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In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, 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 went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on 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. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age,
and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
How obedient May was! I don't believe I would have the courage she had to agree with what God was asking of her. An engaged teenager of around 14 or 15 years old becoming pregnant by Holy intervention? I wonder how many people really believed her. How her family, relatives and friends must have shunned her. The shame of the label, 'whore' probably walked with her throughout her whole life. I wonder if even after Joseph accepted that the pregnancy was the work of God Himself, did he question and doubt.
Mary loved God more than life itself because the punishment of adultery was death by stoning, yet even knowing this shame that she would have to bare, she agreed by saying, "I am the Lord's servant, may your word to me be fulfilled."
I love how Mary's reaction to Gabriel's words were not fear but wonder. She never missed a beat but accepted even before she knew the 'how'.
I would love to obey God like this without skipping a beat saying yes Lord, Your word be done in me.
I also wonder if Mary knew what her baby boy, Jesus, would go through. Mary, did you know?
Warning: Graphic Pictures in Video
John 3:16-17 NIV
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that
whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
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