Luke 1:26-38 –Maggie Shearer

Excitement in Elizabeth’s home. Years waiting to get pregnant as she saw her friends get pregnant and their thrill of birth after birth. Elizabeth was sad, inside she felt useless, she could not conceive, what was wrong with her? Was it her fault? Poor Elizabeth. 

But God intervened and she conceived a baby. Praise God! But it was kept a secret. Things like that were not discussed in those days.

Then!

An Angel appeared to Elizabeth’s cousin.  Mary, a single young woman with a fiancé Joseph, a joiner by trade in the village of Nazareth. Scared, astonished worried… just imagine the thoughts which must have raged through Mary’s head when the angel appeared before here. A young virgin girl, engaged, but a virgin and this Angel tells her she is going to have a baby and not just any baby but a very special baby.

Can you imagine her feelings? Very hard to….. fear , wonder…… and why me? And how?

The holy spirit will come, can you imagine how she felt? Then Gabriel told her about Elizabeth’s miracle baby.

Mary….. imagine her…… bowing her head and saying ‘yes, may it be as you say!’ The months before Jesus birth must have been stranger than any ordinary pregnancy. Just think of the thoughts of villagers when they say Mary. Just think what Joseph must have experienced in his heart in those waiting months.

I have often felt we do not make enough of Mary. She carried our Saviour in her womb. He, the son of God, the son of Man was born like us because he became like us so that he experienced our lives before dying on the cross for our redemption.

It makes me very humble.

It makes me want to praise God with all my heart.

What a great big wonderful God we have.