Luke 1:39-56 “ In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” And Mary said,“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home." Today's episode talks about Mary's faith to say yes and how we could have a faith like Mary's. It also talks about her selflessness. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
A Faith Like Mary’s
Luke 1:39-56 “ In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” And Mary said,“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.
I know that is a lot at once. I don’t know that we will go through all of it, but I wanted to finish the chapter and go over Mary’s visit with Elizabeth. If you remember yesterday, we ended with Luke 1:36-38, “ And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her. I didn’t cover the line about Elizabeth yesterday as we had already talked about Elizabeth and Zechariah the day before. However, I think it is interesting that the angel shared this news with Mary. I wonder if it was just further proof that he was really an angel, or if he knew Mary would want to know. It doesn’t say why the angel told Mary this news. Although the very next line is “For nothing is impossible with God.” Maybe that is why the angel told Mary? Maybe he told Mary about Elizabeth as an example of how nothing is impossible with God.
It is also amazing that Mary had just found out that she was going to conceive the child of the Most High and what is the first things that she does? She packs her things and hurries to help her cousin with her pregnancy. Isn’t that just like Jesus. He sees someone in need and he rushes to help. Mary would have had every right to take a few days and let it sink it what was going on. Our priest was talking about this at mass on Sunday and was saying that Mary could have just sat in a chair, put her feet up and expected to be waited on hand and foot. I mean she was carrying the Saviour in her womb. If anyone deserved to be waited on, it would have been her. However, that didn’t even seem to cross Mary’s mind. Her immediate thought was how can I serve my cousin. She didn’t even seem to be thinking of herself at all.
Mary traveled somewhere between 80-100 miles to get to Elizabeth’s house. I read an article that mentioned that the town Mary traveled too was at an elevation that was 1,336 feet higher than that of Nazareth, which means Mary had to travel uphill quite a distance. It would not have been an easy journey for Mary. Yet, she made it anyway. She didn’t even seem to stop and think about if she could make it or if it would be difficult. She just heard that her cousin was having a baby and left to go and help her. Her selflessness is something that we can all admire and look up to.
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting the baby lept in her womb and she was filled with the Holy Spirit. I find this fascinating that Mary was filled with the Holy Spirit before birth, John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit before birth, and now Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit. I did not know this before about John or Elizabeth. I know Jesus talked about His Father sending the Holy Spirit down to us after He was crucified, so I guess I assumed no one had the Holy Spirit before that day of Pentecost. Well, no one except Mary. When I think about it I guess it makes sense that others may have had it, I guess I just never thought about it. I wonder if the prophets were filled with the Holy Spirit. I guess I didn’t realize that the Holy Spirit existed before Jesus was crucified. I just looked up online and there are verses where it mentions the Holy Spirit came upon people of the Old Testament. This is why I am enjoying examining the various scripture verses more closely. I am learning so many things that I probably wouldn’t have noticed had I just been reading or listening to whole chapters at a time. Now I know that the Holy Spirit did work through people long before Pentecost. I didn’t know that before.
Once Elizabeth is filled by the Holy Spirit she is also filled with the knowledge that Mary is the mother of our Lord. She is the first person to say that Mary is blessed and so is her child. Then she says something about Mary that I wish she could say about all of us. Elizabeth says, “Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” Wouldn’t it be great if we could all do this? Wouldn’t it be great if we could all believe that the Lord would fulfill his promises to us? Why is it so hard for us? Why do we struggle with this?
We could say that it was easier for her as she was told by an angel, but do we really think that would make a difference for us? We could say she lived in a different time when it was easier to believe. However, we don’t know if that was true. I think the Jewish people were persecuted since the beginning of time. We could say that she was chosen since before she was born and so of course she believed, but she still needed to say yes. This fate was not forced on her. We could come up with a lot of reasons why it was easier for Mary to believe, but we don’t know that it was.
I don’t know what was different for Mary. However, if I had to guess I would say that she centered her life around God, so it wasn’t really a choice for her. I don’t think that God just happened to be in the center of Mary’s life and so she just kicked back and relaxed and just had the faith that she had. I think Mary was able to believe in God’s promises because of a million small choices she made over the years as she grew up. I think she was able to believe because she made the choice to put God at the center of her world. She made the choice to pledge to remain a virgin to honor God. She made a bunch of choices that probably weren’t that popular at the time. She still made them. I think that most of us would love to have the faith that Mary had, but when we are honest with ourselves, we don’t want to do the work to have it. We don’t want to make those difficult decision that might go against what others think is right. We don’t want to stand out and be different. Guess what, Mary was different. If we want to have a faith like Mary, we need to make choices like Mary.
How can you start putting God first in your life? How can you center your life around God? What are some small choices you can make that will help make it easier to say yes to the Lord? We are coming up on a brand new year. Maybe take some time and see what you can do differently this year that will shift your focus from worldly things, to Godly things. Maybe take some time and listen to what the Lord is saying to you about the upcoming year. Is He asking you to do anything different? Is He calling you to do more, to do less? Maybe He just wants you to come and sit with Him. I don’t think He is always calling us to do more, sometimes I think He is calling us to do less. Like Martha and Mary, there is a time and place for both. Which is God calling you to this year?
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, help us to put You at the center of our world. Help us to make the hard choices to do the right thing even if it isn’t the popular thing. Help us to not care so much what others think but only what you think of us Lord. Help us to have a faith like Mary. Help us to believe that you will keep your promises to us. You are so amazing Lord and we are so grateful for all that you do. We love you and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I hope you are not letting the stress that can happen over the holidays get to you. I hope you are able to practice patience, remember that everyone you see is going through something, and just spread God’s love and light to all that you meet. I had someone send me a text the other day and I really liked what she said, so I am passing it along to you. She said, “Have a blest and wonderful day of noticing where and in whom you see the presence of the Light of Christ today and where and for whom you were the presence of the light of Christ for others today.” That is a great thing to be on the lookout for. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. Have a blessed day!