What’s inside?
Luke 1:39-56
Well, for all practical purposes it is here. Christmas has arrived. I think back to my childhood as I think about Christmas. I remember sneaking into the living room and digging through the packages sorting all the ones with my name into one section.
Shaking and feeling packages and wondering what was in them.
Sometimes my folks were just a bit mean. Some packages would have really strange shapes or seemed really heavy. On Christmas eve when we finally got to open one present , we would go for the odd package to find extra cardboard or bricks in the package just to make our curiosity peak. Inside might be a pair of socks or underwear, maybe a flannel shirt.
My folks played on our childish curiosity to trick us into opening the gag gift.
My folks knew that we were poking around constantly trying to guess what was inside.
Our scripture today picks up after Zechariah gets the news that he is going to be a dad and because he express the need for signs is suddenly unable to speak. He will wait 9 months or more before his speech will return.
Just before our passage picks up, Mary also meets an angel and is given the message that she is to be blessed by God and have a child which will be the Son of God. He will sit on the thrown of David. Basically, the angel tells her that she is to the mother of the long awaited messiah.
We have Elisabeth, a mature woman, old enough that she would not expect a child except by a direct intervention of God. Woman that would have been looked down on by her culture as having some hidden sin, making her unrighteous in God eyes.
She is pregnant and the perceived blight is clearly erased…everyone was wrong, Obviously God is blessing her. Obviously, this is a miracle.
Then we have a young woman, in her prime for having children, young, strong, and healthy. She is also going to have a child and everything would be great except that she is engaged and in her culture, engagement meant married with no un-chaperoned contact. She was to live in her parents home for a full year and then move to her husband’s home. This separation was a time a waiting and showed purity and righteousness for both the man and woman,.
In her case she is righteous and by act of God she is going to be perceived unrighteous. Like anyone is going to believe that she was pure. Come on, the evidence of her failure was visible for everyone to see.
As we read the story we know that a miracle happened That it was God and not man that conceived the child.
Both women were directly in the plan that God had established. Not by their choice. Not at their direct request. But by the choosing of God.
They were filled with the Holy Spirit and had the knowledge of God’s saving actions. And Ultimately understood that some how God choose them. They were both humbled by the experience. Both women are excited about the potential which is growing inside of them.
Would most of you agree with me that pregnancy is a miracle all in itself?
Even the most natural means and methods. Somehow a little human person comes into the world.
As if the little person was not enough. He or she is not blank; they come into the world with elements of personality.
Every child that enters the world has potential. It is either going to be good or bad.
Most of the time that shaping comes about from the parents and family influence as to what is important/ priorities, right and wrong, truth or lying.
The world plays roles too as so much influence comes from school and friends.
So today’s scripture picks up right after Mary gets the news and she packs up to go visit her older cousin in the hill country of Judea.
We don’t know if she is running from telling her parents and Joseph her husband what the angel said or if she is looking for a compassionate person that would understand her situation and Elizabeth is the most likely candidate.
Perhaps she is looking for confirmation; if Elisabeth is pregnant then she will know that it was not a dream but a real visit from an angel.
Have ya’ll heard the phrase, you can’t be just a little bit pregnant. Either you are or you’re not. But that does not always mean that some one can look at a person and tell, especially early on.
When Mary gets to Elizabeth’s home, she is probably only a few weeks along and yet by the filling of the spirit, Elizabeth knows. And on top of that she also knows who and what the baby is…She knows the full potential of Mary’s child.
41When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!”
How would you feel if a close relative or friend saw you at a family gathering and shouted out Praise the Lord, you are having a baby? Oh what a child it will be, the son of God himself.”
What do you think your first impression would be?
Joy? Shock? Old cousin Sally has really lost it now. Maybe, somebody has had a bit too much eggnog.
Perhaps just an uncomfortable laugh would be your response.
I would think Mary has been thinking as she traveled, of how she was going to share what had happened and what was going to happen.
