Wonder Of Advent #14

Where Heaven and Earth Met

Read: Luke 1:26-38

The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God.”

Luke 1:35

MARY DIDN’T KNOW IT, but deep inside her teenage body God had created a remarkably sacred space. All of God’s creation is remarkably sacred, of course, but this was an exceptional phenomenon—“the pregnancy of salvation,” a medieval hymn calls it. A young girl carrying the Son of God in her womb. The Savior of humanity in her care. The eternal plan enclosed in flesh. The angel’s announcement was a stunning turn of events.

Another medieval hymn honoring Mary as a virtuous rose marveled at the merging of heaven and earth within her womb. This baby would be fully human, able to hunger, thirst, cry, sweat, bleed, and die. He would also be fully divine, perfectly in sync with the Father and invincible even in death. We can hardly grasp this convergence—our minds gravitate toward one or the other—but in this case, deity and humanity really did become one. The infinite, majestic God clothed himself in the vulnerability of an embryo in a teenage mother.

It had to be this way. Humanity’s stock was thoroughly infected and unable to recover the image of God we were created with. There had to be a regenesis—in us, but from beyond us. The incarnation of Jesus in the womb of a human being was just the beginning of the new creation. The intersection of human and divine would last more than a moment and even more than a lifetime. This was the seed of something big.

The biblical story tells us that we were originally created in God’s image. Obviously, we haven’t lived up to that image perfectly; it was shattered when we fell, and though we retain its essence, it comes out distorted in all of us. The Incarnation is a stunning reversal of that trend. The exact image of God was born through a fallen human being. The regenesis has begun. Restoration is possible. We now have the power, through his Spirit, to grow back into the original image. Heaven and earth not only met miraculously long ago in Mary and in the Son she bore, they can now meet miraculously in us.

Prayer

Father, may I grow fully into the image of Christ, who is the exact image of you. Help me walk in newness of life. May heaven and earth converge in my spirit always. Amen.

REFLECTION

How do you think Mary felt carrying God’s Son within her? How does the life within her parallel the new, divine life God has put within those who believe?

Further reading: Romans 8:29-30

For in this rose conteinèd was

heaven and earth in litel space.

“THERE IS NO ROSE,” MEDIEVAL ENGLISH CAROL