Embodied Crucibles
Hadyn Kihm
Luke 1:46b-55
When Robin suggested doing an advent devotional this year, I had doubts. Would people have the emotional bandwidth to write a hopeful, peaceful, loving or joyful devotional during this year of despair, conflict, hate and sorrow? Is it insensitive to try to find the joy amidst (gestures wildly at everything) all this?
As I mulled it over, I heard Casey Pick on the Faith Made Welcome podcast, episode 16: “This moment is a crucible, and it shows who we are and what we value…to keep finding the courage to seek out the thing that matters.” If you, like me, missed reading Arthur Miller’s play in high school, a crucible originally referred to a ceramic or metal vessel used for melting and purifying a substance under high heat. It has come to mean “a severe trial” or “a situation in which great changes take place.”
Our scripture for today, Luke 1:46b-55, is known as Mary’s Song or the Magnificat. At the time, Mary was facing the dual crucibles of being unwed and pregnant under oppressive political and religious regimes. When the angel Gabriel told her “I have good news for you which will bring great joy to all the people” she probably thought “joy? What joy?”
But Mary didn’t need to be struck mute like Zechariah to ponder the angel’s words. While visiting her cousin Elizabeth, she launched suddenly into song: “From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me — holy is his name.” With this, Mary cast off society’s shame and embraced her role as an embodied crucible, from whom something new was literally and figuratively being created.
In the face of the crucible that is 2020 and everything we’ve undergone this year, what else can we do except look for the joy? That isn’t toxic positivity, it’s survival.
If we look for joy in this year, we can find it when we as a society and as individuals discovered who we are and what we value. Like Mary, we are all enduring a crucible and embodying one; maybe you can’t even separate the two. We became embodied crucibles when we learned to sew and wore masks, when we connected online instead of going out, when we voted by mail, when we watched friends get married via Zoom.
Mary discovered her joy not because everything in her life was perfect or because she ignored the threats to her family and community, but because she embraced what mattered — in the abstract, that the Lord fulfills his promises, and in the very real sense that she would bear a child who would be the Savior, the Son of God.
Which definition of crucible will describe this year? When this severe trial is over, will we immediately go back to normal, or, like Mary, will we let the pressure of this time shape and forge us into something new?
