Power Point - December 17, 2004
December 17, 2004
And Mary said:
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me,
And holy is His name…”
-Luke 1:46-49
I heard about a little girl who came home from Sunday school holding a piece of paper in her hand. She said holding it up for her mother to see, “Mother, my teacher said I had the most unusual Christmas picture in the whole class.”
When the girl’s mother looked at it, she noticed that it was, in fact, an unusual picture. It displayed an airplane and in the back sat Mary, Joseph, and the Christ child. The mother said, “Darling, why do you have Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus in the back of the airplane?”
The little girl replied, “That’s the flight to Egypt!”
The mother continued to examine the picture more and noticed a strange looking character in the cockpit of the plane. She said to her daughter, “Who is that mean-looking man flying the plane, dear?”
Her young daughter, looking disturbed, replied, “Mother, don’t you know? That’s Pontius the pilot!”
Then the mother said, “Well, then who is that big, fat man sitting behind the holy family?”
The young girl, obviously frustrated by all the questions, said, “Hello!?! That’s round John Virgin!”
There is your Christmas humor for the season. But on a more serious note, just like the little girl was a bit confused, many people are confused about Christmas. Mary, in particular, is one of the most misunderstood persons in all of the Word of God. She is adored and even worshipped by some and ignored by others. There’s a great deal of confusion regarding her position.
In Luke 1:46-49, we see that while many of us misunderstand the message of Christmas, Mary got it straight. Why did Mary sing the song found in these verses? She sang and praised God for the same reasons that we ought to be singing at this time of the year and every day of our lives. She sang because of her salvation and because she was filled with the Holy Spirit—she cried out to “God my Savior” (v 47).
Please understand that Mary is not to be worshipped as a god or even as an intermediary between man and God. Mary was a woman who needed to be saved just as we need to be saved. The Scripture does not say about Mary, “Blessed art thou above all women,” but instead it says, “Blessed are you among all women.”
Let me make this clear…the virgin birth of Jesus through Mary was absolutely essential to our faith. If Jesus had not been born of a virgin, then He would’ve been a man just like anyone else, and not God. And if He were not God, then we wouldn’t have a Savior. But great is the mystery of godliness—that God was manifested in the flesh. In the mystery of it, Mary conceived, overshadowed by the Spirit of God and gave us a virgin-born Messiah.
The pure blood of God coursed through the veins of Jesus. Mary sang because that supernatural experience prompted her. When the Spirit of God fills our lives in the same way it filled Mary’s, we will find it hard not to sing praises unto God.
THANK GOD FOR THE MESSIAH HE SENT TO EARTH AS A BABE,
AND REJOICE IN JESUS CHRIST WHO SAVED US BY HIS PRECIOUS BLOOD!
