“And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” -Luke 1:29-35
It wasn’t until reading Hannah Brencher’s The Monday Club email that I gave some thought to all the lessons contained within the story of the nativity. In fact, one of her recent emails was the inspiration for this blog post.
When we think of Christmas in a biblical sense, Jesus is often the focus of the story (as he should be). What about the other ‘characters’ in the story? There’s Gabriel, the wisemen and the shepherds, the innkeepers, Joseph, and Mary. Mary is one of my favorite figures in the Bible. Sure, as a Catholic I was taught to hold Mary in the highest regard, but can we just talk for a minute about how awesome she really is? The woman was not asked, but TOLD that she would be giving birth to basically the most important person to ever walk the earth. Oh, and that he would save all mankind, too. How is one regular, ole’ person supposed to handle that news.
First off, she didn’t. Mary asked Gabriel, “Are you sure it should be me? Are you sure I am the one?” Then, she questioned the details of the ordeal, basically asking her main man Gabe how this whole virgin birth thing would work… (Same, Mary, same)
But we don’t talk about the questions Mary asked, and we don’t talk about the worries she had about the whole ‘process’. In fact, we don’t talk about Mary because she just did it. How did one young woman go from being scared to death to bringing Jesus into the world?
Blind trust.
Mary didn’t block Gabriel on Facebook after she was brought the news that she would give birth to Jesus. She didn’t say ‘no thank you’ and walk away. She trusted God and went along with the plan He had set for her, even though she did not know what it all entailed. She was confused and maybe even scared, but when her fears took the reins what was she told?
“Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.”
Mary trusted the Lord because he trusted her to carry out His will. She wasn’t sure what would the next days or weeks or months would hold on this new adventure, but she knew that God had her covered.
This blog post is short. It’s actually much shorter than I like to write. But it’s the holiday season and I don’t think the message here needs a lot of explanation: God’s got you.
I love a lot of things about the holiday season. One thing I don’t like is the feelings of anxiety and high expectations it can stir up. All it take is one relative asking why you don’t have a job, a boyfriend, or a plan for your life to send you into a spiral that can dang near ruin Christmas. You can’t stop your rude uncle from asking the questions. What you can do is remember that God’s got you in this and every season. Just as Mary trusted His plan, follow Him blindly with an open mind and an open heart. God has a plan, and that is the only guardrail you need to guide you through life.
