By Karen Calhoun
Luke 1:46-48
If you had lived in the time of Mary, you would have been very familiar with the long history of your family. Stories of your Jewish ancestry were common conversation. You would be excited about always looking for and expecting the coming of the Messiah. Perhaps your young teen girlfriends would join you in hoping that one of you might be the Mother of the Christ child!
Imagine Mary listening to the story of Abraham and Sarah who were told by the Lord they would give birth in their old age! In the face of their doubtful laughter, the Lord said to them, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”
Then when Mary heard these same words from Gabriel when he announced that she would give birth to a son and call his name Jesus, she was thoroughly shaken; and Gabriel told her about her cousin Elizabeth who had conceived a son and said “Nothing is impossible with God.”
In that moment she remembered the story of Sarah: and her breath was taken away. She responded: “I am the Lord’s maid, ready to serve.” She quickly went to the hill country to visit Elizabeth; the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaped. The crescendo of her song to Mary ushered the magnificent response in Luke 1:46-48: Mary sang:
“I’m bursting with God-news; I’m dancing the song of my Savior God. God took one good look at me, and look what happened—I’m the most fortunate woman on earth! What God has done for me will never be forgotten.”