"Mary's Song"
So…
Have you got all the shopping done? Are all the decorations up and lit?
Have you baked those Christmas cookies?
Honestly, I have seen no evidence of said cookies! Just saying!
But that is what we do this season of the year. We get ready!
Yes, for Christmas.
And for cold weather and snow. And we hunker down for winter.
But perhaps we are missing an opportunity.
Because it could also be a season when we intentionally take a good hard look at our lives and see where we are.
Not location, but where we are in the big picture of life.
Have we done the things we intended to do this past year? Did we travel? Did we connect or reconnect with folks we’d really love to spend time with.
Did we exercise a bit more, or eat a bit better, or actually establish a routine of counting all our blessings?
We live in a world that has gotten a lot crabbier, a lot angrier, and I suspect one of the reasons is, we don’t as a rule look and see just how blessed we are.
We see what’s wrong with the world, what is wrong with others, and sometimes what is wrong with us!
But we don’t see - or perhaps even look to see - how blessed we are.
When you think about your life and your circumstances, when you measure out how your life has gone so far, what is your conclusion?
How do you see it?
Has it been a raving success, or a series of troubles, or a bunch of challenges with some great moments and some not so great.
Do you ever boil it all down and say, “well, yeah, God has blessed me”!
And then I think about Mary.
Mary, who according to the story was already pregnant when she married Joseph.
Mary who is now in this story today, visiting her older cousin Elizabeth, who is also pregnant. You know, some suspect Mary was there so her hometown friends wouldn’t be pointing out her “condition”.
Mary, who could I suppose be nervous, or scared, or troubled, or doubting.
But instead, Mary is believing that she is blessed!
That God has shown her mercy and grace. That God has cared for her.
And I don’t know about you, but that attitude, that way of looking at the world, that way of understanding how God works in this crazy world just brings tears to my eyes!
And helps me understand why Mary was the one God chose to birth his son.
A woman of faith for sure, a woman of grace. But even more than that, a woman with a heart as big as God’s, if that is possible!
One who could see how all this was possible, and who could believe the impossible, and who could birth a son whose love was a reflection of her own as well as that of God his father.
One who could see that her “lowly condition” was exactly the place the God of the universe would start a story of redemption and reconciliation.
A story of blessing - of being blessed in order to be a blessing.
A story of love, not the mushy kind, but the kind of love where doing for others, caring for others, being there for others is what life is all about.
How could Mary, Jesus’ mother, be anything other than a woman who knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was blessed.
For it is in that moment that we finally see we are blessed, that Jesus is fully formed in us, too!
And it is in that moment that we can finally be the Jesus person we so much want to be for others.
I don’t know about you, but I love watching those Facebook stories where folks go and find needy people and bless them.
Homeless folks with food or tents or sleeping bags.
Struggling mothers with groceries and presents for the kids.
And I love the guys who every week go and find a lawn that needs cutting and transform a house surrounded by weeds into a beautiful estate.
And the ones who stop by a Taco Truck where no one is getting a taco, and offer to pay for everyone who stops - a free taco for an hour.
And then bless the workers with not only the money to pay for the tacos - but a tip for the employees as big as the cost of all those tacos.
Mary…
Saw what the Lord had done, and understood herself to be blessed.
How about you?
This Christmas, take a moment and see the blessing!
And then, be a blessing!
Amen.