Blessed Pregnant with Jesus. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord, and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Transcription

1 Blessed Pregnant with Jesus Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord, and Savior, Jesus Christ. Micah 5:2-5a Hebrews 10:5-10 Luke 1:39-45 (46-55) Advent 4 A young girl named Mary (pregnant with the Lord God) said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for He has looked on the humble estate of His servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed. Bridge Really, being PREGNANT WITH THE LORD GOD is the whole deal. A little town called Bethlehem was (it housed and birthed Him just as surely as the virgin did), and Mary (the little girl) certainly was. Because of their pregnancy with God, both the town and the girl have been called, ever since, blessed and rightly so. But neither (it should be noted) were, of themselves, worthy of that blessing. Bethlehem wasn t special, at all, within the world. David got born there, of course, but he was, only, a shepherd who God chose to bless by being with him and make him king of His earthly also-blessed country, but nothing, naturally, was special about him or his family community. David became (as a matter of fact) a rather renowned sinner (costing his country a lot of damage because of his sin). He was an adulterer, a murderer, and covered-up all of that lustful stuff after having used and stolen another man s wife. Bethlehem (his hometown) was small (raising sheep and growing wheat for bread was its main-stay) and even the tribe that Bethlehem sat in was small (Judah didn t get, but, a small portion of Israel s land compared to the others). Mary (probably about 14 at the time), was, just, one young girl among many others. She, even, commented, herself, on how low God had stooped to pick her to house the blessedness that she did.

2 But God s never picked a self-made man or an industrial headquarters, a big company or a world power, to carry and bear His blessedness. He s always built-up the humble, the poor in spirit, what s (earthly) nothing to, then, be made, by Him, everything. Simple water He flows through and wine and bread He uses rather than a costly perfume and fillet mignon or lobster-tail, the simple He embeds Himself in to transform it from just something basic to, also, a substantially different entity. God s always blessed what He s chosen to, bringing-to and transporting-through blessedness wherever He s decided-to by His will. And the blessedness that s embedded is Jesus it always had been. God made the shepherd, David, pregnant with Him (bringing His Seed through him to be Jesus earthly great, great, great, great, great, grandpa). The gleam in daddy s eye was nothing short (for David) of divine pregnancy (the Seed that was promised since after the fall fertilized / passed through him). Micah foretold about Bethlehem that it was pregnant with that Seed, eventually (itself) giving full birth to it (having Jesus reside within the line of Ruth, Boaz, and David, then holding Him as an, actual, baby within its border). Mary, herself, got born with that Seed. It was passed to her, pregnant from her parents, them from David who d gotten it from Ruth and select-others all the way back to Eve. The blessed pregnancy of having God within oneself was shared (ever since He was promised) by people, a nation and, even, a piece of land called Promised. Specifically, the pregnant blessedness from the Divine Lord Jesus was anybody (or anything) that housed, carried, or bore Him. The Old Testament was full of accounts of that blessedness which was in, even, furniture (like the ark that carried Him as Covenant) and a tent (the Tabernacle) then building (as the Temple). Christmas (and the 9 months that ran up to it) just made blessed pregnancy obvious. Text

3 The Little Town of Bethlehem sat in wait to be so-obviously blessed, and Mary (then graphically) carried that blessedness around. She came to know (really well) the promise that was getting fulfilled within her womb (it s why she spoke the Magnificat from her awareness of her blessed pregnancy ): 4,000 years before, the Seed (or Offspring) of a woman would bear into this world the Savior from God (the One who d beat the death which sin brought on). Housed within the faithful, the Promise of the Messiah was relied-upon, so that a Divine person in a woman s womb was looked-for, promised / anticipated / and craved by those pregnant with the Promise. And, then, they blessed the rest of the world by telling about that coming gift and honoring their pregnancy with an anxious anticipation for the Jesus who would be of benefit (blessing) to everyone. The Gospel of Luke starts with Zechariah noting the pregnancy of how God s fulfilling His Promise (something his son, John, would help so-many get prepared-for). The time had come (an angel told the priest) to fulfill all that (through the thousands of years before it) God had set-up for. So Mary became (visually) His Divine, fully-filled, Temple. In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, Greetings, O favored one [or one being made blessed, and here s how:] the Lord is with you! But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God [(God has decided upon blessing you with Himself)]. [So] behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end. And Mary said to the angel, How will this be, since I am a virgin?

4 And the angel answered her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you [physically and by Divine decision and blessing], and the power of the Most High will overshadow you [again, physically and by Divine decision and blessing]; therefore the child to be born will be called holy the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth moth with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, Behold, I am the servant [owned, lowly, and possessed] of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word. Elizabeth had recognized, as well, God s blessing of her young cousin Mary and herself, as well (for that matter) as Jesus got brought to her house to grace her with His presence (her body, baby, and home with His proximity). Nazareth had gotten to house the Lord for awhile (and would again) as did the Jerusalem suburb, now, of Ein Karem where Elizabeth was. Mary went, immediately, to visit her cousin and stay with her for 3 months so the blessing was being circulated: JESUS PRESENCE (PREGNANCY WITH HIM) WAS WHAT MADE FOR BLESSEDNESS. And if this sounds like a new way of talking about blessedness, it s the right way, so I want you to try it on for size. This blessedness-by-proximity-to-jesus was a light-bulb that turned on for me, but the Church has always known of it in this pregnant way. Application Everyone / everything / every place that God assumes through words that He embeds (promising to reside-within because of those words) people, places, and things that, themselves, respond to God with let it be to me according to Your Word God s embodied Word (Jesus) occupies that space, so I baptize you in My name, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost and he that believes and is baptized will be saved and do you not know that your body is the Temple of the Living God actually delivers what it says.

5 Mary, as an unworthy, humble, perfect, example of the Church, has always been an appropriate analogy as we can, actually visualize ourselves-with-her carrying and bearing into the world the baby of Bethlehem. Revelation, chapter 12, expresses exactly that blessed role for us, but all of Revelation expresses it since it s an entire book describing the blessedness of the proximity of Jesus to His people then, carrying Him to places near or distant (bearing Him there). Today s story shows what that Divine presence gives to where He s brought (what having Him close-in-proximity does for one who s within reach of Jesus): at a courtyard well (in the entrance to Elizabeth s home where Mary was walking-up the sidewalk), she, big-time pregnant with the Son of God, caused a noteworthy stir of blessedness. The person into whose vicinity Jesus was brought noticed just-exactly what pregnancy-with-him means, so said blessed are you [obviously, Mary] because blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy, she, too, becoming filled with the Holy Spirit (God making her and her son, John, there, also pregnant with His Savior, Jesus). We (this place, what we do here, and us baptized into all of it) have Jesus embedded-here by Word. Blessedness, therefore, is ours because we re pregnant with Him. We weren t / aren t worthy of that (just in proximity of Him so in receipt of Him by God s will being graciously embedded within lowly servants). May we all know (really well) Who it is we bear and fulfill an obligation (like Mary did as example): to carry-around with us and, actually, birth Jesus into place where He s needed providing blessedness because we provide Him. May our PREGNANCY WITH JESUS be, always, obvious. In +His name. Amen.