What did Mary Ponder

Luke 1:28 “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”

Luke 2:19 “But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”

This is the time for us to go back and read Luke 2. Start at the annunciation in Luke 1:28. I have always wondered what did Mary ponder. When you read, you can see that she trusted God’s word. She was favored, but for us we look at favor as all good things working for us. No, All things work together for the good   For those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose. 

Mary was called, she accepted and trusted God’s word, she submitted to God’s will, and she believed that with God nothing is impossible. And there in Bethlehem, the house of bread, she gave birth to the bread of life.there in Bethlehem, the place where the sacrificial lambs were cared for- for the temple sacrifices, the ultimate sacrificial lamb was born. She gazed into the face of her precious baby and herSavior. All because she trusted, submitted, believed. And we must followed that- to trust God, submit to his will, Believe that with him birthing is impossible. Merry Christmas! 

Surely

Isaiah 53:4-6 NiV

“Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, 

smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; 

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, 

and by his wounds we are healed.”

Go back and reread this. See the power between the affirmation and the end. Surely is an adverb which modifies verbs. Infirmities - our pain. Sorrows - our suffering. He took up our pain and carried our suffering. 

He was wounded for our transgressions - violations of law, command, sins. He was crushed for our iniquities - gross injustices or wickedness, violations of a right or duty, sins. 

In the “Lion, Witch, Wardrobe,” the white witch (the personification of Satan) demanded hardheaded Edward’s life, the one she had enticed to follow her. Aslan the lion (personification of Jesus) said, “No, I will go.” He volunteered to take the Edward’s place in dying. That was all the white witch wanted, as she was forever trying to set Aslan up, and she had finally succeeded (or so she thought). Edward was no longer important to her. 

Aslan allowed himself to be bound, sacrificed, and placed on the altar to die. Ahhh but . . . love. 

The very thing that allowed Aslan to be sacrificed was the thing that kept him. The one thing the white witch could not understand was love. And so the ropes that had bound Aslan were broken. Love, the one thing that Satan just cannot understand. Love. 

Hear the verbs in Isaiah, Carried, smitten, afflicted, pierced, crushed. Jesus did that for our nouns, our sins. They are all past tense, it’s already done. We are already released from things that bind us because of God’s love for us. 

We have hope today because of the verbs between the affirmation and the end

Surely . . . We are healed. And we celebrate his birth because of God’s love for us. enough for now

Hope

Matthew 3:3 NRSV

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” 

We are to prepare the way of the Lord. It is a call for repentance. That word ‘prepare’ is an aorist active imperative in Greek. It’s a command to the hearer, the reader “You prepare and keep on preparing.”  At that time they prepared for royalty by fixing the roads, so the original hearer would have understood this. This is more than just receiving Jesus. We repair the broken places in our hearts to receive him. We repair and keep on repairing. We remove the clutter of negativity, we keep it out through our constant communication. 

The path is made straight because of our vertical connection. When everything is coming at us (and it will) we call out to him and hold on. There are times that even when we can’t hold on-we know that he has us. 

This is the first Sunday of Advent- we have hope in him. He is who we look to. Enjoy this day in him. more later.