“Fear not!”
The angel said these words to Mary, because real angels always must begin with comfort when they meet us. Men cannot meet with Angels safely unless God has sent the angels.
Even when God sends the angels, the result is not safety, but security. Some adventure is beginning full of peril, but God will keep us, even if we die!
Sometimes God sends Angels to execute His judgment: nobody told God that “spiritual” means soft and safe. God is just, righteous, and all knowing. Sometimes He sends Angels to smite the disobedient.
God save us from ourselves!
Any person who believes himself so righteous that he need not fear an Angel sent from God is so arrogant he should be afraid. We do not like to think of God smiting us, because we have reduced the Holy God to a being that we can “un-friend” safely. God is patient, but His patience has a limit. God is loving, but His love demands we not destroy ourselves and others with our unbounded selfishness, eroticism, and pride.
We lie to ourselves so much that if we are not very careful, we will lose the fear of God. If an Angel comes to me tonight, I hope the first thing I hear is: “Fear not!”
Mary might have been afraid of Angels, but she was told not to be afraid, but she might still have decided to disobey. Instead, Mary said the best thing any human can say: she was God’s slave and was willing to do His will.
Any human that would be free of nature, other men, or even himself must imitate Mary. Only the slaves of God can become children of God, because we begin as slaves to sin and sin will never set us free. We need a new master in order to have a new father. Even if we lived a perfect life, even if we were as blessed as Mary, we still must obey, because all of us must be delivered from bondage to the world, the flesh, and the devils.
Mary might have been afraid of devils, but she was not. No person submitted to God needs fear devils, because the darkness disappears before the Light. This Light is uncreated and so cannot be destroyed, it dispels be appearing. God’s servants need do nothing to chase away evil than to appear.
Mary might have been afraid of men, but she never was. She knew that men would judge, but she was fierce and powerful in her holiness. In her time, misogynists demeaned her womanhood while in our day we scoff at her virginity. She was a woman and she was a virgin. She had the power of chastity: not the absence of sex, but the presence of purity.
She became the ideal human, because she embraced God’s will.
Mary might have been afraid of society, but she did not care for the judgments of society. Her purity rebuked the lies about her character and the cosmic power that came from her obedience scoffs at any Earthly establishment. The dragon cannot prevail against the Mother of God, because she said “yes” to God. What social media judgements matters?
Mary feared God and having feared God did not ever have to be afraid again. Some claimed she was blessed for her “womb” or the ability to suckle the Lord Jesus, but the Angel called her blessed, happy, because she was good.
The Mother of God heard the Word of God and obeyed, becoming the first of many children of God. The Lord Jesus once reminded His listeners that any of us, even you and me, could become part of His holy Family. We need only hear the Word of God and obey and we shall be His brothers and sisters.
Today, now, join the Holy Family. Be a brother or sister of Jesus, a child of Mary and of God.
Will we say ‘yes?’ If so then the word of the Angel still sounds for humanity, for us, for even me:
“Fear not!”
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