Episode 12 — When Mary Says “Oh Crap” to God: In today’s episode I focus on Mary’s humanness. We know Mary was frightened. We know Mary was confused. If Mary could come to God with fear, with confusion, with her real self, well, so can we.
The New International Bible translation says that when the angel appears Mary feels “greatly troubled.” Translating that into what I might say inside my head if I were her is something along the lines of, “Oh, crap.”
Then the angel tells Mary she’s going to have a baby, and Mary says, “Who, me? Are you sure you have the right person? I, um, I haven’t had sex yet and even though we don’t have sex-ed here in Nazareth, I’m pretty sure I can’t have a baby unless I, um, you know… with someone?” And then the angel says, “Yep. That is correct. But in this case, God’s going to make it happen. That’s what you get to do when you’re God. Congratulations!” And Mary says, “Um, okay. I’m not going to disagree with God.”
Mary’s Humanness
I read that story one morning last week, and then we watched The Best Christmas Pageant Ever as a family. In this movie, a group of delinquent kids, the Herdmans, take over the Christmas pageant from the typical cast of characters. So instead of Mary being an angelic, blonde-haired, blue-eyed and rather self-righteous doll of a girl (Alice Wilkerson), she becomes a scared and confused girl who yells and cries and has dirt on her cheeks and under her fingernails (Imogene Herdman). All of a sudden Mary is a kid who is desperately…
There’s More!
I’d love for you to listen to this podcast episode via the player above or on your favorite podcast platform. Visit my podcast page for all of this season’s episodes. And you can read along with the entire Prepare Him Room podcast season by downloading my FREE ebook!
If you haven’t already, please subscribe to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and you can subscribe to my podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify, as well as other platforms.
