The Wierdness of it All

Dear Readers,

God is a little strange. He sent the angel Gabriel to a young lady named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man who was Joseph. Joseph's ancestor was King David of Israel. This is the same David who defeated Goliath in battle. That seems a little weird to me. Have you ever been visited by angel? Gabriel greeted Mary, "Greetings to you who are highly favored by God." That is a strange greeting. Most people greet each other with words like, "Hello" or "How do you do?" Mary even thought the greeting was a little strange. She pondered the words and tried to figure out what Gabriel was saying. Gabriel had a message for Mary. She was going to have a child and she was to give to the child the name, "Jesus." Jesus' life path was to be the King who reigned from the throne of David. Jesus is to rule forever. Now, we've crossed over into the crazy side. Jesus, a child of Mary, ruling forever? That's crazy. Yet now it's going to get even more bizarre. Mary asks Gabriel a very good question, "How is this going to happen? I'm a virgin." Gabriel has an equally great answer to Mary's question. It just goes to show, God is a little weird. The answer is, "The Holy Spirit will come over you and the power of the Most High God will come upon you and cause you to become pregnant. Because of this, the child that you will be carried will be called "Holy," "the Child of God."

Now what Gabriel is describing is impossible according all human works and understanding. It physically cannot happen. At this moment in time, Mary easily could have said to Gabriel, "This is nuts. This is crazy stuff. I can't handle it. I won't handle it. Forget about it." Yet we know that, that didn't happen. Gabriel, in order to show that power of God through weirdness, tells Mary about her relative, Elizabeth. Elizabeth is six months pregnant. That sounds okay until you add in Elizabeth is well past the age of being able to bear children AND when she was of age, Elizabeth could not and did not have any children. Now Elizabeth is pregnant. Strange things are happening with God.

Then Gabriel told Mary, and he tells us too, "That nothing is impossible with God." All the weird things that Gabriel was describing were not impossible for God to do. And God did them. All the crazy things that God did were for our benefit. Jesus' name is a very special name. It's "Yeshua" in the Hebrew language which means, "Savior." The child Jesus grew up and gave to us salvation from our sins by means of His death upon the cross. The "throne of David" was a cross for Jesus. The King of kings and Lord of lords was THE ONE who God sent to free God's people from their sins and sinfulness. So this is a story that tells us nothing is impossible with God.

It is also a story about one thing that Mary possessed. Mary possessed, "Faith." After all of what Gabriel told her, she responded saying, "I am the Lord's servant. Let it be to me as you have said." Mary possessed a faith to believe the impossible. Her faith guided her as she later travelled from Nazareth to Bethlehem, just before giving birth to Jesus. Her faith comforted her when she watched her son die at the hands of sinful men. Her faith rejoiced when she saw her resurrected son as He gave the promise of a resurrection to all people. And Mary is an example of faith in action to us as well. We believe in the truth of Jesus, conceived in the Virgin Mary, born, and died at the hands of Pontius Pilate, and on the third day rose to life. We believe and base our lives and actions upon the reality of Jesus Christ. So no matter what happens in our lives, the ups and the downs, we are guided in the crazy weirdness of it all. That nothing is impossible with God.

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