my good name

Minor spoiler alert regarding The Dark Knight. In one of the closing scenes of the movie Batman has to decide whether or not to allow the inhabitants of Gotham believe that he committed murders that someone else committed. He has to make this decision because he believes that if the citizenry of Gotham found out who actually committed the murders they will be disillusioned and unable to stand up to corruption in the city. This concept has stuck with me.

I mentioned in my last post that it is a little rough sitting through sermons on the same passages every year. That is probably not entirely fair because there are always new things to discover in worn passages. They just don't jump out at you. This year I spent some extra time contemplating the following passage from Luke 1.

"'How will this be,' Mary asked the angel, 'since I am a virgin?' The angel answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.'

"'I am the Lord's servant,' Mary answered. 'May it be to me as you have said.' Then the angel left her."- Luke 1:34-38

While I have heard sermons and lessons allude to the fact that infidelity was a serious matter in Palestine at this time and that Mary could have been stoned to death, I don't think the sacrifice that Mary made is fully appreciated. Even though she was a virgin, everyone she knew would believe that she was loose or weak-willed at best, or an adulteress if Joseph decided to keep his name clean at her expense. For a woman in a culture where family honor is so tied to the woman's sexual purity that it is considered acceptable to kill her to restore that honor, Mary had to understand the gravity of telling the angel that she was God's servant. Even if she were not stoned to death she in all likelihood was accepting the life of a social outcast over something that she did not even do.

It sounds trite or even sacrilegious to compare Batman to the mother of Christ, but both situations illustrate a concept that has been on my mind. I care about my good name enough that it would drive me absolutely insane if everyone mistakenly thought that I had committed some misdeed. I would spare no energy in defending my name and this fact illustrates one of my spiritual weaknesses. This is just one more thing that can and will stand between Christ and me unless I let Him change that aspect of me. Having a good reputation is fine, but if I'm not willing to sacrifice that reputation I have not given God everything I am.