We say,
I am the Lord’s servant,
when the angel-glow is close
enough to touch. In that moment,
our holiness soars to its feet, ready to
greet whatever epic task was just passed to us.
It’s the next moments that matter — when
the angel-light has scattered into
the sky, leaving behind the ordinary darkness, the
unspectacular hum of a Nazareth
night, and suspicious gazes from neighbors,
when the word that wafted so
splendidly from heaven to
earth now seems absurd,
when the stares of strangers become
bolder as the baby begins to grow,
when Joseph wants to walk away,
when no one knows what to say to a girl who
claims her seeming disgrace is actually
good news of grace for the world.
I hope then that I will still
be the Lord’s servant, opening
my hands to welcome, like a
womb, the Word that is being fulfilled.
