Can you handle the blessing?

Luke 1:39-55


I hear a lot of folk talk about being blessed and highly favored.  That has been insider church lingo for a while now.  My concern has always been that some are really talking about being MORE blessed and MORE highly favored than others, which I believe is not of Christ.


Everything about this Good News of Jesus turned things upside down.  It was a message of Justice in a most unjust time.  It was a message of Shalom in a time when only the elites knew well-being, completeness and wholeness and that at the expense of everyone else.  It was a message of Hope when it seemed all hope was lost of deliverance from empire.  Jesus' presence in this Good News would reverse the destruction of empire by ushering in the Kingdom and its values.  But change is not always easy.


So, a girl of 14 years or so, unmarried would be favored to be found pregnant.  The angel came and announced this and left.   The angel was gone.  Who would believe this amazing story?  Would the angel come and rescue her from the wagging tongues over this blessed event that would surely be seen as a scandal?  How would she raise a child?  What would Joseph say and do?  Was this real?  But Mary made herself available to God.


 Mary went immediately to Elizabeth, similarly blessed by God.  But she was married, and to a priest in the Temple.  Mary went to her cousin, perhaps for support or perspective.  Mary went perhaps not to feel all alone in this blessing. 


It was in the reaction of Elizabeth, or rather John within her, that in an instant it was all confirmed and Mary found resolve.  Then Mary uttered beautiful words of joy and understanding of what this would mean for the world and how she was blessed and highly favored to serve.  And serve she would.  Her life would no longer be ordinary and it would in no way be easy.  Jesus was different and it meant Hope, Joy and Shalom for all, but it came at a price - a price that Mary also would pay throughout her life. 


In a world of Injustice, lack of Hope and absence of Shalom, the restoration of those things comes not so easily, even against great resistence and threat.  Jesus came to bring in the Kingdom, to restore Kingdom values.  Mary was blessed and highly favored, chosen to bring in Jesus.  This 14 year old, unmarried girl was blessed with a great and horrible task.  It had to be done for God and for God's people, and she did it.  She endured the hardships, the struggles and the pain. 


Like with Mary and with James and John, the sons of Zebedee, one must be asked the question in times like those and like these -


So, you want to be lifted up, blessed and highly favored of God?
Can you handle the blessing?


Come, Angel, come.


Pastor Jamie