So what makes these 3 ‘little ones’ stand so tall over human history that we still remember them today? For these 3 wise women have much to teach all who would follow after them in welcoming Jesus and New Life into this world.
Well, it certainly was not because of their intellect, social standing or power because remember, they were ‘little ones’.
It simply came out of their remarkable willingness to hear and obey God. They were totally and utterly receptive to God, and then obedient to what God wanted them to do.
It is through simple listening and courageous obedience that great things are done for God, NOT through intellect and power.
Faith is borne out of listening to God. New life comes out of hearing and obeying.
In George Bernard Shaw’s play, ‘Saint Joan,’ the central character, Joan of Arc, is always hearing voices from God, and the king is angered by this. He complains to her, ‘Oh, your voices! Your voices! Why don’t your voices come to me? I’m the king, not you.’
‘They do come,’ she replied, ‘but you do not hear them. You’ve not sat in the field in the evening listening for them. When the Angelus rings, you cross yourself and have done with it. But if you prayed from your heart and listened to the trilling of the bells in the air after they stopped ringing, you would hear the voices as well as I do.’
Nathaniel Hawthorne describes happiness as a butterfly, which if pursued, seems always just beyond your grasp, but if you sit down quietly, it may just choose to alight upon you.
It is like that with the Spirit of God.
God is not seized, God is received. Another way of describing this is to liken it to the waves on the sea. Surfers sitting out on their boards have to learn to wait. No one can create waves, only God can do that. Surfers have to learn to read which ones are the right waves for them to ride, and then shape their ride according to the wave.
We can’t just create something out of nothing. Only God does that. We have to learn to listen to what God is sending into our lives, and then learn to ride that.
Faith is obediently getting on board with what God is already doing! Mary, Elizabeth, and even Anna to an extent, had their lives turned upside-down by what God was doing. Mary, as well as anyone, knew that obedience to God in this could have got her stoned! And yet she swallowed hard, squared her shoulders and said: ‘I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.’
PRAY AS YOU GO
Try to spend at least 5 minutes just being quiet before God. Find a place that will allow for a creative silence and listen carefully.
FOCUS READING
Luke 1. 34-38
"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"
The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God."
"I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her.