Misery Loves Company

Charlie Chaplin was a talented English actor and producer of the silent movie era. The Kid was one of his best works, a full-length movie. It was the second-highest-grossing film of 1921, and in 2011 the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. An unwed mother abandons her son in an expensive car that gets stolen. The thieves find the baby and abandon him. Finding him abandoned, the Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) takes care of the boy, the kid. They were poor but loved each other. They formed schemes like the kid breaking windows and the Tramp fixing them to feed themselves. Eventually, they get separated. (I’ll not finish the story and spoil the ending.)

When newlywed wives who want children find themselves pregnant, they rejoice. Neither Elizabeth nor Mariam/Mary could rejoice like them. Elizabeth, although married to a righteous man, was barren for decades, and now that she was pregnant, her husband was under Gabriel’s punishment and unable to speak and share the good news with family and friends. So she hid herself for five months! Mariam greatly anticipated her wedding to her betrothed groom, Joseph, but kept herself pure from any form of sexual misconduct, but now she was pregnant without having sex. She, too, cannot rejoice and share the great news with her family or friends.

Gabriel understood that misery loves company. He said to Mary,

“See, Elizabeth, your relative is pregnant with a son in her old age. The one whom others called ‘barren’ is in her sixth month of pregnancy because nothing is impossible with God’s word.” (Luke 1:37)

Mariam wasn’t alone – an unwed virgin pregnant with a baby. Her relative, Elizabeth, whom everyone mocked as barren, was pregnant in her sixth month. Both miracles happened by God’s word, just as the first creation happened by God’s word. Nothing was impossible when God spoke.

Hearing Gabriel, Mary said,

“See, the slave (doule) of the Lord. Let it happen to me, as you say.” (Luke 1:38)

Mariam was a willful soul willing to bear the shame of an unexpected pregnancy because God was at work in the world and her life. Hearing her willingness, Gabriel left her. (Gabriel and God didn’t force their will on Mariam; they offered her a choice, and she took it.)

Mary’s reply was significant to Christian theology. Much later, Paul and the Philippian church would sing a song:

“Who existed in the form (morphe) of God (theos) . . . took on the form (morphe) of a slave (doulos).” (Phil 2:6–7)

Before becoming Mariam’s son, Jesus was in the form of God. The disciples saw a glimpse of this form when he transformed on the Mount of Transfiguration and looked glorious. After becoming Mariam’s son, Jesus was in the form of a slave, just like his mother, an enslaved person to God’s will and ministry.

When God calls us to himself and his ministry, we often face shame and insult because his callings aren’t the easiest or well-liked. All the saints of the Old and New Testaments understood that. But great value awaits us when we submit and say, “Here I am, Lord. I am your slave. Do as you please.”