Christmas
(My extras in the tale)
Jesus wasn’t born in a temple, a sterile hospital, or with a Jewish midwife etc., He was born in a stable, smack dab in the marketplace, surrounded by wild animals and danger, and fenced in by misconceptions and distortions.
Mary was a young virgin, and had probably dreamt of the perfect princess wedding since she was 6 years old, to a handsome prince, who would rescue her from the ordinary, and where they would live in middle class suburbia, have 2.5 kids, send them to a private school, enjoy 2 weeks holiday every year and hopefully own their own home by the time they had reached late 40’s.
A sudden appearance of an Angel one ordinary day, not long after she had left school put paid to that dream! In an era where the pill had not been invented yet, marriage still a traditional value that cemented families together, this tall white being who called himself Gabriel, (I mean Joe, or Bob, but Gabriel) suddenly announces to Mary, ‘Fear Not, I come with great news and a message from on High. Mary you are pregnant, and what’s more Mary, no it’s not to the tall dark and handsome prince, but your having a baby to the Holy Spirit, Mary, and then when your son is born there will be a hit out on his life from the king. ’
Imagine what Mary is thinking, that’s not good news from where I’m standing, and one small issue with this scenario, the word Holy Spirit was only used 3 times in the whole Old Testament, so its not like He is well known, and what’s more Gabriel, you spoke and then took off to goodness knows where after telling me I have committed an act, I was not complicit in, and one that could have me killed! An iPad for my birthday would have sufficed!
We don’t know whether Mary’s family supported her in this psycho drama being played out in real time, we would have to assume they didn’t, as this was a stigma that would not have bode well for the entire clan! Even Joseph, the prince who was now in the picture, was going to do a runner, except he has a dream, and upon remembering the last person who tried talking back to a Divine encounter, after God got into a mood and didn’t talk for 400 years, ends up dumb, so the better part of valour was to stick by her.
I’m not sure Mary would have really seen this as an amazing, illuminating moment, where the ‘Call of God’ suddenly appeared and she was hurled into a ministry, and suddenly her name would be in lights, and she’d be hunted down for her autograph. She was about to become famous’ but not for the illustrious career or calling she had been dreaming of since she was a young child, this calling has a name, it’s the ‘High Calling!’
When Gabriel pops into her life and decides to give her a message filled with so called Heaven’s cheer, little did she know that her life had now been catapulted into the ‘High Calling of God’, and as the realisation sinks in of what those four words really mean, the shine of the glitz of the moment, lost its gloss very quickly.
As far as we know, Mary, was a good girl, kept herself pure, gone to church, came from a nice family, but little did she know that the ‘ High Calling’ was about to start whispers behind closed doors about her sanity, that would follow her all her life, and then for 3 years as the mother of this baby she didn’t ask for, she would have to carry the stigma of his behavior that was not inline with ‘tradition’. Then she would have to grieve as only a mother who has buried a child understands, the nights of sleepless torment, the sudden stabs of pain that pierce a mourning heart, the looks, the hurt, the whispers of ‘isn’t that the mother of that lunatic who said He was the Son of God and was crucified between two criminals, and has now started a crazy revolution? Poor woman!’
Mary had entered into the ‘High Calling of God’.
Philippians 3 v 14 ‘I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.’
When we think of a ‘high calling,’ we somehow conjure up a life without problems, an amazing future with no difficulties, endless favour and clients etc. banging on your door!
Think Again!
Mary was called ‘Highly Favoured One,’ and look what favour took her into!
There is something all of us need to realise when we talk about ‘the high calling’, and that’s this….. Never think success is a life without problems, success is a life that makes the decision before knowing the whole story, to take on the tough problems, tough people and tough outcomes, no matter what.
Mary was smart, after hearing from heaven she didn’t go out and sign a publisher for a book deal on finding your personal angel. She didn’t start a television show, go on the itinerate ministry circuit etc., you get the idea. Mary did 2 things. The first was she hid the encounter in her heart. Sometimes you have to hold things in your heart and not allow a spirit of offense take hold. Mary was now in the unknown, this was unchartered water, this experience was nothing like Deborah, Esther, Ruth, Naomi etc., this was new, because every encounter is unlike any other and Mary was taking this encounter and with a deep belief that went beyond anything she had ever understood before, she knew this belief had to be woven into the moral fibre of her whole life so as to create a culture that would be knitted into the very foundation and beliefs of the next generation, so a generation would follow whose culture were like no other and who were ready to begin a revolution that would change earth itself.
How did Mary do this? She went straight to Elizabeth. Elizabeth was a wise and smart woman. Mary knew that to be all that the ‘High Calling ‘ needed her to be, she needed a leader in her life to guide her through, and be accountable to.
Elizabeth navigated Mary through the truth that each of us, are designed for a function that expresses the intent of the designer, that design is our ‘real self.’ Each of us will only become our “real self” if we can give ourselves over to Him.
Mary’s words would be sorely tested over time, ‘Let it be to me according to your word.’ Every High Calling comes with a packaged problem, one that you are designed to solve, but one that will never reveal its fullness till the solution is at hand.
I wonder if that teenage girl had always sensed a feeling of being different, here for a purpose, and all the other clichés we hear. Perhaps Mary felt the discontent, understood the contradiction of her young life and decided in her exuberant youth to embrace that restless yearning she was sensing, as a sign that there was a problem that at some point in her life she was going to get mixed up with, because she was on earth to solve it, and that problem would cause her contradictions all the rest of her days.
Mother to the Son of God, despised and reviled by her own mother, gives birth to Him who is without sin, and sees Him crucified in the place of a murderer. Loves the One who is Love and watches as hate seeks to kill Him. What contradiction for a young heart to understand.
Whatever the Highest Call is in your life, also ponder on the equal contradiction that will be sent on the parallel path, you cannot have one without the other.
Dare to be all, Mary, listen the wind as it whispers Heavens secret, encouraging you ‘Go to the wilderness, find your voice, grab your dream, Don’t trade it for less, carve out history in your today, Dare to show heaven on earth.’
So many times it happens too fast
You trade your passion for glory
Don’t lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive
It’s the eye of the tiger,
It’s the thrill of the fight
Risin’ up to the challenge
of our rivals
And the last known survivor
Stalks his prey in the night
And he’s watchin’ us all
With the eye of the tiger
Survivor – Eye Of The Tiger Lyrics | MetroLyrics
From Our Family To Yours at Christmas May the Joy and Peace of the Season remind You of the Reason and May 2014 Be the Best Year Yet!
Amanda and Roger
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