I Wish You a ‘MARY’ Christmas

Luke 1:26-38 (NKJV)

26 Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,

27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.

28 And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”

I believe that this story is more than just a historic record, but an example of what God wants for each of us.  Mary is a prototype or model of what God wants us to experience.  What happened in Mary was supernatural and biological; she was impregnated with a baby, a baby from God.  The parallel with us is just as real, Jesus coming into our hearts instead of the womb.  Christmas is the great celebration of God’s redemptive entry into our world.  He enters it by the miracle of the Incarnation.  But there are two things that proceeded the incarnation: first, the conceiving of the miracle and secondly, the carrying of the miracle.  We will look at all three in this article.

I want you to notice in the above verses the phrases: “to a city”, “to a virgin”, “to a man”.  The point is that God knows you and He knows where you live.  He hasn’t forgotten you.  Sometimes you need to be reminded of this simple but powerful truth.  Satan comes and tells you that God has forgotten you, that God has forgotten what you’re facing, He has not.  I believe God wants to bring a message of hope to you today.

CONCEIVING

Mary’s life was radically changed when an angel uttered the following words to her: “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS (Luke 1:31).  The Bible tells us that at first Mary was troubled at this message.  I don’t think that it was because she didn’t believe his words; she just couldn’t comprehend the favor of God on her life.   “How can this be?”, she said.  The favor of God is overwhelming.  Our minds cannot understand it or explain it.  You don’t need to understand it or explain it to receive it. You only must believe it and Mary did.  Did you know that only two people in the Bible were ever said to be highly favored?  One of them was Mary and the other one is you.  “He made us accepted (literally, highly favored) in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:6).   We have no problem seeing Mary highly favored, but we struggle seeing ourselves highly favored.  This Greek word that is translated “highly favored” is only used twice in the whole New Testament, once spoken to Mary and the other spoken to us in Ephesians 1:6.  It’s absolutely fine to put Mary up on a pedestal as long as you place yourself right beside her.

Mary said, “Let it be to me according to your word.”  This is when conception took place, when her faith believed in God’s favor and she ‘conceived’ the Word.  It is when our faith joins with God’s grace that we conceive the miracle.  The Bible says, “And the angel departed from her”.  I think it is extremely significant that the angel did not leave right after he made his announcement, but rather he waited until Mary responded to what he had spoken.  God’s favor was on her but she needed to believe it to conceive it.  It’s the same for us, we need to believe it to receive it.  Some would say, “If an Angel came to me, then I would believe”.  Angel means messenger.  The power was not in the messenger but in the Word of God that the messenger brought.  God wants to speak a Word IN you, He wants you to believe that Word, (Conceive) it and then allow that Word to grow in you until it is manifested for all to see.  For example: He wants you to believe His word, (by His Stripes you were healed 1 Peter 2:24) and carry that word in you until you see the manifestation of that word.

CARRYING  

We talk about the conception, we talk about the virgin birth, but we don’t talk much about the in-between time, the time from conception until manifestation.  This is sometimes called in the “meantime”, because time can be “mean” to our faith.  God’s word is a seed, our faith in God’s grace is like the egg.  But after conception, it’s very important how we ‘carry’ the word of God until we see the manifestation of it in the natural realm.  This little often over-looked phrase- “And the angel departed from her” is about the carrying of what her faith had conceived.  How are you going to live life now that the angel has gone?  She is still from Nazareth, an insignificant village, she still has family to deal with, she’s still poor at this point.  We in the church want to live from angel to angel, we want to live from supernatural peak to supernatural peak.  But between the angels, there is life.  When the angel departs, God has not left.

INCARNATION

Our faith rests on three great pillars, the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The word incarnation means “the act of being made flesh.” It comes from the Latin version o John 1:14, which in English reads, “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.”  The Son of God came in the flesh in order to be the Savior of mankind. First, it was necessary for Him to be born “under the law” so He could redeem us (Galatians 4:4).  He did this by fulfilling God’s Law on our behalf ( Galatians 4:5).  Second, it was necessary for the Savior to shed His blood for the forgiveness of sin (Hebrews 9:22).  A blood sacrifice, of course, requires a body of flesh and blood.  And this was God’s plan for the Incarnation: “When Christ came into the world, he said: ‘Sacrifice and offering [under the Old Covenant] you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me’” (Hebrews 10:5). Without the Incarnation, the death of Jesus on the cross is meaningless.  I am so thankful for that moment in which “the Word became flesh.” We are now redeemed “with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (1 Peter 1:19).      Watchmen Nee tells a story of a monk who observed the birds dying from an unusually harsh winter.  He would set out food for them but they would not come to it, he tried to carry food to where they were, but they would fly away from him so afraid.  He thought, “what will I do, I must save them?”  I know, I will become a bird like them; I will fly to them and lead them to the food.  This is what the real story of Christmas is about-God became one of us that He might save us.  He became what we are that He might make us what He is!

“I Wish You a ‘Mary’ Christmas!  Receive your “Mary” Christmas this year.  May you begin seeing yourself as God sees you – highly favored and deeply loved.  And may our response echo what Mary said centuries ago “Lord, be it unto me according to thy word.” (Luke 1:37)