(Audio)
Is it not enough for you to weary people,
must you also weary my God?
We have a hard time wanting what God wants. His will can feel like an imposition even when his will is for something we would otherwise want. We tend to be more like Ahaz than like Mary. But when we resist, God persists.
Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign:
the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son,
and shall name him Emmanuel,
which means “God is with us!”
We are made for God's will. Without it things seem hopeless. Without it the plans for the Kingdom seemed to collapse. It seemed that the line of David had ended through the failure of humanity. But God persisted.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his Kingdom there will be no end.
The grace of obedience was something God had to manifest for us. It was through the grace of the Immaculate Conception that Mary was sufficiently free to give the assent of her will. It was from this root that Jesus himself was able to take on our human nature and to obey God where we failed to obey. Mary and Jesus both experienced that God's will was not an imposition from without, but something that moved them sweetly from within, something in which they could delight.
The Annunciation is the celebration of obedience finally being made manifest in the humanity of Jesus which he receives through the yes of Mary.
Then I said, ‘As is written of me in the scroll,
behold, I come to do your will, O God.’”
Before we get bored, thinking this isn't something we really want to celebrate, let us consider Jesus and Mary. Was the will of God burdensome for them?
But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work" (See John 4:32-34).
Mary's response is no less joyful.
My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior (see Luke 1:46-47)
Today we can celebrate that God knows that our resistance is ultimately misplaced and insincere. He persists anyway. His persistence can reach us today to change us from within so that our own assent not only happens, but comes from a willing heart.
In the written scroll it is prescribed for me,
To do your will, O my God, is my delight,
and your law is within my heart!
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