Ancient Teenage Angst

A group of giggling girls lounge on the grass, their limbs gangly, their heads huddled together. “I need a rich husband who likes animals,” I overhear one say. “I want a small farm with horses and dogs.” 

Life doesn’t always turn out as we hope. I think back to when I held similar aspirations, 35 years ago now, although the specifics were a little different. Is it harder being a teenager these days, I wonder, with the pressures of social media, possibilities of cyber bullying and the media’s role models far from good? In different ways during different times, it has always been challenging to be a teenager, full of hopes and fears and flooded with hormones. 

What was it like for teenagers two millennia ago? At this time of year, my thoughts go to Mary, mother of our Lord. I think of choices that were made for her as well as by her. Times were different then, but there are still points of connection with teens of today. 

Thank God for a godly older woman who invested in the teenage Mary at a most crucial stage in her identity formation.

Identity crisis

Mary was clearly a devout Jew, for the angel Gabriel greeted her as “You who are highly favoured!” (Luke 1:26).  Yet just when she thought she knew who she was and what role she was to play in society, a good virgin girl promised to a respectable man, her world was turned upside-down.

In an act of kindness, the angel Gabriel did not leave Mary alone to come to terms with her newly announced identity as mother of God’s own son. As he left, he handed her a lifeline. “Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age….” (Luke 1:36). 

Scripture tells us that Mary immediately gathered a few things and hurried to Elizabeth’s home in the countryside (Luke 1:39). I wonder how much she explained to her parents, her peers or her betrothed before she left. Did she travel alone? What went through her mind along the way? Was she excited? Scared? Numb?

Identity formation

Elizabeth, an older woman, wasn’t seeing anybody. In her womb she carried a precious life … a miracle baby … a divine gift. Scripture records that Elizabeth remained in seclusion for five months  (Luke 1:24) … until breathless Mary burst into her home. 

A devout Jew, the wife of a priest, Elizabeth was sensitive to God at work. As soon as she heard Mary’s voice, she was filled with God’s Spirit and spoke powerful words of affirmation into Mary’s life. Buoyed up by her relative’s prophecy, Mary responded with words that have since been repeated for generations. (‘Mary’s Magnificat’ is what we call those words today.) 

These two godly women, one older and one young, spent an incredibly special period of their lives together – the first trimester of Mary’s pregnancy and the last of Elizabeth’s. I can only imagine that they marvelled together at how God was breaking into history, retelling over and over the stories of how the angel Gabriel first appeared to Elizabeth’s husband and later to Mary, reciting over and over every word he had spoken, and marvelling over and over at the events that followed. In those three short months, simply by sharing life together, Elizabeth perhaps unknowingly grounded her young relative in her identity. She prepared her for all that was ahead – the shame of returning home as yet unmarried but with a bulging belly, the disappointment of being doubted, years of worry, a season of refugee status and excruciating heartbreak.

A timeless pattern

Just as God used an older godly woman, Elizabeth, to build into Mary’s life and affirm her identity as a chosen and favoured servant of the Lord, so he has done for others through the centuries. The Old Testament has many stories of older followers of God building into the lives of younger ones. The apostle Paul would later instruct older Christian women in particular to live exemplary lives and teach younger Christian women to do likewise (Titus 2:3-6). This is a pattern that applies to us in the 21st century too.

I particularly admire Elizabeth’s openness to what God was doing in Mary’s life despite what was going on in her own life. At the time that Mary burst into her house, Elizabeth had been in intentional seclusion, soaking in the wonder of her own unlikely pregnancy.  As an older Christian woman today who enjoys a myriad of meaningful activities, I wonder how God would turn my attention to others and speak into their lives. May I be open to what he is doing and not begrudge the focus it takes from my own matters.

Elizabeth didn’t go looking for Mary. The angel Gabriel all but sent Mary scurrying to Elizabeth. Yet Elizabeth did not treat Mary’s visit as an unwelcome intrusion into her seclusion, but communicated clearly that she saw it as a great honour. Elizabeth was a godly woman and thus primed to recognise God’s hand at work. May I also live as well as I can, not being busy for busy’s sake, open to who God would bring into my life.

I look at that group of 21st century teens huddled together on the lawn, dreaming of the future. None of these teenagers has been sent by an angel to my doorstep for affirmation. But there are other women I spend time with in various contexts. May I be aware of what God is doing in the lives of those around me as well as in my own life. May I live well as a godly woman, not scheduling every moment of every day but leaving room for the unexpected. And as I do so, may I too be given the honour of playing a role in the identity formation of my younger relatives in the Lord.