Advent #1: Mary

So it's come down to this.

Nine months I carried him. And for what?
Thirty-three years he lived. And for what?

All those years I've endured being misunderstood. All I wanted was to be a good mother to my son, but because the father of my other children was not also his father, the other women never knew what to make of me.

Never mind that it didn't matter to the father of my other children that Jeshua wasn't his.
Never mind the divine revelations we received about his birth.
They didn't understand.
But then again, neither did I.

And all these years I watched him grow. From Bethlehem to Nazareth; from the manger to the temple. All these things he did, I never understood. But he was my son. So even while I didn't understand, I loved him.

But he was never really mine. Sure I carried him for nine months. But he came from a place that I never really understood. And the things he did in his lifetime were never really things I could understand. Turning water into wine, healing the sick, making the lame walk again...

But there was something else.
He loved.

He loved me. He loved his father.
He loved the women on the streets, those tax people, and even... even those people who brought him to Golgotha.

But why? Why would he love them? Why SHOULD he love them?

I loved him because I carried him for nine months. But he? He had no blood relations, no ties, no obligations to any of these people. Yet he cared. He owed them nothing; he did not have any reason to worry about the consequences of their life decisions. Yet he loved.

There are days when I wonder, did I carry him all that nine months just to watch him carry that cross? If I had known that this was what it was going to come down to, I would have asked for this yoke to be taken away from me. Then I wouldn't have to hurt because the man on that cross would have been someone else's son and not mine. And I could just watch from a distance and not get involved with the story.

But he knew. He knew even before he was in my womb. And he still chose this.

This.
This is love.
Love that is greater than I can understand
Love that gives all, demanding nothing in return
Love that expects nothing in return
Love that knew all the stories and the ugly baggage, but never withdrew
Love that saw the bigger picture but yet cared about the small details

I could have just been a bystander watching this all unfold. But he chose to show me the depth of this love when he let me carry him, even if just for a little while. He chose to let me understand the pain of this love that overwhelms my humanity.

This was a love that would have come whether or not I was involved. But it also came for me.

And this is the love that compels me to love with that same depth and intensity. But I'm not Jeshua. I don't have it in me to love like that. But come, Emmanuel. Come and overwhelm me with this deep, intense love again that I might love the way you chose to.

O Come Emmanuel