Mary’s Song, The Magnificat and Awakening
Mary is a young betrothed peasant woman. The angel Gabriel visits her and tells her she will conceive by the Spirit of g-d and give birth to the world’s Savior. Awakening is always an encounter with the unbidden g-d. G-d comes at us, unannounced, mostly unwelcomed, strange and threatening. When we encounter g-d in Awakening we may be blown away – quietly or “violently.”
My personal Awakening was a bit of both. At sixteen years of age, dealing and using drugs, one cold lonely January Monday night I feel to my knees in front of my dresser next to my bed. I was tired and strung out and all I prayed was “God help me.” I meant it, but didn’t expect anything. But I was desperate. I thought g-d was far away, unconcerned, unaware and mostly unable to do anything for me.
But in that moment, something washed over me. I can only assume it was the unbidden g-d crashing into me. I woke up from my nightmare. I began to mutter and sing and cry and laugh. I was scared and freaked out. I was losing control and liked it. I went to sleep that night expecting my “awakening” to just be some ridiculous teenage moment. But the next morning everything was different. I felt alive. I had been raised in the church and even knew what it meant to be “saved” but I wasn’t expecting what happened to me that night.
Robert Mulholland thinks Awakening is a two-sided experience: an encounter with the living God, and an encounter with the true self (page 80). I tend to think Awakening is more akin to St. Bernard’s first of four loves: loving one’s self for self’s sake. This means g-d crashes into us and we realize we are lovable, we are “worth more than sparrows.” G-d loves us. To repeat, I think this first stage of Awakening is more about us loving ourselves. This is not bad. This is necessary. That cold January Monday night in my room was the best necessary first step for me: I am loved. I love me. That’s huge. May everyone wake up to love their self.
Mary Awakens to find Gabriel telling her in so many words “G-d loves you Mary.” Mary had ‘found favor with God’ probably because she was a good, honorable Jewish girl. Mary must have been moral according to Torah, the Jewish Law. She knew all about YHWH. But this visit from Gabriel was magnificent – and terrifying! It took her totally by surprise. (‘Don’t be afraid Mary!”) G-d comes unbidden to her, and she wakes up to love and hope. She discovers who she is (true self) as much as a young person can at that age.
Mulholland states the Awaken stage consists of two emotions: comfort and threat. Yes, I agree. Mary and I both experienced comfort (hope). But we are immediately asked to bravely renounce our self-control. This moment of Surrender is a huge threat to our self-governance.
“Decide! Who is your Lord?”
“You Jesus, only you. You are Maestro, you are my Master.”
I think Americans who experience Awakening are what most of us would call “Christians.” There are Christians and then there are Followers. As someone once said, “No one says ‘no’ to God, just ‘not yet.'” I was technically a Christian. I believed the right information. I knew my Bible. I had been baptized and took the Lord’s Supper. I am not sure anyone can really experience Awakening until they are an official believer. Look at the Apostle Paul’s Awakening: knocked off his horse to the ground. He was a perfect Jew, a Rabbi, a Pharisee. He knew all the right stuff about YHWH, Torah and Jewish history. Yet, the light of Christ was so bright it blinded him for days. Perhaps those who think they know more fall harder.
The spiritual journey is difficult. As G.K. Chesterton put it “Christianity has not so much been tried and found wanting, as it has been found difficult and left untried.” (quoted by D. Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines, page 1) Those who cannot or will not allow the unbidden g-d to knock them to the ground, or doubt the announcement of g-d’s love, his favor for them cannot and will not wake up. The soil is just too hard packed. Nothing can take root there.
“It is impossible to please God without faith” declares the writer of Hebrews (11:6). And what is faith but stepping out on just a bit of information – not all the information (otherwise it isn’t faith by definition).
So what shall we do to Awaken? I am probably talking to the wrong reader here, right? No “unawakened” person is reading this probably. Nonetheless, here’s what we must do: be like Mary – live honorably, learn your Bible, be in the church fellowship, get baptized, get your doctrines down, and learn what you believe and don’t believe, pray, serve, and learn who you belong to… and be very very very open to the unbidden g-d.
This is what we are doing with our children at Lakeland these days: preparing them for Awakening. So don’t be alarmed if your “Christian” son or daughter suddenly becomes a Christian at camp or at a friend’s church, or kneeling in front of their dresser in their room. This is Awakening.
Next week, Purgation and Zechariah who is the opposite of Mary.
