The Call To Holiness

A Strange Encounter

Imagine for a moment a young woman waking early, just before dawn to begin her daily chores. Still groggy with sleep though the morning is cold and quiet, she feeds the animals, and gathers water for the day’s washing. As she fills her bucket at the well, she imagines the life she is going to have with her fiance. She thinks about what a blessing it is to be betrothed to a man who not only is already a skilled carpenter, but who has a reputation for being righteous and devoted to God. The troubles of kings and empires are far from her mind as she thinks about the children she will have, of the house they will build together, of the rhythms of life which will unfold before her as she raises a family dedicated to living by the Torah and caring for each other.

Suddenly her daydream is interrupted as the hairs on her neck stand on end. Was the man who is suddenly standing before her there just a few moments ago? She didn’t see him walk up. Her hands shaking, she drops her bucket and briefly thinks of screaming for help or running for the house. She’s frozen in place and doesn’t know what to do, when suddenly the man speaks a strange greeting.

He calls her “full of grace” and tells her she is going to have a son. How can this possibly be? She knows how babies are made. It takes two, and yet she has never been intimate with her husband-to-be or anyone else. And this son is going to be a king? Not just a king, but the king to take the throne of David? Suddenly all her previous daydreams seem a million miles away. What king would ever come from Galilee? Don’t we already have a king? How could a boy from her humble womb in a poor village on the edge of the frontier ever take the throne under the thumb of the most powerful Empire to ever walk the Earth? She doesn’t know how to raise a king. And she’s pretty sure no one ever gave birth to a son while still being a virgin before.

While thoughts of worry and astonishment still race through her mind, she is suddenly at peace. If this is what God really wants of her, then she’s going to trust Him. She has no idea where this road is going to lead, and she certainly couldn’t envision it ending at a cross and an empty tomb. But she knows God is good. She knows God is loving and kind, and cares for His people. And so, she utters those famous words pregnant with the unfathomable trust and hope that God will always be faithful to his promises… “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”(1) And with that, the man vanishes as quickly as he appeared.

A Reflection on My Call to Ministry

As I prepared for this morning’s installation service, I could not help but reflect on the moment when I first received the call to be a pastor, and on just how improbable such a call was. It was 2013 and I was fighting a war in Afghanistan. I was a Soldier and a warfighter, and I was good at it. I had made Sergeant early and was trained in the brand new-and-growing field of unmanned aviation. I loved everything about flying aircraft and running flight operations, and I felt that the work we were doing was important, when the rug was suddenly swept out from under my feet. It was a hot summer afternoon and we had just called off the rest of the day’s flights as the atmospheric heat meant the drones couldn’t safely launch and land without risking a crash and endangering ground crews who would have to go retrieve any downed aircraft.

It was only a few minutes after our aircraft were ordered back, when the radio exploded with the voices of frightened Soldiers. An IED had ripped through one of the vehicles from Alpha company, and worse that vehicle was filled with my friends, most of whom were badly injured and one of whom was killed. Suddenly the war hit home in a way it hadn’t before. We had endured mortar attacks multiple times a day for months, but I and my friends had gone through each attack unharmed. We had begun to feel a little bit invincible, but that morning we knew just how vulnerable we could be. Here was a young Soldier, much younger than me, whose parents wouldn’t get to hold him tight and welcome him home when we all got back. Here was a young man who wouldn’t ever know the blessing of having a wife and watching his children grow the way I have.