TUESDAY, 22 December, 2020 “Mary & Elizabeth”

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Good morning to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends on this Tuesday of Christmas week.

Have you noticed that the Christmas story, one of the most celebrated events in all of human history, is filled with normal people like you and me? Mary was likely a teenager perhaps 15 or 16 years of age and we know virtually nothing about her family. We presume her marriage was arranged as most marriages were in those days. Her husband to be, Joseph, was likely a man in his 30’s. A carpenter by trade, we presume he would have needed a little house and small business plan sufficient to pay a bridal dowry price and care for he and Mary, before taking her as his wife. Their engagement would have lasted at least a year, giving ample time for Joseph and Mary both to prove their faithfulness to God in the purity of their relationship.

You likely know of the movie “Fiddler on the Roof”, and I think that’s probably a fairly good picture of what life was like for many Jewish people in Nazareth. Nazareth was a simple village, but with a strong Roman soldier garrison stationed there. Remember when Nathaniel was first told of Jesus by his friend Philip, he said “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” (John 1:45,46)

Certainly no one would have expected that old Zechariah, Elizabeth, the village of Nazareth, or Joseph or Mary would figure in God’s remarkable plans for what we celebrate at Christmas! May I ask, do you sometimes look at yourself, your family, your town, in that way? Would you be shocked to know that God had something extraordinary He is planning which includes you and your town? Friends, let’s not limit God by assuming any of us is too insignificant, or where we live does not meet the qualifications for a God miracle!

“In the sixth month, 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 said to her ‘Greetings you who are highly favored. The LORD is with you.” (Luke 1:26) As you hear those words do memories of your childhood and someone reading the Christmas story come flooding into your mind? In the craziness of December 2020, has the most miraculous story of all time lost some of its amazement for you?

Yesterday we walked with Zechariah as he was heading home, mute from his encounter with Gabriel in the Temple. (Luke 1:5-25) Somehow he explained his experience to his dear old wife Elizabeth and miraculously they did find themselves pregnant in their old age. For six months they told no one, they simply marveled at God’s miraculous power and His kindness to include them in this most outrageous miracle that God was doing on planet earth! I’m sure they studied the Scriptures diligently to try and discern what would happen next in God’s great plan. But nothing could have prepared them for the knock on their door and young Mary’s appearance asking if she could stay a while with them because she needed help in understanding what God was doing, and what her angelic visit meant! I invite you, my friends, to read that familiar story in Luke 1:26-45, but today read it with fresh eyes, as though it’s your first time. Read it outloud, expressively to yourself! Put yourself in the story… what do you feel?

Why Mary? Why Nazareth? How could her pregnancy, while still a virgin, possibly happen? What does it mean when the angel Gabriel said “You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High…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. (Luke 1:31-37)

We presume Mary went to visit Zechariah and Elizabeth because Gabriel had also said “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!” Do you believe that friends? Honestly now, are you convinced… NOTHING is impossible with God? How have you tested that statement in 2020? What have you trusted God for, or believed God could do, in the face of the impossible? Don’t you love Elizabeth’s powerful statement to Mary: “Blessed is she who has believed that what the LORD has said to her will be accomplished!” (Luke 1:45) Oh my friends, I hope that can be said of you and me this year!

Mary stayed with Elizabeth and Zechariah for the last three months of Elizabeth’s pregnancy. (Luke 1:56) I imagine their days were filled, everyday, with long hours of discussion about God, God’s miracles through Israel’s history, and especially every Scripture they could find about Messiah and God’s plan for Immanuel, ‘God with us’! Zechariah finally had the chance to share all that he had learned in his lifetime of study as a priest, although due to his inability to speak, he had to find other ways to explain God’s truths… like writing or sign language. There must have been a great deal of laughter during those weeks, as Elizabeth and Mary tried to figure out what old Zechariah was saying. Do you like the game of charades?

And finally came the day old Elizabeth experienced that for which she had longed all her life… the birth of her miracle! We don’t know for sure if Mary was still there or had she gone home? Did she witness both the birth of this special child, and 8 days later his circumcision and naming ceremony? Please read Luke 1:46-80 and marvel at the amazing declarations of praise first from Mary in vs. 46-55 and then old Zechariah as his voice miraculously returned and he spoke his first words after 9 months of silence. (vs 67-80) Please take note of exactly when Zechariah’s voice returned in vs. 63,64! Do you see it was when asked, Zechariah wrote: “His name is John!”

Obedience in spiritual faith is so very important, isn’t it? How have you learned that lesson? Elizabeth and Mary’s miraculous pregnancies both had God given names and God given life purposes for their sons! Parenting these two boys, John and Jesus, would require deep, prolonged, faithful obedience to the Holy Spirit’s guidance, for parents who would never be able to fully explain the miracle that God had invited them into! May I ask, how has your faith in God, God’s Word, God’s promises, God’s purposes in our world, been stretched this year of 2020 and this Christmas season?

As you read these very familiar verses in Luke 1:26-80 today I urge you to take special note of every faith step Mary, Elizabeth and Zechariah needed to take if they were going to fully experience the miracle of what we call Christmas. And then look closely into your heart. Is your faith strong enough, big enough, that God could send you an angel, or in some other way invite you into a miracle in these next few days?

To help you I’ve found a video re-enactment of Luke 1:67-79 which is very powerful. . .

Click to read today’s chapter: Luke 1:26-45. (At the top you can choose a different translation.)

Click here to listen to a dramatized reading of Luke 1.

Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.

Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.

Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)

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