Seeing God’s Plan

Luke 1:39-59

When we encounter something greater than ourselves, we are often driven to share the experience we have had with someone else.

Now if we can even begin to imagine having a conversation with the angel Gabriel, perhaps we can also understand a need to share that experience with someone who has also had a conversation with the angel Gabriel.

This, I think, best explains Mary’s travel to visit her relative (probably her aunt) Elizabeth immediately upon hearing the news that she would be with Child of the Holy Spirit. The news is so great and so overwhelming she naturally seeks another one she knows can in some way relate to her experience with Gabriel. How wonderful Gabriel shared with Mary the news about Elizabeth also being miraculously pregnant. (News she could not possibly have known had Gabriel not shared it with her.)

Now that Mary IS pregnant with Child by the Holy Spirit, she escapes to the security of those who will be inclined to believe along with her for the plan of God.

Sometimes it is of great comfort to not only hear from God ourselves, but also to find refuge in those who have likewise heard.

And Elizabeth and Zacharias are SUCH encouraging witnesses to Mary for God’s plan. How can this be? They all seemed to have the answer to their questions together, and Elizabeth’s divine sense of encouragement from the Lord played a very important part in the understanding and excitement for God’s plan that strengthened Mary for our eternal life story – and for hers.

I can imagine Mary approaching Zacharias’ and Elizabeth’s house, wondering all along the way about how to explain the news she has heard from Gabriel and how she is now pregnant even though she has never known a man. Do you think she was nervous or fearful of attempting to explain this news to them?

Imagine her joy upon arrival of finding Elizabeth already knows, the baby she is carrying in her womb knows, and Zacharias knows. This IS God’s plan, and it is marvelous to see!

-Pastor Bill

Let It Be

Luke 1:26-56

Now that God has spoken to Zacharias at Jerusalem by the angel Gabriel, His 400 year silence has been broken. God is once again speaking to His people.

But only Zacharias knows this, and he is presently mute, so no one else knows what Zacharias knows. (Save for Elizabeth, his wife.)

Six months into the miraculous pregnancy of John the Baptist, God speaks again, for from Jerusalem, at Nazareth.

Mary’s story is quite fascinating. Again God has searched and found one whose heart is loyal to Him, in whom He may prove Himself strong. In Mary? Basically a young peasant girl growing up in a backwater town of no reputation for greatness.

Wouldn’t the mother of the long-promised Messiah be the most famous, the most special, THE most glorious of all women who ever lived in the nation of Israel? Hadn’t every girl who ever grew up in Israel longed to become the mother of the Messiah?

Who would ever consider Mary to be so favored of God? The answer: God Himself.

Consider Gabriel’s greeting to Mary, (which in essence explains ALL of what God has planned for her,) “Rejoice highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women.”

Of all the women who have ever lived in Israel, or in the history of the world, God has singled out Mary to carry His only begotten Son through pregnancy, and to birth Him and raise Him in this hostile world. Think about THAT role for a moment, and allow the sense of THAT responsibility settle on your shoulders...

Of THIS role Gabriel commands Mary to rejoice! Of course Mary was concerned at this news. Of course Mary was troubled over the possibility of the all the weight of this report. Of course Mary knew that she had never known a man. But, because she IS the Mary God has known from eternity past, her response to Gabriel, (and to God,) is, “Let it be to me according to your word.”

-Pastor Bill

How Shall I Know This?

Luke 1:1-25

God is a great communicator – but He hasn’t spoken to His people for 400 years.

For 400 years, God has been mute. Silent. Quiet.

Imagine living 400 years with hearing from God, without knowing His will for the nation, or for your life. 400 years would be at least 40 generations, (and that’s assuming 100 years as a generation.) (Gen 15:13-16.)

The reason God has been silent is because Israel has been ignorant. God will not continue to speak to a people that ignores what He has to say. During the last 400 years, since the rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem under Zerubbabel, God has let the people speak to themselves rather than Himself.

And they have. They have become VERY wise in their own eyes. Having FINALLY left idolatry behind, they have embarked on a new path of priestly direction which has seen the emergence of a ruling class of Sadducees and Pharisees and Scribes. By their accumulated ‘wisdom’ from their study of the oral traditions the people have been ruled. They have seen themselves conquered and ruled by the Greeks, under Alexander and through Antiochus Epiphanes, and they have successfully revolted, led by a passionate band of rabbis known of as the Maccabeans from 167 – 160BC, which was followed by the Hasmonean and then the Herodian dynasties under Rome. During this last century AD came the rise of the Sanhedrin, the supreme court of the Jews, the repository of all knowledge. Through all of this God remained silent. The High Priest of the Jews was now appointed by Rome, not God.

(It is interesting to remember Israel had been in exile in Egypt 400 years, isn’t it?)

Now God speaks. Who does He speak through, and who does He speak to?

God speaks through an angel, (Gabriel,) to a humble priest experiencing the greatest day of his life – having been selected by lot to burn incense in the Holy Place in the Temple. All his life Zacharias had waited for a moment like this. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity most priests never experienced. Then God made the opportunity even greater by breaking His silence.

-Pastor Bill