Thinking about Mary…

Some brilliant meditation from Jill W on the current prayers for Tanzania:

We are in a kaleidoscope moment – a reconfiguration, a flicker of darkness between two gleaming moments of beauty and light. In this flicker of darkness, I can’t know the outcome. I can’t know how the covenant will shape the church or how the primates will shape the communion or how the Archbishop of Canterbury will shape the Lambeth Conference or how my bishop will shape the diocese.

I do know this flicker of darkness has brought misunderstanding and sorrow, just as surely as that flicker of darkness on Golgotha brought misunderstanding and sorrow. I don’t presume to compare Christ’s passion with our anguish. Quite the opposite. He knew no sin, and we are under judgment for ours.

As we live out the consequences of our sin, engulfed by the flicker of darkness, in whom do we find our hope? First and foremost, in Jesus, who took the form of a servant and humbled himself even unto death. We seek to have the same love, the same humility, the same mind, the same obedience.

Seeking the same mind of Jesus, I think it legitimate to ask, where did He find His hope? In the Father, surely, for it was in obedience to the Father that He took up the cross. I think he also found hope in Mary.

She who believed that she could be both virgin and mother stayed at the foot of the cross. She who believed that He could turn water into wine stayed at the foot of the cross. She who believed He could heal the lame stayed at the foot of the cross. She who believed He could cast out demons stayed at the foot of the cross. She who believed He could resist Satan stayed at the foot of the cross. She who believed that He was the Son of the Highest stayed at the foot of the cross. She who believed that Jesus would inherit the throne of David stayed at the foot of the cross. She who believed that He would reign over the house of Jacob forever stayed at the foot of the cross. She who believed that His kingdom would have no end stayed at the foot of the cross.

She gave birth, remaining a virgin. She watched the end, believing in no end.

In our slow-motion flicker of darkness, awaiting the unknown, let us join Mary at the foot of the cross and believe. God has prevailed, and God will prevail. God’s kingdom will have no end.