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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s
pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a
virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The
virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are
highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words
and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and
wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do
not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give
birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be
called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of his
father David, and He will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; His kingdom
will never end.
Luke 1:26-33
Luke 1:26-33
This ends
today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
The story of Mary is one of the most
inspiring stories of faith in the scriptures. We would be hard pressed to find
anyone who showed a greater example of servitude and obedience to the Lord and
we would all be well served to try and emulate the level of trust and loyalty
she had toward God.
The scriptural account of her life could be
said to begin here in the Book of Matthew but if we’re really honest about it,
we would go back to the words of the prophet Isaiah who spoke these words
inspired by God Himself:
Therefore
the Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth
to a son, and will call him Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14
The people who received this prophecy had
no idea who the virgin would be but God did as He knows the plans He has for
everyone long before they are born. The scriptures attest to such on many
occasions. Mary was purposed some 700 years before she would encounter the
angel Gabriel in our scripture passage for today and receive the proposition
from God. Look again at these verses:
In the sixth
month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town
in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a
descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and
said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was
greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.
But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with
God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will
give Him the throne of his father David, and He will reign over Jacob’s
descendants forever; His kingdom will never end.” Luke 1:26-33
The scriptures tell us that in the sixth
month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy as she bore John, the angel Gabriel (ironically
the same Gabriel who visited Zechariah in God’s temple and Mary’s fiancée Joseph)
appeared to Mary who the scriptures emphasize was a virgin pledged to be
married to a man named Joseph. Being pledged simply meant that Mary’s parents
had approached Joseph’s parents and pledged their daughter to be Joseph’s wife;
arranged marriages were the norm in Jewish culture back in New Testament days.
With this, it’s important to note that
engagements in the Jewish culture were seen in the same light as marriage
itself. In fact, God’s word refers to Joseph and Mary as husband and wife well
before they actually were officially married. And since the couple was
considered married, even though they were just engaged, the law strictly
forbade any sexual relations before the union was made official. Any violation
of this statute would result in a penalty as severe as death and we’ll get into
more of that in tomorrow’s second devotion about Mary and the quandary she
would find herself in as a result of Gabriel’s proposition, a proposition that
had to be completely overwhelming as Mary listened to it but not before she was
frightened over the angel’s appearance.
I think anyone might react as Mary did
(Joseph was as well as I wrote several devotions ago) and be troubled and
afraid that an angel was bringing her greetings and a message that she was
highly favored for the Lord was with her. But as we have seen many times over
in the scriptures, the Lord always senses when someone is fearful and takes
action to put them at ease. We see this at work in these words from Gabriel:
“Do
not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God.”
Mary had not done anything to garner God’s
displeasure. Rather, she was the chosen one, the virgin who would fulfill the
prophecies of old, the woman who would conceive, bear, and deliver the Savior of
all into the world. Gabriel’s proclamation, which was really a proposition,
stated as much:
“You will
conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be
great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him
the throne of his father David, and He will reign over Jacob’s descendants
forever; His kingdom will never end.”
Note the unique nature of the events that
Mary would be a part of.
First, she would conceive, not by any
conventional terms but rather through the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit
(more on that tomorrow).
Second, she would give birth to a son who
would be named Jesus and this son would be no ordinary one. Not by a long shot.
This is because He, Jesus, would be called
Son of the Most High, or in other words, God’s Son. He would be great and would
be given the throne of David, reigning over all of Israel and all nations
forever. And His kingdom would never end, even when the earth and heavens as we
know them will be no more. Jesus will still rule and reign over the new heaven
and earth to come when He returns (Revelation 21:1-4).
Mary would be the mother who would bring
this King of kings and Lord of lords, the Savior of the world, the Lamb of God
who takes away the sins of the world, into God’s creation. This was the
proposition from Gabriel, acting as a spokesperson for God Himself.
All this had to sound good but Mary had
some questions as she pondered the implications of what the angel said was
going to happen. She would soon enter into a stage of quandary and tomorrow,
we’ll look deep into it.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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