How Will It Be?

Before Christmas was, Christmas was going to be.  The sacred earthiness of a heavenly happening took place through people on a midnight clear —  to the ordinary.  The all too familiar story told through the ages can never be overtold, because somehow we miss most of it.  When we step into the story for ourselves, a flannelgraph of ancient pieces comes to life.  Our life.

The Christmas message begins with a fear not, the way any good angel begins a conversation.  If we go into the Temple with the aged priest Zacharias, we can understand his trembling and skepticism when he’s told by an angel that his prayer of decades has finally been heard and answered.  But it has to be too late. When told he and his old barren wife will have a blessed event, he answers like any human.  “How can I be certain of what you’re saying?  This is why the Christmas message begins with a fear not.

Never second guess an angel.  It’s so us.  Human –trying to figure out the divine. Only God can make these things happen. And it does. Zacharias is stricken silent for the length of the pregnancy and only speaks when he names the child John.  Not Zacharias junior.

And as God’s sovereign plan comes true with the forerunner to the Messiah, Gabriel is on his way to visit a young Jewish teenager, Mary. She must have known the Torah filled with prophecy from Isaiah to Malachi to call to mind through the terrifying moments of being told she would give life to the giver of life.  How radical to process.

Her beautiful reply, “How will it be?” 

Unlike the priest who needed a blueprint laid out, she simply said “May it be”.  She didn’t ask for proof, just how it could be carried out since she was a virgin.  And we know the story. . .

Both of these ladies, post-menopausal and immaculate needed a miracle.  One that defies logic and biology.  And in God’s kindness He gave them one another to understand the other’s miracle when it was difficult to explain to another.  Even us, even now.

Elizabeth knew the art of waiting.  Mary knew the art of trusting.  And a few verses later in the second chapter of Luke, another lady enters the story if we go back to the Temple.  When Joseph and Mary are dedicating their child, the elderly widow Anna sees the baby in the arms of His mother and recognizes the redeemer at six weeks old.  And she told.

May we always meet the bold moment to tell of the wonder of what He does in our lives.

It helps for me to look at these holy girls. It can be difficult to relate to an ancient woman simply by paging through Scripture unless we read between the lines. Their lines, that reveal a feminine heart that waited, trusted and believed in the unbelievable, unexplainable, unimaginable. And we all have one (or a dozen) of unimaginables that we need answers for.

Have you ever needed a miracle?  I need one now . . .

As another Christmas brings another year to a close, please don’t walk away unchanged.  Bring the deep concern of your heart that has you ask like Zacharias “how can I be certain this can happen?” and bow before a Father who hears and answers.

And may we hold tight to a “may it be” kind of courage to believe it will be done according to His will and see the answer already in our arms . . .

Christmas Blessings.

The mighty One has done great things for me ~ Luke 1:49