Abbey Christmas: Joy Week 1 Day 3

Day 3: Joy - Mary 

Text: Luke 1:46-55

After Mary is informed that she will bear in her womb the Savior of the world (no pressure!), she erupts into song.  “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Her song is a joyful overflow of praise from a heart that has been touched by mind-boggling grace.

Why?  “For he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.”  Did you notice how she identified herself? His servant.  She sees herself as but a slave.  A janitor. She is a poor, unemployed, teenage girl, which, for her culture, meant she was the lowest of the low.  She had no power, no voting rights, no inheritance, and no status. And yet God singles her out. God invades her life with His kind presence.  God honors her with an utterly unique task.

This is grace.  Receiving what you don’t deserve and never expected to receive in the first place.

Her song continues, “He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.”  Grace always reverses the way the world works. Those with power and status are always brought low. And those at the bottom are always exalted.  Grace tips the values of the world upside down and only those familiar with God’s mysterious Kingdom can see it. “He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.”  Those who are empty are filled; those who are filled are emptied.

As Jesus would later say, “The last will be first, and the first will be last.  The humble will be exalted and the exalted will be humbled.”

Grace is a glorious disruption to how we think the world should operate.  Grace is always bad news to those who think they are good but good news to those who think they are bad.  This is why those that flocked to Jesus were always those at the bottom, the outcasts, the sinners (!). And this is why the ones that killed Jesus were the upright, the insiders, and the powerful.

Reflection

Morning Pause:  How do you identify yourself this morning?  What terms do you use to describe yourself?

Afternoon Pause:  What are some things that you could put into practice that might cultivate humility and dependency?

Evening Pause:  Where did you see or experience God’s grace today?