Kutless-Mary did you know?

Kutless-Mary did you know?

As you may be aware, it is Christmas season.  This means we just celebrated Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, etc. etc. etc.  This isn’t what it is supposed to be about though.  This is the Season of Advent.  Do you know what that is? Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas and is a time of preparation for the coming of Jesus.  Let’s flashback a couple thousand years and see what I’m talking about.

In Luke 1:26-38 we find Mary of Nazareth, a young, poor girl.  Here we learn that God sent the angel Gabriel to talk to Mary, who at the time was “engaged” to marry Joseph. The angel Gabriel told Mary that she had found favor with God.  Let’s take a break there for a moment and picture yourself in this situation.  You are just sitting in your room getting ready for bed and an angel shows up.  Since I have never seen an angel I can’t tell you if the angel walks in or fly’s in, but the angel shows up.  I’m going to assume the angel is flying because it sounds better to me.  So an angel fly’s into your room!  Wow! This angel then goes on to tell you how God is happy with you so He has chosen you to give birth to his son.  At this point you are probably taking one of two approaches.  The first approach is “Wow, this is a crazy dream.  I didn’t even know I was asleep yet.”  The 2^nd approach is to debate with the angel.  “Hey, Gabriel.  I know about the birds and the bees and how to make a baby.  I’m still a virgin.  I can’t be having a baby.  You need to go back and check your facts.”  This is more like the way Mary responded, but Gabriel explained to her that the Holy Spirit would come and this kid would be the Son of God.  At this Mary responded that she is the Lord’s servant.  Now Mary understands and is okay with it, but what about Joseph. 

For Joseph we go to Matthew 1:18-26.  We find Joseph with a problem.  He’s planning on marrying a girl but he finds out the girl is pregnant.  He knows the baby isn’t his and it doesn’t sound like he is very excited about being married to her anymore.  According to the Jewish law he had a right to divorce her because it was clear to everyone else that she had been unfaithful.  This also might have led to her being stoned to death.  This was not what Joseph had planned though.  The Bible says Joseph was a righteous man so he was just going to divorce her quietly and move on.  Then an angel came to Joseph in a dream and told Joseph to go ahead and take Mary because the child in her was from the Holy Spirit, not another man.  Then the angel says that he is to name the kid Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.  Now Mary and Joseph are both on board.  So from here everything should just be perfect, right?

Imagine for a moment that you are just a person living in Nazareth down the street from Mary and Joseph.  You find out this couple is telling everyone they are having God’s baby.  They are telling people they are going to have a baby even though they have not slept together.  They even tell people that they have seen angels.  What do you think the people in that town might think about Mary and Joseph?  Imagine if they had tabloids back then.  The cover of one magazine says “Exclusive story of virgin pregnant with God’s baby.” The cover of the next magazine might say “Girl pretends to have God’s baby to avoid stoning.”  I’m guessing that there would have been some conflict around town.  Do you think this conflict would have stopped when Jesus was born?  I don’t.

The majority of Jesus’ ministry occurred in his early 30’s.  Mary and Joseph still would have needed to take care of baby Jesus, toddler Jesus, child Jesus, and teenager Jesus.  From the time before Jesus was born his parents knew he was the son of God.  Think about the song we just listened to.  Mary did you know?  How much do you think Mary knew about the future of her Son?  I don’t see anywhere that the angel came back to give them updates along the way.  When I look at my kids I definitely can’t tell you what their future holds.  My job is to do the best I can to prepare them for whatever plans God has.  I think this was probably the plan for Mary and Joseph too.  Even though they probably didn’t know every detail of the future Jesus would have, they did their best to raise him and to prepare him for God’s plan.

As we begin this Advent season spend some time thinking about what it would have been like planning for Jesus’ arrival.  Think about the excitement that the people would have had.  Think about the hope that exists when Jesus is born to save God’s people from their sins.  I want you to have that hope and excitement today as we prepare from Christmas.  Not excitement about presents, but excitement about the future we can have because Jesus came to save us from our sins.  That is the reason we celebrate Christmas!