Devotional for the week of December 20th, 2020In Luke’s first words about Mary, she sounds unflappable. In most scripture stories, a visit from an angel provokes terror, but when the angel Gabriel appears to Mary, she isn’t scared. She’s curious. Even when the angel delivers the astonishing news that she will become pregnant with the Son of the Most High God whose glorious kingdom will never end, her response is a simple question: “How can this be?” (Luke 1:34). The angel reminds her that God’s powerful Spirit works in mysterious ways. Anything is possible with God! That’s all the explanation Mary needs. “Here I am,” she declares. She is God’s servant, and she is up for the task. What courage it must have taken to say yes! Parenthood is demanding to begin with. Giving birth to the King of kings must have come with its own unique set of challenges. This moment will change the course of her life. Mary found strength in the knowledge that she was not alone. The first thing the angel said to her was: “The Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28). Mary knew that she was held in God’s presence even before she understood what lay ahead of her. She was “favored” by God, seen and known and loved. Whatever future she was called into, she could trust the one who led her. That faith is the foundation for Mary’s “Yes.” Like Mary, we, too, are servants of the Most High God, who calls us into “ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown” (Evangelical Lutheran Worship, pp. 304, 317). Even when we don’t feel quite as composed as Mary, we can trust in the same promise she did: we are loved by the God who makes impossible things possible and goes with us into whatever our futures hold.
Devotional message and art based on the readings for December 20th, reprinted from sundaysandseasons.com. |
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