One of my favorite depictions of the Annunciation is by Henry Ossawa Tanner. Tanner was the son of an African Methodist Episcopal minister. He specialized in religious subjects and wanted to experience the places and people where the biblical events took place. He painted his Annunciation soon after he returned from a trip to the Holy Land and Egypt in 1898. In Tanner’s version, the Virgin Mary is depicted roused from sleep and sitting on the edge of her bed with her hands folded in her lap. The Angel Gabriel is a pillar of bright, golden light.
It is Mary’s expression that makes the painting. She is at once pensive and pondering. It is the expression of one who realizes that her whole life is about to change. There is a quiet determination there as well.
The painting currently resides at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. You can see it at: https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/104384
What Tanner has captured so well are the moments surrounding the Virgin Mary’s decision to allow God’s plan to unfold in her life. It is the moment her vocation is revealed and accepted. The world outside that room goes on completely unaware that because of the decision of a young girl in Nazareth, nothing will ever be the same.
Is it so different for each one of us? It may not be as dramatic, but does not God reveal to each of us at some point in our life what our part will be in the story of salvation? Does not each of us in the moment ponder our future? Do we not pause, ever so briefly, to consider the good things we will not do, so that we can do this one particular good thing that God is asking us to do?
Embracing our part of God’s plan so that the world may become what he has created it to be is no small thing. We all have our role to play. When we decide to follow God’s plan for us, we are forever changed. The world can never be the same. At least that part of the world with which we come into contact.