Holy Wisdom Church
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!
My present practice is to take my personal meditation time in our small temple. Most of the time I would sit on the south side of the church, near the south door with the glass window. I would bring with me a small icon of the Holy Trinity and place it on the reader’s stand where the light would make it more visible. My meditation focus: To be quiet and at the table with Christ in the Holy Trinity. But then one day I decided to sit on the north side of the church. I still had the Holy Trinity icon with me but as chance would have it my eyes began to focus on the icon above the south door, which is the scene of Jesus meeting the woman at the well. One of the Paschaltide Sunday gospel themes.
As I reflected on that image, what struck me was the peaceful quality of the setting and the ordinariness of the activities. A woman making a daily trek to the well for water couldn’t be more ordinary and Jesus sitting by the well for rest and refreshment is no surprise for someone who spent most of his adult life traveling on foot from village to village. And yet, in that very ordinary set of circumstances, the woman encounters the source of her salvation.
Today’s Feast of the Birth of the Theotokos presents us with a story that the church uses to begin the annual cycle of major feasts. The birth of Christ’s mother begins a journey which is both mystical and temporal that brings God into our human reality. Mary’s birth is the necessary first step in that journey. This story is necessary to prepare the way for the birth of Christ. We are celebrating the birth of the one who will give birth to Christ. And that birth is the source of our salvation. But it all begins in a very ordinary human way.
So, like the image of the woman at the well meeting Jesus, Mary’s birth is part of the common fabric of human existence. After all, birth is a necessary but also an ordinary element in the propagation of the human race. In our times, 360,000 babies are born each day. That is 15,000 per hour or 1.3 million per year. It’s experienced by people worldwide in an unfolding procession of human regeneration.
With Mary, however, that ordinary event begins her extraordinary journey in which she will become the vessel of God. And yet, Mary’s story is also our story. Giving birth to God in this world is not just Mary’s role but it is our calling as well. We all carry God within us. We are all intended to bring God into this world. Our task is to bring that reality to life by the way we live.
So, our feast today has two messages for us.
First, God is in the every-day ordinary activities of our life. We access the grace that flows from that reality only if we are alert to the possibility. The woman at the well was engaged in a very ordinary activity. A daily task. But in the midst of that task, the Light shined on her. Through the ordinary came her salvation. It found her in her daily chores. She engaged with that opportunity and her life, and that of her village, changed forever.
Giving birth is also a common occurrence. With Mary, it becomes the path to our salvation even though it begins as a humble - ordinary event - the birth of a girl. So, for us, if we dismiss the simple, mundane, the oh so ordinary activities of our life, we may very well miss the very message God is offering us, as we heard in today’s reading from Hebrews.
Second, just like Mary, we too carry God within us and are to give that reality to the world. Giving Christ new life in every age requires believers in every age to bring the message of Christ to life, and to do that even in our ordinary daily activities. Christ ran for no office, he did not create an empire, nor develop new technologies or form armies to conquer nations. He simply met people where they were in their ordinary lives and showed them new pathways to improve their circumstances. He brought hope, compassion and a new understanding of God’s love for all creation. That task is never finished. What started with Mary, continues with us today.
Glory be to Jesus Christ!
