Lectionary: Luke 10:38-42; 11:27-28
When Joachim and Anna asked God for a child, they knew that they were asking for a miracle. Because they were elderly, and still without children, and so they appreciated that having a child could result only from the miraculous intervention of the Divine. And so, when they asked for this child, they promised to dedicate her life to the service of God.
And this was not merely some sort of transaction. This was not some kind of bargaining with their creator. Rather, it was an acknowledgment that miracles are purposeful. God always works miracles for a reason. And so, if this child was to be born, she would be born miraculously, and therefore explicitly for God’s will. And so she was! Their daughter Mary, was born as a result of a miracle, through the intervention of the Holy Spirit upon this pious, elderly couple. And thus, true to their word, Mary’s parents brought her to live and pray and serve in the Temple, in direct service to God.
And so Mary committed herself to her purpose, expressing this purpose in every aspect of her being. She bore a total and unwavering devotion to her God. She maintained a firm and unbroken dedication to piety, to purity, to living a holy life. Because she knew from the very fact that she was here, that she had a purpose. That God created her so that even more miracles might be worked through her.
And so, when the angel Gabriel came to the Virgin Mary, she was ready to accept a new miracle. By shaping her life around Service to her God, she was now offered the opportunity to bear God himself in her womb. She bore a Son, a Son who was the very same God that granted that first miracle to Joachim and Anna. She bore the very one who created her, who created her out of nothing, and deigned for her this precious purpose.
And how fascinating and how dumbfounding it is that the Theotokos, in this way, serves as a direct and explicit example for us.
For we too are brought out of nothing into being. Our existence too is a miracle. And this existence that God gives us, this gift of life, is for a purpose. That purpose is bearing God within us, and allowing him to transform us. And the Theotokos shows us the manner by which this is possible, by hearing the word of God, and keeping it within our hearts. By orienting every fiber of our being, every moment of our lives, to the service of God, we join the Theotokos, and we imitate the life of Christ. Seeking virtue and purity, and fleeing the passions and death.
And by doing this, by imitating the life of Christ, we follow him to the Cross, and then we follow him through the empty tomb, and we are led by Him out of Hades. So today we rejoice, for the Theotokos’s dedication to God, today, is an image of our own divine purpose. It’s an invitation to participate in bearing God within us, to imitate the Theotokos so that we might better imitate Christ.
To choose the "better thing", to sit at the feet of our God, to receive the wisdom and love and salvation of our Lord and God and savior Jesus Christ.
Glory to Jesus Christ!
