Text: Luke 1: 26-38

Do you know that, like Mary, you have found favor with God?  (Luke 1:30)  When you think of being in someone’s favor what thoughts come to mind?  Does it mean that you have pleased them?  Does it have something to do with your state of perfection?  Do you think that Mary must have been better than you and thereby found favor with God? 

The root of the favor Mary has with God has nothing to do with Mary’s action.  The root idea herein is grace.  This story is about what God has chosen to do in and through Mary. 

• Read the story from Mary’s perspective and see if the words “perplexed” and “ponder” describe how you feel about having found favor with God.
• Then read the story from God’s perspective and note how your thoughts and feelings are transformed.  Read it through the lens of grace! How does it fell to know that God is doing this for you?

The idea of God’s grace and being holy as God is holy belong together.  God’s grace is a free and unmerited gift.  This grace is revealed in and through Jesus.  Jesus points his disciples in the direction of grace and being-holy when he predicts three times that “the son of man must suffer…die and be resurrected”.  This threefold pattern of Salvation reveals Holy living.  To be holy as God is holy means that we offer our neighbor the same grace that God offers us.  Therefore, like Jesus, we will suffer the things that separate us from God and neighbor.  To overcome this suffering gracefully we too must die –meaning we choose to deny ourselves to follow Jesus’ way by offering grace in the midst of suffering.  The end of this suffering is resurrected life.  Herein I am not pointing to the “going to heaven” but rather bring heaven to earth.  Grace applied to daily living opens our eyes to see our neighbor from God’s perspective. 

Look at verse 35.  Mary is told that the child to be born will be HOLY! 

• Why do the angel’s words sound prophetic?  “Will be holy” is set in the future tense.  Do you see that this “future” salvation hinges on Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection? 

Have you received God’s grace through Jesus Christ?  Have you been baptized into Jesus’ baptism?  (See Romans 6:1-4) I am asking if you have entered into Jesus death.  Jesus’ death brings death to sin.  (Sin is your failure to be in Holy Communion with God. Salvation restores you to Holy Communion with God.)  Are you born-again?

 I was born the first child of Bob and Margaret Burlingham.  I was born of water!  I am born again, not of water, but of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus’ baptism is a cleansing or washing in the Holy Spirit.  (See Luke 3:16-17)  This baptism is God’s act of grace upon my life.  Through Jesus I have found favor with God!  Isn’t that why God found favor with Mary?  Didn’t God find favor with Mary so that we might be holy as he is holy?  Didn’t God find favor with Mary to reveal His desire to be born again in our hearts?  Didn’t God give us our first birth?  Weren’t we “Sons of God” through Adam?  Wasn’t Adam born of the Spirit, God’s Holy Breath? (See Genesis 2:7) Didn’t Adam trade Holy Communion for sin and death?

• What are the three means by which you may live a holy life here on earth?  (See Luke 18:31-34.)

Hear the Good News!  Do not be afraid, (place your name here), for you have found favor with God.  And now, you will conceive in your heart, soul and mind and bear God’s Son, Jesus.  (Place you name here) said, “How can this be, since I am a sinner”…  If you don’t know “the rest of the story” please, give me all call.  I love to share my witness.

One in Christ

Robert