Week 2
The Promise of the Prophets
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign:
Isaiah 7:14
The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel
The prophet, Isaiah, gave the world a hint about the arrival of the new King … he would arrive as all other monarchs before and after him … born, from a woman. In this amazingly common manner of being born :
the physical has brought the eternal
miraculous in the mundane
This king would have an earthly mother. One who would care for him, change his diaper, nurse him, raise and nurture him. She would also be part of the typical, nine month period of waiting for his arrival. That long and aching waiting for her babe to be born … to be delivered …
and her own delivery would come through the one she delivered.
God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month.
For no word from God will ever fail.”
Luke 1:26-37
God chose Mary … she was part of his plan to deliver all of humankind, in love and compassion.
“In Advent, we put all our hope in the sacred blackness of a womb. As we wait, we remind ourselves that darkness (which is far too often reduced to a trite symbol for sin and death), actually has the unique capacity to bear the divine. In Advent, we reclaim the holy dark.”
Cole Arthur Riley
itsawonderfilledlife 