Yes; the moment Mary spoke for all humanity!

Yes; the moment Mary spoke for all of humanity!

Remember the day when someone stood up and answered the classical question that put each of us into a crucible we couldn’t back out of?  It might have been the day we were involved in an insidious event that placed each one in trouble with the law.  Or it could have been the very moment we held this person in high esteem for serving us the feast of a palate we couldn’t refuse.  In any case, the words; “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.  May it be done to me according to your word.”  (Lk 1: 38).  Never in any venue of life did someone chosen by God respond so graciously to be the one vehicle God would choose to bring about the redemption of a sinful people.  His plan from eternity was about to open before all the angels in heaven to a future that even they would bow before those they would soon serve.

Why would the creator of a universe so magnificent bring a personhood of human species into existence knowing they would turn aside from him at the very moment of creation?  God saw a different reason for the human species to be created.  We became the apple of his eye, quoting Deuteronomy.  “He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness, he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.”  (Dt 32: 10).  

We were special beyond description and would remain so into eternity with God, forever.  We don’t know what Mary could have understood when she said Yes to the Angel Gabriel.  But her obedience to a simple request from God would mean the transition from Satan and his denial of God’s Son would become the ultimate overthrow of evil throughout the universe and all human life that would inherit the world of endless existence with Almighty God.  

That Yes was also directed to you and me when through our entrance into this life of pain in concert with Christ who willingly took upon the weight of our sins that was too heavy for us to endure.  As I recently wrote about the scream that I was told came from the depths of hell was the very probability we faced until Mary, the Mother of God, said Yes, for us as well.  

Saying yes opened the gates of Paradise and has invited all of us who believe and follow the Son of God by our yes as well has accepted the invitation to enter as the apple of his eye.  We are chosen by God through the shedding of the Blood of Christ on the Cross at Calvary and joining us to the myriads of angels who sang the praises of Jesus saying;  “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”  (Lk 2: 14).  

Mary answering Yes was the curtain call we all answered when the final curtain into everlasting life was opened for the last time.  

Ralph B. Hathaway