The God of surprises
Luke 1:26-38
In May 1994, Gerald Hughes gave my mother a book entitled ‘God of Surprises’. Mom being who she was, must have asked Gerald to autograph the book. He obliged and wrote ‘Ellen, may God always surprise you more and more. With best wishes, Gerry Hughes’.
In Luke’s Gospel, Mary’s encounter with the angel was a complete surprise. Why would the chief angel, Gabriel, visit a simple peasant girl who lives in a province less than 5000 sq kms in extent, inhabited by a multicultural population, largely gentiles who were held in scorn by their southern neighbours? The angel’s message baffled Mary. She was said to be highly favoured of the Lord and the Lord would be with her (v29). She was to be the mother of the Son of the Most High, one who would be an heir of David and would rule over the house of Jacob forever (v32).
What might just have further thrown Mary off was that she knew she was a virgin, engaged to be married to Joseph. By the way, Elizabeth, her relative, long past her child bearing years, declared barren by the local gynaecologists, was six months into her pregnancy! Ours is indeed a God of surprises.
May our response to God’s actions, whether we understand them or not, echo Mary’s words that nothing is impossible with God (v37). For instance, who would have thought anything good could come out of Yeoville? The same question was asked of Nazareth. Remember that God in his wisdom chose Nazareth, not even the better town of Sepphoris,
a few kilometers in the north, as a place where Jesus preached his first sermon. It was the home of his disciples and Jesus grew up there and performed his first miracle in Cana in Galilee.
This year we have seen a few firsts for St Mark’s. The Lord has raised an enthusiastic integrated group of Men for the Master; a cool interactive blogspot (marksmanonline.blogspot.com); a new choir; the numbers of those who come to Sunday worship has improved, and the list goes on.
While we marvel at what God is doing in our midst, let us not allow the excitement of going on holiday or welcoming our friends and family distract us from receiving anew the greatest gift that God has given to humanity, Jesus the Christ.
We do well not to forget that:
“Jesus being in very nature, God made himself nothing, identified himself with humanity, became obedient to death so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of God the Father”.
Christmas time, and not what the world has dubbed the festive season, comes as a powerful reminder that Christ entered our world, lived, taught, died, rose and will come again to reign forever. The angel put it to Mary that Jesus’ kingdom would never end (v33). Let us therefore form choirs of angels singing in exaltation, declaring God’s glory in the highest heaven above.
Have a blessed Christmas and revel in God’s many wonderful surprises.
Shalom
Moshe.
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