On this final week of Advent, we are invited to be a silent participant in the annunciation, the story of Gabriel’s visit to Mary announcing that she would conceive and bear the Son of God. I want us to pay close attention to Mary’s response to this life-altering news and invite us to consider how we might embody her open-handness in our own lives.

In the Gospel reading from Luke chapter 1, we read Mary’s response to the angel’s message. She begins with a very understandable question:

Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”

It’s interesting to me how responses to angelic messengers are received by the Holy Spirit. In some instances, questions or doubt seem to have negative repercussions. While in the case of Mary, this question must have come from a place of sincerity and openness, humility to God’s will and fearful receptivity to what might come next.

The angel answers Mary’s question with openness, yet the mystery of the incarnation is still great:

The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.

For nothing will be impossible with God.”*

Ok, friends. This is what I need you to hear. Listen closely to these next words.

Then Mary replied,

“Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

Mary’s response to Gabriel’s astonishing announcement could have been any number of things. She could have run away in fear. She could have made a forceful power grab. She could have collapsed into a pile of relentless tears. (Maybe she did after the angel left her? 🤷)

But her response is one that demonstrates deep submission and healthy detachment. I want to ask you to consider how the Spirit of God might be inviting you to begin practicing the spiritual discipline of detachment.

Detachment is about letting go of anything that stands in the way of desiring and knowing God. It’s not about an attitude apathy, not caring about anything. Detachment is about replacing our attachment to people and possessions, to productivity and power, with a wholehearted attachment to God alone.

Mary serves as a beautiful example of what it means to live in a spirit of attachment to God. Imagine all she must have been setting aside in the moment she uttered those words. She was letting go of her idea of a family and esteem. She set aside her right to control public opinions and gossip. She was willing to put all of her own plans and dreams on the table for the sake of God’s story.

And Mary’s response, “Let it be to me according to your word,” reminds me of the times when Jesus himself uttered words very similar to his mother’s in a time of deep angst.

“Jesus knows all about the discipline of detachment, writes Adele Calhoun. “He made the harrowing descent that relinquished heavenly privileges for a life of human limitations.”

In the Garden of Gethsemane, after sharing a final meal with his friends, Jesus withdrew into solitude with God to wrestle through his emotions. The Gospels tell us that Jesus was filled with grief, “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” Jesus knew every part of our human experience, our attachment to security and avoiding pain, our attachment to friends and job security. And faced with the choice to walk towards his crucifixion, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed not once, but two times:

My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.*

It is this same time of trusting detachment that we pray every time we pray the prayer Jesus taught his disciples:

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

What would it look like for each of us to take a page from Mary’s story and from Christ’s example? What next step can you take to begin to live a life that willingly responds, “Let it be to me according to your word”?

Here are some ideas I want to offer to you as you consider walking in the way of Jesus:

Walk through your home or office and consider the possessions most important to you. What thoughts or feelings come up as you consider living without these items?

Ask God to give you an opportunity to share something with someone this week: your car, your home, your time, your expertise.

Using sticky notes or notecards, write down all of your favorite possessions and time commitments. Lay them out on the table and ask God’s Spirit to show you which one(s) you need to let go of for a time.

This attitude of trust and attachment to God alone is a constant practice. It takes self-awareness, a willingness to be honest with yourself. And it takes courage, the kind of courage the first disciples had as they set down their fishing gear and followed Jesus, the same kind of courage a teenaged girl had as she was told she would give birth to God’s Son.

Take a note from Mary, and maybe even from Elsa, as you step into the unknown. Sure, “There’s a thousand reasons [you] should go about [your] day and ignore [the Spirit’s] whispers which [you] wish would go away.” But this life of detachment, of self-sacrifice, of letting go, is the way that leads to the full life Jesus came to bring us.

Jesus himself tells us:

“Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?

Mark 8:34-37, the MSG