For many centuries most European countries took 25 March, not 1 January, as the day when the number of the year changed, so that 24 March 1203 was followed by 25 March 1204. If you had asked a Christian of that time why the calendar year changed so oddly in the middle a month, she might have said: “This is the beginning of a new year in the Christian era, which began a thousand years ago today when God was made human, when God took upon Godself a carnal body and human nature in the womb of the Virgin.”

I like to imagine that Mary was praying the scriptures. Perhaps she was praying Psalm 46 which describes:

4 …the holy tabernacle of the Most High.

5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved:

God will help her, when the morning dawns…

8 Come, behold the works of the Holy One…

10 Be still, and know that I am God!…

11 The Sovereign-Commander of celestial armies is with us; the God of Jacob

[and Rachel, Leah, Bilhah and Zilpah] is our refuge.

Perhaps she prayed the prophet Zephanyah, Zephaniah, chapter 3:

15 …The Sovereign of the Heavens and Earth,

is in your midst daughter;

you shall fear disaster no more daughter…

16 Fear not daughter, O daughter of Zion;

do not let your hands grow weak daughter.

17 The Ever-Present One, your God, is in your midst daughter,

a warrior who gives victory;

Who will rejoice over you with gladness daughter,

and will renew you in love daughter;

Who will exult over you daughter with loud singing

18 as on a day of festival.

I will remove disaster from you daughter,

so that you will not bear reproach for this daughter.

I imagine that since Miryam did not suffer from our masculinist translations, that she would remember those texts with all of their girl-God-talk to the Daughter of Zion. She too was God’s daughter. And God sent God’s messenger to this daughter of Zion.

The angel said, “Shalom lakh, peace to you woman, wholeness to you woman, may it be well with you woman. If as a member of an oral, aural culture Miryam recognized those words, she might not have felt well at all. The old Benjaminite householder in Judges 19 greeted the wife of the traveling Levite with those very words: Shalom lakh, peace to you woman, wholeness to you woman, may it be well with you woman. That night he stood by as her husband forced her out of the house and into the clutching grasp of the men who raped and murdered her, leaving her to die on the doorstep of the man who greeted her with peace.

These words were also put to the Shunnamite woman on Elisha’s behalf in question form: Is it shalom to you woman? Is it shalom to your husband woman? Is it shalom to your child woman? She said ‘It is shalom.’ But her child was dead. Yet her child would live again. But how often could that happen? No wonder Miryam was deeply troubled by Gavri’el’s, Gabriel’s, words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.

Then Miryam was greeted with a ‘Fear-not.’ (The standard greeting in angelic discourse.) Once upon a time, to the woman who received the first angelic annunciation there was “Fear not Hagar…” More recently there was “Fear not, Zecharyah, Zechariah,: for your prayer has been heard; and your wife Elisheva, Elisabeth, will give birth to a son, and you will name him Yochanon, John.” There would be “Fear not Yosef (Joseph) ben David, take Miryam as your wife…” “Fear not, shepherds. Look! I am bringing you good tidings of great joy, which are for all people.” And one day there would be to her again, this time with her sister-friends: “Fear not women: for I know that you seek Yeshua, Jesus, who was crucified…”

The word of the divine messenger was ‘fear not’ because God is with you. Already. Before the spirit of God transubstantiates the flesh and blood of your womb into the body and blood of the Messiah. God is with you now, in your ordinary-extraordinary first century, Iron Age life. In the midst of the Roman occupation, God is with you. After the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, God is with you. After the destruction of the temple in Samaria, God is with you. During the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, God is with you. While God is breathing life into the dead womb of Elisheva, God is with you. Here. Now.

The word of the divine messenger was not that God would be Immanu-El, with all of us, but that God was with her. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved. When the fabric of space and time collapse into the secret spaces of her body, God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved. Even if her spouse were to drag her down to the temple by her hair so her cousin could intone the malediction of the sotach – the woman suspected of adultery, God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved. Even if she were forced to drink the bitter waters of cursing, cursing her body and its secret places – she whose own name meant bitter-water-woman. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved.

Because God had been with her, was with her and continues to be with her, God is with us also. Immanu-El. As we continue our Lenten and annual liturgical journeys, let us reflect on the expansion of Immanu-El within us. I would like to invite you to grow with God in a Marion year.

On Palm Sunday, feel the neonatal Gospel quickening deep within you. During Pesach, Passover, including Good Friday and Easter, imagine nibbling on matzah to quell burgeoning waves of nausea as morning sickness comes morning or noon or night or all of the above. On Pentecost as faithful Jews celebrate the First Fruits hear Elisheva’s benediction “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” ‘Your first fruit.’  Imagine Ordinary Time transformed into Extraordinary Time as Miryam’s womb, now the Ark of Throbbing Promises expanded to encompass the ineffable. Imagine Advent waiting to see what on earth, what under the heavens he will look like. Will he have 10 fingers and 10 toes? Imagine Christmas as Frances Croake Frank envisions it:

‘Did the woman say,

When she held him for the first time in the dark of a stable,

After the pain and the bleeding and the crying,

“This is my body, this is my blood”?’

The fusion of divinity and humanity in the dark softness of womb-space has forever changed both of us. God’s knowledge of being human is experiential. Our experience of God-being is being human. The Incarnation provides a glimpse of God’s anthropology: It is just possible that human beings are capable of nurturing and protecting the most precious gift ever conceived. There is hope for us.

In this Women’s History Month, the Incarnation also provides a glimpse of God’s gynecology: Women, our bodies and their possibilities, our intimate relationships, our family ties, our calls and our confessions are God-space.

But in our world, women are the poorest people on the planet – their children are often poorer, but regularly shorter-lived. Women and girls are the most frequent victims of physical violence and sexual abuse. Palestinian women give birth to dying babies at Israeli checkpoints. Iraqi women and girls are more likely to be kidnapped if venturing outside of their homes after Operation Iraqi Freedom than before it. More women in the Armed Forces of the United States haven been raped by their comrades-in-arms than by the designated enemies in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait – where there are presumably only allies. Professional sex-workers serve as recruiting sub-contractors for colleges and universities with billion-dollar endowments. A father murders his daughters and their children, some of whom are also his children. A prison guard reports of the two weeks she was held hostage by inmates “Fortunately the sexual assaults didn’t happen very often.” The broken body of girl-child is stuffed behind a toilet in a library whose shelves offer story of the Annunciation and Incarnation.

Shalom lakh, peace to you woman, wholeness to you woman, may it be well with you woman. God is with you. In your brokenness, in your fullness, God is with you. How can this be? The power of the Holy Spirit, She covers you, She enfolds you, She transforms you inside and out, and She is transforming the world through you – one man at a time.

May God the Mother and Father

of Avraham, Yitza’ak and Ya’acov,

Sarah, Hagar, Rivqah, Rachel, Leah, Bilhah and Zilpah,

Who took the tangled threads of their lives

And wove a tapestry of Redemption

In the Body and Blood of Miryam l’Natzeret

Continue to weave the strands of your life

In the Divine design

Amen.