Theotokos

Then Mary said, "Here I am, he servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word."

-Luke 1: 38

The Orthodox, as in the part of the church that split off from Roman Catholicism 500 years before it was cool, have given Jesus' mother the title Theotokos, which means "God-bearer." It's a great word and a wonderful, holy idea.  The Roman Catholic obsession with the "blessed virgin," and the Protestant skepticism about the same, just seem to break like waves on the rock of such an important idea.  I have, since my Camino experience, become a little less mystified by the veneration of Saints and especially Mary.  Growing up Protestant it was something that always seemed a little spooky, and as our theology smugly told us we didn't really need any intermediaries between ourselves and the Holy Trinity because of Jesus, it was pretty easy to just not think about why so many people find a great comfort in rituals involving Mary, the Rosary Prayer being a rather prominent example.

What happened to me on the Camino, was that I found myself standing in front of the statues of the Virgin Mother in church after church, looking at the profoundly a-historic icons and statues, all of a white woman with blondish or sandy brown hair even though I know the actual Mary was Palestinian, all representing something that seems to me as a dyed in the wool rationalist Presbyterian to be bordering on idolatry, yet there I was feeling comforted.  The first time, as I processed the feelings that I had standing under her peaceful gaze, I came to the conclusion that perhaps I had gotten too much sun or needed to eat an orange or something.  But it kept happening, that feeling that she was trying to give me something.  It was then that I thought of the title that the Orthodox gave her, the one that doesn't need her to be pure or virginal, the one that doesn't need her to be shining and white: God-bearer.

All of the things I know about Mary: that she was young, that she was probably poor, that she found herself in a difficult situation which very easily could have turned tragic had God not also convicted Joseph to go above and beyond what was "righteous," these things illustrate something very important about being a God-bearer. God is not waiting for the perfect situation or a perfect person to enter into our lives.  God will meet you where you are, like the prodigal's father who ran out to meet his repentant son.  What this sort-of Calvinist found in Mary's gaze was unconditional.  I didn't need to believe any particular thing about her know how to say the rosary or anything.  The harshness and judgment that people so often associate with Christianity became a transparent falsehood.

It is in our nature to be transactional: we give, we expect to get; we achieve, we expect reward.  It is hard for us to understand God because of this.  We can't comprehend how it is that both joy and suffering come to us regardless of whether we are righteous or wicked.  The "rain falling on the fields of the just and the unjust alike," seems like some sort of flaw in the system, but it's not a flaw.

Everything about Jesus, from who his parents were, to the circumstances of his birth to the brutality of his execution, and on to the who and how of his disciples, speaks to the truth that God doesn't need perfection or purity, God just needs our cooperation.  I believe in the statements we make in our Creeds about Jesus being "born of a Virgin," but I'm not entirely sure that's even necessary for this to work out.  What makes her holy and blessed is not the fact that she hadn't yet had sex, it is the fact that when God offered her a chance to be a part of the story, even though it had to be pretty terrifying, she simply said, "let it be." This girl who, objectively, had very little agency over her own life, was asked by the Lord of Heaven to be the Mother of God, and she said yes.

This is the core of incarnation, God entering into human lives. It's not just a one off event.  Mary is not the only God-bearer.  She gave Christ a body, knit together in her womb. We all give Christ a body as well.  We can all be God-bearers.  The Spanish mystic Theresa of Avila said it this way, and I use this often myself: 

Christ has no body now but yours.

No hands, no feet on earth but yours.

Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on the world.

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.

Yours are the hands through which he blesses the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, You are his Body.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Be God-bearers.