Emmanuel Day 10

Emmanuel, God with the wondering

“Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?” And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.”

Luke 1:34-35

Have you ever won a contest? Maybe you guessed the right number of candies in a jar at the fair, or had your ticket drawn out of a bowl for a raffle prize somewhere. My husband and I were on a cruise ship one time when his name was picked out of a spa raffle. He was excited to be declared the winner of something, until he found out that the unexchangeable treatment he won was a leg wax. I’m not sure about any other man on the ship, but there was no way my husband was going to show up for that appointment! And seriously, what kind of a winning prize is that anyway?

Quite the opposite of that, we see here, through the lens of Luke, that Mary wins the contest to beat out all other contests. There was no lame leg-wax-prize given at the end of this conversation with the angel Gabriel. The entire nation had been on the edge of their seats for years, in anticipation over the long-awaited Messiah. Of all the people God could have chosen for this immense task, He sent His angel to a young woman, hidden and unknown to most of the world, with the declaration that she was seen by Him. The initial promise of a saving Messiah, God with us, had been given thousands of years before in the Garden of Eden. Maybe there were some who had even given up hope of it ever actually coming to pass. But suddenly, without flare or fireworks, an angel comes to Mary with the message that the time of fulfillment is here, and the promised Messiah was to enter the world through her. I can’t imagine the mixture of emotions and confusion that must have been welling up inside of Mary’s heart in this moment!

We don’t know much about Mary’s past at all. We’re not sure what her parents were like. We can only wonder why she chose to go to Elizabeth’s house while waiting out a portion of her pregnancy. We can’t be dogmatic about her age, only that most likely, she was fairly young for all of this according to our current-life standards. Maybe Mary was just a good girl trying to live a godly life. Maybe she had days where she wondered if anyone saw the good choices that she made or the integrity that she operated by. Maybe she felt a bit invisible. Maybe her life had been a little bit difficult. It was the father’s job to bring a pregnant, unmarried girl out to be stoned, so where was he? Did Jesus have grandparents? This song of praise that Mary sings in Luke 1 makes it sound like she had felt weak, and in that weakness, God had brought her strength. If songs are windows into the heart, it sounds like there were proud, difficult people in her life that she was excited to see God dealing with. There are undertones in her song of mighty people who had been ruling on the thrones of her life. She said that God had filled the hungry with good things. Was she physically hungry, or was she speaking only of spiritual hunger? Mary chose to trust that God had a good plan for her and her family, and she let the truth of God’s character dictate her feelings and emotions, rather than the circumstances of her life getting to tell her feelings how to feel.

The first “Christmas season” was one filled with hardship for the sweet little mama of Emmanuel. A census? Leaving home? Walking or riding on an animal for a ninety-mile journey? Giving birth in a stable? And let’s make sure we’re thinking properly about a what a stable was back then. Thanks to many home-improvement shows, barns could possibly have taken on a somewhat romantic feel in our hearts. But we’re not taking about a cute, modernly refurbished southern-type stable with wood floors, new paint, darling chalk boards, and plants propagating all around. We’re talking about a girl who probably gave birth on the ground in a pile of hay with animals all around. No bed, no body pillow, no ice-chips.

This was not a cute little nativity scene moment. There were no cartoon sheep snuggling close to keep our Savior warm or cows moo-humming Jesus soft lullabies. Every barn I’ve ever been in has been a flurry of active noise. (Not to mention the gagging smell!) This sweet mama was far from home, far from family, and in a far from clean and quiet atmosphere. It was not exactly the place to rest and recover from delivering a baby or to start a new sleep-training schedule! And if that’s not all wild enough, enter stage right: the shepherds. These were not your adorable little elementary school aged kids dressed up in a few clean sheets and sashes. Shepherds were known for being the towns unclean out-casts. I’m trying to picture my reaction if a few sketchy-looking men who smelled like the field showed up to see my newborn and me. Did swaddling cloths mean they had no money to buy any baby clothes? A manger is a feeding trough, so did she feel like she was putting her brand-new baby in a slobbery water bowl? I think we tend to romanticize so much of her story, or maybe just skim over it due to familiarity. The Bible doesn’t refer to Mary as holy or perfect, so where did her strength and ability come from, and where can we find that same strength and ability for our own difficult and confusing seasons?

I love the phraseology of what the angel Gabriel said to Mary. The Holy Spirit would come upon her, and she would be overshadowed by the power of the Highest. I think many of us have been in the place where we don’t quite understand how God’s plan is going to work, how His goodness will prevail in certain situations, or why these circumstances are happening in the first place. But, like Mary, even in the questions and wonders of life, we have the promised power of the Highest to lean upon. We too can choose to trust in the faithful goodness of God, and in that place of trust we will find the overshadowing power of God, strengthening our ability to accomplish what He is calling us to do.

Do you remember the last earthly instructions the disciples received from Jesus before He ascended into heaven?

“And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now… you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you”

Acts 1:4-5

There are many things in life, that just cannot be accomplished well without us being overshadowed by the power of the Highest. There is a need to wait on Emmanuel, God with us, for His power, to seek His strength, and to be baptized with the anointing power of the Holy Spirit if we’re ever going to be able to live this life the way He intends us to.

The Greek word for overshadow here in Luke 1 is the word episkiazō, and it means to cast a shade upon, or to envelop in a haze of brilliancy. (Strong’s Concordance) Thayer’s commentary describes the idea of the word as the Holy Spirit exerting creative energy upon the womb of the virgin Mary and impregnating it. … with the idea of a cloud as symbolizing the immediate presence and power of God.

Today, whether we need to be enveloped by God’s brightness, need His creative energy upon us, or are just plain desperate for the immediate presence and power of God, I think we should all raise our hands to Emmanuel asking to be overshadowed and enveloped by the Holy Spirit in some way! Precious friend, what is it that you need today? For every area of your holiday season and beyond, God has an enveloping brightness, a creative plan, His presence, and His power available and ready to put in use. Even if we don’t understand the how’s or why’s surrounding the circumstances of our lives, we can trust in Emmanuel God with us, knowing that He knows the how and the why. What seemed impossible and improbable in Mary’s life was made possible by the overshadowing of the Highest, and what seems impossible and improbable in our lives will also be made possible when we cry out for the overshadowing power of the Holy Spirit upon us as well.

Emmanuel; with us IS GOD