Joke: A middle-aged laywoman has a heart attack and is taken to the hospital. While on the operating table, she has a near-death experience in which she sees God. She asks him if this is the end of her life. God tells her no, she has another forty years to live. After she recovers, she’s so upbeat that she stays in the hospital and has a face-lift, a tummy tuck, and many other changes to make her younger and more beautiful. She even has a beautician come in to change her hair color and style. As long as she’s got another forty years to live, she figures out that she might as well make the most of it. The woman walks out the front door of the hospital after the last operation and is run over by an ambulance. In front of God, she wails, “I thought you said I had another forty years?” God replies, “Sorry, I didn’t recognize you.”
Every year, we anticipate the second coming of the Lord, and to celebrate the birth of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, this last weekend we are invited to imitate the presence of God in our life. On this last week of Advent, this year is short in one day, we are invited to look at the lowly woman chosen by God to be the Mother of God, our Savior. What does it mean and how does Mary carry out her mission to be the Mother of the Savior?
In all today’s readings, three important people are mentioned: King David, Mary, and Jesus. These three people carry out the salvation history by obedience to the Lord. Who is King David? Why does the Lord choose to be born from his line? Is he worthy of being the ancestor of the Savior? We learn in the Scripture that King David is the youngest son of Jesse, a shepherd in the field. When he is confronted with the philistine at the battlefield, he tells them, “You come against me with sword and spear and scimitar, but I come against you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel that you have insulted” (1 Sam 17:45). With a stone taken from his bag, he strikes the Philistine on the forehead that takes him down at once. When he becomes a King, he has not only one wife but at least seven wives and several concubines. Regardless of who he is and what he has done, the Lord promises him, described in today’s first reading saying, “I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins, and I will make his kingdom firm. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.” Why? The Lord chooses him not because he is a good-looking boy, nor he is a wise man, but because he is a man of faith and trust in the Lord. David is the favored one, out of seven brothers, and he is anointed by the prophet Samuel to be the king.
Mary, in today’s Gospel, is also the “favored one,” as she is encouraged by the angel Gabriel saying, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” Who is Mary if not the daughter of a barren woman, St. Ann that the Lord looks with favor on her and gives her a daughter at her old age. Why does God have favor on some particular people? He is the author of our lives, he has a right to choose what is to please him. When God wants to choose for him a man to lead his people, he chooses an old man that is Abraham. When he wants to choose a person to preach the Good News to the Gentiles, he chooses Saul or Paul, one who used to hunt down the Christians. When he wants to choose a leader for his church, he chooses an uneducated man who denies him three times. When he chooses to be born into the world to save the human race, he chooses to be born from a woman, an ordinary woman, but with great faith and trust in the Lord saying, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”
Has Mary been prepared to conceive and to bear a Son of God, the Most High? Yes, even though it is not recorded details in the Scriptures, through her pondering at the greeting of the Angel Gabriel, “Hail, favored one. The Lord is with you.” Mary could not ignore the greeting and asked what this was all about. She is not only prepared to develop an intimate relationship with the Lord through her prayers, but through her intimate relationship with the Lord, she can be awakened when the angel greets her. Her response is not “No,” but she ponders at the great message that the angel announced to her. This pondering becomes a raging wave in her heart and soul when the angel continues, “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.” At this moment, she is not only awakened, but fully awake at the message that she will conceive and bear a son and name him Jesus while she does not even know the man, and not talking about relation with the man.
Being more awakened than ever before since the moment at the greeting of the angel, Mary responds to the angel by saying, “I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Her response is not just for a moment, a day, a month, or a year, but for the rest of her life. Her “yes” is a long life meditating on what God has done in her and through her. Her yes is a yes of suffering with her Son when she has to see him being betrayed, hated, wept, and even death, death on the Cross. Her yes is a complete yes to follow the Lord, even at the foot of her son’s cross. How is our response in preparing and waiting for the second coming of our Lord? Are we ready for the Lord to come? How would we respond when he comes? Mary carries out her mission the day she says yes to be the Mother of the Lord, what is your mission the day that you are baptized to be the follower of the Lord? Mary is faithful to her mission, are you faithful to your mission? The decision is yours.