But, Mary did not have to find a way to bring up the story.
The description is that Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit as she hears Mary’s voice. And she speaks this revelation because she just knows.
To take it a step further it seems like Elizabeth’s baby also knows.
The miracle of pregnancy is pretty amazing but, it seems like Elizabeth points out something more amazing. She says, “45Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!"
Elizabeth tells Mary she is blessed because she believed what God told her was going to come true. You are going to have a child without being with a man., his name will be Jesus - Yeshua, meaning "YHWH is salvation. This is BIG and it would be easy not to believe.
We have trouble believing what God tells us don’t we?
Maybe it is because We have trouble separating what we want and what God wants. We tend to hold on very tightly to the way we want things to go.
- When I went for the heavy or big or strange shaped box under the Christmas tree, I was going after what I wanted.
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- I saw a potential of personal satisfaction that was hidden away inside brightly colored wrapping paper.
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- I wanted something great to be in the package. I grabbed for it and most of the time I was disappointed.
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- The potential I anticipated let me down because I went for what I wanted instead of considering less obvious options.
Elisabeth and Mary were expecting babies. Babies with potential. Babies which were conceived as a miracle of God, for the purposes of God.
Which ultimately would be as a blessing offered to all man kind.
How do you think they would have felt if they knew what 30 to 33 years would hold?
Would they have been filled with joy and excitement or would they have felt let down and punished?
Look at this little girl. She has moved from potential child to child. Who knows what she will be, who she will have helped, saved in 30, 50 or 70 years…Who knows what she will have gone through, pain, suffering and love. Will she develop an aids vaccine, save a person form a car accident, or be a mom herself….
God knows .. God knows the plans he holds for her and each and everyone of us.
If John and Jesus had not lived up to their potential, God’s plan of salvation would not have come to pass. Their mothers raised their children to the best of their ability and trusted God to fulfill the details.
Beloved, if you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.
Let me state clearly, I have not been in the eggnog and I am only a little bit crazy as I tell you this fact this morning.
If you are a believer then you need to know that your are pregnant!
Women and men that are Christians are filled with potential from God and become a part of the saving work of God through Jesus Christ.
If you have Jesus inside of you, if you have accepted him and the gift of the Spirit then you are filled with the potential to give eternal life to the people around you.
Folks, you have to do something about it.
First of all you need to believe it! You need to understand that God want to work through you. The gift of the Holy Spirit must come out of you so that others might be included in this Holy family.
Second, When a woman is pregnant they are completely involved in the process, they claim to be eating for two. They stay away from alcohol and cigarettes and try to eat healthier. The Baby is completely dependant on the body and soul of the mother.
At some point she start planning for a place for the baby to sleep and get special baby furniture and accessories and clothes.
Christens are supposed to be fully involved in the process as well. Just coming to church is not what it is about.
Christians are to birth ministry. They are to change their habits to include what is best for other people, perhaps marginal or hurt Christians or perhaps people that want different music and bible studies.
Christians make plans for the arrival of people with special needs…..Parking, access, classes.
Christians led by the spirit within them work at doing what is best for others more than themselves.
Third, From my limited experience with pregnant women, most of them don’t want to stay pregnant forever. After about 8 months they are ready to move on to something more comfortable.
They get tired of dreaming about the child and want to see and hold the child.
Christians should want to see their dreams and hard work come to life as well.
They want to watch God bring their simple, limited plans to life. They want to watch the Lord provide the resources to make a potential program come to life to touch, comfort and heal individual people.
These two women both looked past the imitate satisfaction of a child and looked forward to what the adult would do.
Have you lived up to your potential?
Are you pregnant with what God wants to do with you?
Are you willing to let God use you as a human resource, full of potential, to bless a fallen world?
That means being a church that is interested in other people, especially children.
It means investing in lives with little or no expectation of personally seeing results.
It means living in such a way as to trust God to make you the vessel of his love to bless people that don’t deserve the gift He can and will offer through you.
All Glory be to God!
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