The Vicar's wife Vicars Vic!

One of the trials my wife has had to endure over the years is my rushing into whichever room she is occupying and running around shouting about exciting concepts, theology and words. When we were first married I ran around shouting 'tetelestai' or perhaps would move from elpo to elpis ('await expectantly' to 'hope') and expect her to get excited too (and bless her, she always did and does -  I is a very blessed bloke).
  
Well today the tables turned and I had Wendy rush in with the thought that the annunciation was Mary's gethsemane, for this is the place where she submits her will to God. This is the place of her 'Not your will but mine' moment she tells me! (I love having a wife who's theologically sound and cerebrally challenging - a real gift from God!). But, unlike Jesus and his 'gethsemane' experience, she explains, Mary's does not lead to the cross and death.


The reason for this is of course simple in that there is only one means of salvation and this of course is Jesus, not Mary. She is indeed the 'theotokos' (God-bearer) but is as I understand it is not the co-redemptorix of Leo 13 (who also gave us the denial Anglican Orders and many other great theological 'insights') and as such she does indeed risk both potential for  public disgrace and the potential for death but it is the actual act of dying that brings the forgiveness as it says in Hebrews 10: 12 - 14:
  
"But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy."
  
Leviticus (17) tells us that there can be no forgiveness without the shedding of blood and it is this, not as some would have it the mere act of will or willingness to go the way of the cross, that brings the forgiveness.
  
Just a little thought from my wife to stimulate your Christmas thinking (it's stimulated mine).
  
Thank you Wendy