Mary-eyes

4 Advent B 2011
2 Samuel 7:1-11,16; Psalm 89:1-4,19-26; Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38


“Perhaps she saw with different eyes”

In the rear of the church nave, bathed with unfamiliar December sunlight, members of the Walsingham Cell sat speaking about the role Our Lady the God-bearer plays in their lives. The conversation had turned to this amazing moment in Mary’s story and in the Gospel of Luke, when the Archangel Gabriel suddenly appeared before this young teenaged woman with news that would shake the world.

Gabriel the great messenger of the all-powerful God was a figure of awe and fear. One of our familiar hymns speaks of him having “eyes of flame.” Whenever he appears the first thing he says is “Do not be afraid”, because terror was a common reaction to the mighty archangel’s appearance. The Qur’an speaks of Gabriel and describes him as huge.

But, suggested one of the women gathered yesterday in the quiet sunny church, “Perhaps Mary saw him with different eyes.”

Perhaps, in the solitude of that moment, when a young unknown Hebrew woman was standing in the company of that unspeakable being, perhaps she saw with different eyes, and invites us to do the same. Perhaps in that wondrous conversation, the Old Law with its codes and its sacrifices and its fear before the God of Angel-Armies ceased to be a religion of unspeakable awe and became a Way of unspeakable mercy. Perhaps the towering archangel with eyes of flame, surrounded by the throbbing murmur of cherubs and the deep darkness where God himself is hidden, became a figure of tenderness and beauty, someone that Mary found easy to trust.

And the fate of the cosmos waited upon the trust and the whispered “Yes” of a young woman. And the very presence of God on earth dimmed in the Holy of Holies in the great Temple in Jerusalem to the south, and flared invisible but bright in the body and soul of this ordinary, amazing young woman.

And so today we are to look about us with different eyes.

A teacher of mine once said that God went to a lot of trouble to empty himself fully into our flesh and our history, to truly be God-with-us. Ever since then religious people have said “Thanks but no thanks” and have tried to put God back into the temple and into high heaven where he belongs. The old faith, faith before the angel’s words and Mary’s yes, has its beauty and resonance but it was a static faith where God is predictable and our response is predictable. Perform the right rituals, behave the right way, and all will be well.

But Mary shows us how we will see with different eyes in the strange new world of the Gospel. In this new world, the poor are blessed, the mighty shall be taken down from their thrones, and what the world despised is shown to be the sacred path of God. This God will gather, not in temples made by hands, but where God’s people gather for prayer and for fellowship and to welcome the outcast and to cry out for justice and mercy. Do not look to the Holy of Holies, for the Almighty has left the building. Look to the margins, to the out-of-the-way places, to humble and broken hearts. See with different eyes, with Mary-eyes, with Gospel eyes.

Look around with different eyes, and see the newness and the glory of God.