Monday meditation: ‘God came down,’ Part 2: Knowing his presence
Excited, confused, overwhelmed, Mary needed to be with someone she trusted. She wasn’t ready yet to tell her mother or her husband-to-be the news the angel had just announced.
He had told her she would become pregnant and birth the very Son of God into a world that desperately needed him. It was too much to grasp. Would anyone believe her? Maybe Elizabeth, her loving older relative (perhaps they were cousins) would accept and encourage her. We can imagine this wasn’t the first time Mary sought nurture from the older woman.
As The Message paraphrase puts it, “Mary didn’t waste a minute. She got up and traveled to a town in Judah in the hill country, straight to Zachariah’s house, and greeted Elizabeth.”
Of course, Elizabeth had her own remarkable story. Well beyond child-bearing age, she was also pregnant. An angel had appeared to her husband, too, promising the birth of a child who would grow to fulfill a special mission for God.
She felt her unborn infant leap inside her the instant Mary walked in the door. “The babe in my womb skipped like a lamb for sheer joy,” she said.
And both women knew God was at work.
Not in a way they would have anticipated or chosen. Not with a future that would be without heartache. But they rejoiced because they knew God himself was alive and active in their midst.
God himself was alive and active in their midst.
And isn’t that what we all want? To know that God is with us? Like Mary, we have many questions about what he’s doing with what has happened to us. We caregivers are not anticipating a birth, of course. Instead, we’re dreading a death. But can we believe that God is with us even in that valley?
Mary’s remarkable song includes an assertion to bring us pause:
“His mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him,” she sang. Or, as another version puts it, “His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.”
Perhaps we can see her praise as promise. Perhaps we worship, maybe for years, before we fully realize how he’s working. Not that we earn God’s favor by reading our Bible or going to church. But our perspective changes when we live day to day and year after year seeking his will and discovering his ways. When we acknowledge him, our eyes are opened to his kind provision of strength to cope with what life hands us.
Our perspective changes when we live seeking his will.
And so, we continue to worship. It’s a decision, an act of faith, really. To call him God even when we don’t understand him. To give him praise even when he doesn’t do things our way. To yield our will to his. To remember with Mary all his mighty works in the past and to believe he’s still at work—even in our troubled little life today.
“Oh, how my soul praises the Lord,” Mary sang. “How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!” We do well to join her in adoration and awe.
Read: Luke 1:39-56, The Message, New Living Translation, and English Standard Version
Pray: Thank you, God, for leading Luke to include the story of Mary and Elizabeth, for it reminds us that you do your work through everyday people in ways that are often surprising. We will continue to worship you, Lord, aware of your presence and seeking to see it with clearer vision this week.
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