, she visits relatives Elizabeth and Zechariah; wise and godly figures surround her. She and Elizabeth encourage one another. This inspires Mary to offer her Magnificat. Riffing a little on Hannah's song from I Samuel, Mary is very mindful of what it means to be in a line of women with divine visitations about a child...
For onto us a Son is born, a child is given.
Read More: The full article can be found here, on Substack https://open.substack.com/pub/stephaniewilsey/p/you-shall-conceive-and-bear-a-son?r=2pjies&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
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