Wanted: Heroes!

 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. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

Many of us don’t realize that Mary was barely in her teens when the angel Gabriel appeared to her bearing the news that she was going to bear a child who would be called Son of God. Consequently, it was remarkable that the teenager declares, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” She may not have had the time to fully comprehend the consequences of her “Yes”, but on some level she surely must have known that things were gonna get very rough for her. 

Mary stands in sharp contrast to other hero’s in the Bible, most of who said yes to God, but only after trying to duck his call to service. Take Moses for instance. When God called him to lead the Israelites out of slavery, he made not one but five excuses! Read the 3rd and 4th chapters of Exodus and see if you can spot all the excuses; you will have a good laugh, at least until you realize that we make the very same excuses.

Gideon was another guy who tried to get out of service. Similar in some ways to Mary — he too, came from a simple background — he was different from her in that while she simply said yes to God, he asked for sign after sign before he believed that it was really God asking him to do hero stuff. For a third example, look at Saul, who was chosen to be first King of Israel. When he is to be declared king in front of the nation, he hides among the luggage and has to be dragged out into public view.

And, of course, we all know the story of Jonah, the prophet who was asked to go and preach repentance to the Ninevites, whom he hated. Instead of obeying God, he headed off in the opposite direction, putting as much distance between himself and the Ninevites that he could. Even Jesus tried to opt out of his mission as he cried out to his Father: “Take this cup away from him”. To be fair to him, however, he did add, “But let not my will, but yours be done”.

None of them had it easy.  We won’t either. God is inviting each of us to service too, and I know that most of us are tempted to say “no”, to take the easy road. But  I just want to ask you one little thing: is that the path you really want to take? There’s no honor to be found in taking it; no glory at the end of it. You’ll just be one face among millions who copped out of doing God’s will. Or do you want to be a hero?

If you wanna be a hero, say, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to his will.”

Watch a video of this reflection by Aneel Aranha here: https://youtu.be/L6DH8fHvDfI