“In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.” —Luke 1:26-29
For a moment, heaven held its breath waiting for perfect liberty to breathe conceived in the woman’s “yes.”
Yet, the young virgin was troubled and perplexed by what sort of greeting this could be.
“An angel at my doorstep saying ‘Ave’ to me?” she pondered quietly in her heart. “Why does he call me full of grace? Why does he say the Lord is with me?”
And in that moment of the woman’s perplexity, the devil desperately whispered in her ear – subtle half-truths told with bad intent to sow seeds of doubt and fear.
“Don’t you know you are already free? That you are already like God?” the devil hissed. “Don’t you know, there is godly power in your ‘no’? And that God needs your consent?”
“Don’t you know, daughter of Eva, you are free to grasp your own bliss? That it is better to suffer for self than to suffer for Him in the pursuit of happiness?”
Though the woman heard these whispers, she remained unmoved and without fear. A rose without blemish or thorn, she kneeled and continued to ponder the angel’s words in her heart – her trouble overshadowed by wonder and awe.
This made the devil even more desperate, as his words became clumsy, bitter and biting, consumed by the venom of his own fear.
“Don’t you know that if you bear this child, your life will change? That your friends and family will be ashamed? What will others think of you? No one will believe that a virgin conceived a child merely from the words she heard!” the devil said in vain.
“What if there’s something wrong with the child? And what will your betrothed chaste Joseph say? Would you bring disgrace upon him and the house of David? Don’t you know you could be divorced or put to death according to the law?”
The woman was no longer listening to the serpent, now amazed by the angel’s promises of a Son.
This made the dragon breathe fire as his hatred and envy consumed him.
“A son? They promise you a son? A son for you to cherish and love? You do not know what you have done, woman!” the devil cried.
“Do you want to know what will become of him and thus become of you? He will be hunted by kings from the day of his birth! Innocent children will be slaughtered in his name! He will be driven into exile in foreign lands! He will be defamed, accused, mocked, tortured and maimed. He will be killed in the most humiliating way! He will bleed and die in agony on a tree like a forsaken, forgotten slave! He will be pierced through! And a sword will pierce through your soul as well! As his mother, you too will have to suffer his wounds of body and spirit, more than any other creature God has graced!”
The woman then turned and looked the devil right in the eye. Her eyes were like the moon fully clothed in the sun.
“Do you still wish to be a mother to this child?” the devil cooed, thinking he had finally won, “You could always be a mother to some other child some other day. Think of your own well-being, your own dreams. Think of all the suffering and hardship you could avoid if you just said ‘no’. Abort and no one will ever know—”
“No,” the woman said to the serpent with the twinkle of a warrior queen in her eye. “You are wrong. You have been a murderer from the beginning, the first deceiver who started by first deceiving himself. You disobey and wound yourself and call your desolation freedom – but you are a slave to death, futility and decay. Yes, I may suffer as I witness my child suffer, perhaps more than any mother will ever have to do. But don’t you know, that from the wounds we bear for others, everlasting flowers bloom? That to suffer out of obedience in love is greater than any promise of sin? My soul magnifies the Lord in every way.”
The devil slithered off, beaten and broken by his own game – as heaven breathed a sigh of relief seeing human and divine humility become one and the same – as the woman turned to the angel Gabriel to say, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
Joey Clark is a native Alabamian and currently hosts the radio program News and Views on News Talk 93.1 FM WACV out of Montgomery, AL, M-F 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. His column appears every Tuesday in 1819 News. To contact Joey for media or speaking appearances, or for any feedback, please email [email protected]. Follow him on X @TheJoeyClark or watch the radio show livestream.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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