Thursday, December
22, 2016
Mary
responded, “Oh, how my soul praises the Lord.
How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior! For he took notice
of his lowly servant girl, and from now on all generations will call me
blessed. For the Mighty One is holy, and
he has done great things for me. He
shows mercy from generation to generation to all who fear him. His
mighty arm has done tremendous things! He
has scattered the proud and haughty ones. He has brought down
princes from their thrones and exalted the humble. He has filled the
hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands. He has helped his servant Israel and
remembered to be merciful. For he made
this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever.” Luke 1:46-55(NLT)
This story has Hallmark made-for-TV-movie written
all over it! An angel suddenly appears
to a young teen and tells her “you’re pregnant, and, by the way, God did
it”. The teen is so frightened she runs
off to seek comfort from her favorite aunt, and the meeting turns into a
crescendo of praise for God that’s like a choreographed flash mob. Mary’s song
would make the Sound of Music’s
Maria and the Von Trapp family singers proud!
Let’s unpack the story:
An Unexpected Visit
The angel’s greeting gets
this story off to a strange start. He
calls her favored. My
friend Julie always answers this way. I
ask, “How are you doing today?” She
says, “Blessed and highly favored”!
Well, it sure didn’t seem so to Mary; she reacted in two very
conflicting ways – fear and faith.
Mary’s Fear
Mary’s fear was
understandable; she was only twelve or thirteen, and this was very confusing
news. Her future was planned by her
parents to be married to Joseph; she’s told she’s pregnant. What in the world will she tell Joseph? Joseph won’t understand this. And what about her Dad? Oh
man, my dad’s gonna kill me!
She has questions for Mr. Angel…hey, this isn’t fair! Life is tough enough when you’re a kid – why
me, God?
Mary’s Faith
But then Mary’s faith
surfaced and she resolutely accepted what the angel told her. She states the obvious, that she is the servant of God. The KJV has the word handmaid; actually the word is doulē (δούλη),
and is better translated “female slave”. Mary committed herself to serve God without
regard to her own will; she would be a slave, surrendered in faith!
What do we learn from Mary’s
fear and faith? Fear means you’re
looking at the short term difficulties of circumstances. Mary knew it
could be a hard road ahead with this unexplained pregnancy on her
resume’. But faith drives you to make
the first step of obedience to honor God, in spite of the circumstances.
You’ve done that. When your parents helped you learn to walk you had to trust them enough take a first
step. It was a small step, and you were
probably scared, hesitant; this was new.
You may have fallen – but you learned, and it became natural for you!
Abraham did that. When God called him to leave his home place to
take his little family on a journey where God would lead, he took the hardest
step of obedience – the first one.
For You Today
When God chooses you it’s
liable to mean small, fearful beginnings and a blind step of faith, but if it
leads to the land of God’s blessing, be the slave of the Lord! He “highly favors” you!
NOTES
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