The end of the Christmas season and a looming new year is traditionally a time for assessment and contemplation—How did we do? How can we shape what lies ahead?
As 2025 closes let’s pause to consider an event a long time ago that made possible the hope of each new year. If your first thought is the resurrection of Jesus Christ, you have half the answer! It is the most important half, for without it nothing else matters; but what made it possible is surely worth a mention and our heartfelt appreciation: Mary said “Yes!”
With that simple, humble answer an obscure peasant girl in a small backwater village forever changed the course of human history.
Thousands of years had passed on a downward trajectory since the fateful day when Eve, the mother of us all, said “No.” Adam joined her in that single act of disobedience against their Creator; and then catastrophe.
There followed a millennials-long, painful, and patient quest for “Yes”—the key to righting the wrong done in Eden. It was a wrong so great that “Yes” had to come in small increments leading to a final, monumental submission: Noah said “Yes” and built an Ark; Abraham said “Yes” and fathered a nation; Moses said “Yes” and led that nation to a Promised Land; David said “Yes” and established a kingdom; each prophet said “Yes” and spoke God’s Truth.
Then, when the time was right, Mary said “Yes” to bring God into the world He had created, to become one of us, to save us from the tragic consequences of Eve’s first “No!” Some early Christians referred to Mary as the Second Eve, out of whose obedience came our salvation.
A few verses in Luke’s Gospel (1:26-38) outline the extraordinary encounter between the angelic messenger and a young girl who listened in amazement to God’s message before surrendering with this simple response: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.
Mary said “Yes!” As we prepare to make our way through 2026, what will be our response when God speaks?