She woke up suddenly. It was still dark, but she couldn’t sleep. So she climbed up onto the flat roof upstairs and sat down. Aside from the sound of her own breath, there was not a sound. Perfect silence. She gazed out into the dark sky covering the hills that rolled out toward the west. It was midnight.
Suddenly she began to tremble, but did not know why. . . . Something was coming. She turned. Before her was a blinding light. She was afraid and could not stop trembling. As her eyes adjusted to see into the light, she could make out a figure. Fearsome, like a warrior, yet crouched down, as if a great man were kneeling before her, his head bowed low. Then she heard its voice. “Hail, Mary, full of grace . . .”
A few months had passed. They were now back on the road up to Nazareth. On the way down into Judah to visit Elizabeth, they had been lucky to catch a large caravan on its way to Jerusalem. Now on the journey home, Mary was alone with Joseph and two of her relatives. The men were talking about something. Mary smiled as she watched her husband. Truly she hadn’t known him well before he joined her at Zachariah’s house. She liked him. And Joseph was surprisingly good with the baby. Men do not naturally know how to hold a baby. But Joseph seemed to have it down, by instinct. He was so gentle. John would finally calm down, his dark eyes staring up at Joseph’s face. He liked especially to pull gently at Joseph’s ears. But if John noticed Mary in the room, he would leap and stir excitedly until he was placed in her arms.
She smiled thinking about the baby. Before long, Mary would be holding her own child. She already loved her little one dearly, though she could not yet feel him.
“Mary? Are you feeling okay?” Joseph had turned and was looking at her. Unwittingly, Mary had slowed her pace, and her hand was resting on her lower belly. “Oh, yes, I’m fine,” she said with a slight laugh. He stood there waiting as she stepped forward to meet him. He was looking at her with an inquisitive smile. Mary reassured him she was just a little tired.
That evening, they found a clearing a little ways off the road where they could camp. It was next to a stream, protected on one side by a steep rock wall cut out into the hillside. Joseph had already wished Mary a good night before turning in to his own tent at the edge of camp. Mary was left alone, staring pensively at the slowly running water. Not wholly alone though. She placed her hand over the new life growing inside her.
This little child . . . she loved him so dearly . . . more than she thought possible. He was her dear Lord. And yet he was wholly silent as he lay hidden in her womb, hidden from the world he’d come to save. “In the shadow of his hand he hid me,” the ancient prophecy went. He had foretold this silence, these sacred months he’d spend in her womb.
But, Mary knew, it was also he who had inspired this prophecy: “I hid not my face from shame and spitting.” She shuddered at this. Her little child was so small, so innocent. Yet the day would come when he would be belittled as an object of reproach. Tears were welling up in her eyes.
Suddenly, she stopped. She had felt something. She pressed her hand tighter on her womb. A small kick . . . softer even, like his little hand was pushing up at the top of his little space. Lord! Lord! she cried quietly.
Mary looked up at the sky, which was now wholly blocked out by the overcast. But suddenly nothing else mattered. She had never any doubt that he was with her. But now, she knew, she would have no fear for his sake.
✠
Photo by Thomas Shellberg on StockSnap
