Annunciation

Katy Emslie-Smith December 07, 2021 0 4

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Luke 1: 29-33 (NRSVA)

29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favour with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants for ever; his kingdom will never end.’

She may have turned her head

To where the shadows changed round an absence,

A gap in the curtain blown just wider,

A shift in the falling evening air,

Denser now, with the scent of bergamot

As if crushed in a footprint.

A change in the light perhaps,

Inexplicable, as an eclipse of the sun

In an overshadowing might scintillate its rays,

Just for a moment,

Before setting in its dusky course.

She may have seen a feather fall,

Her heart stilled, comforted

As words formed

In the silent spiral downwards,

Soft down for her soul

“Do not be afraid”.

The light may have failed earlier that day,

A strange dusk,

Come in a way that she couldn’t quite remember.

A lonely intimacy this,

With intimations of power and greatness,

Prophesied and pondered, reverenced

In the long stretch of her people’s faith,

Come near to her –

Spoken from a face with teeth, tongue

Lips, breath, skin?

Or a simple knowing of her heart.

“Let it be” she said

As the flow of blood in her pelvis turned its course

To give her life now to this new life.

Her boy, her son,

Named in this darkening hour,

Jesus.

PRAYER:

Holy Spirit, work within our imaginations to bring the wide horizons of truth to us, as we enter into and explore the Christmas story. Amen.