The Promise

"Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God." Luke 1:30  

I pray that you are well and want to thank all of you who have made commitments to give and to care for those in our community who will have very little Christmas, except for people like us making sacrifices for them. We fed over 1,000 people over Thanksgiving and the giving for Christmas outreach looks equally promising and generous. Bless you for being a blessing to others.

I've been getting ready for Christmas in my heart and in my mind by pondering and reflecting on the God who promises us a life of hope and a life that is connected to Him in some real ways. It's really quite a fantastic story, and not in the imaginary sense. It's fantastic that God would show the depth of His love for us by coming down and living among us. It's amazing that God would reveal His promise in the birth of a child, born to a "nobody" from "nowhere" in the darkness of a lowly stable, a child who would grow up to show the world the face of God's love in His life, His death, and His resurrection.

The promise starts out so small, in the visit of the angel Gabriel to a young woman, who is favored by God, not because of her wealth, or her intellect, or her experience in birthing and raising children, but favored only because she was willing to accept God's presence and follow God's call for her life. Oh, I know that the stories that have surrounded Mary through the centuries raise her up to a place where she appears to be "worthy" to be the one to be the first to bring Christ to the world and she may have been. But the scriptures suggest otherwise. A worthy person would not have to be told by Gabriel to set aside her fears. She's just like us in that respect. No, Mary is worthy because she accepts the promise of hope and God's presence in her life and is willing to follow in God's way, a way that brings light and life to the world in the most beautiful form we know - a baby.

And the promise of a life of hope and God's presence is available to you and to me in this busy Advent season. We don't have to earn the promise. We do not have to have some earned measure of success in our lives. We don't have to "be somebody" for God for Him to be present with us. You and I only have to be ready and open to receive God's promise and the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives when it comes our way. Now, it's not likely that our openness in following God's call on our lives will make us 'famous" like Mary. But it will make us stand out for those to whom we bear Christ - to those souls we reveal the presence of Christ to through our giving, through our loving, and through our hopefulness. To those souls we will be revealed as God's people. We will be like Mary, living in hope and God's presence, making our little difference in God's kingdom.

And so in these days of Advent, listen carefully to God's call on your life. Don't be afraid, as Gabriel commands us, for you have found favor with God and God is coming to fill you with hope and life and the ability to share the love of Christ with the world.


Grace and Peace,
WFA

P.S. Drop by the St. David's Facebook page each week for a special Advent message, and please leave a message of blessing for your St. David's family.