Mary Said What?

Mary Said What?

Bible Blast: Read Luke 1:30-37

“Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God!” Luke 1:30

The story of Christmas begins with a young girl named Mary, and when I say young, think not much older than you! A lot of people believe she was probably a young teenager. God sent an angel whose name was Gabriel with a message for Mary. The message was a big deal. Mary was going to give birth to the Savior of the world. She was surprised and a little confused because she had no husband yet. (She was engaged to Joseph.) She answered something like, “How can I have a baby if I’m not even married yet?” The angel told her that God would place the baby inside of her.

Let’s pause for a moment. Can you even imagine receiving a message like that? “Hi, Mary. I’m Gabriel, and I’m an angel. You’re going to give birth to the Son of God.” I think I would have about a hundred million questions, but do you know what Mary said? She said, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true” (Luke 1:38). The angel left, and everything he had told Mary came true.

Now we’ve got Joseph to think about.

There he was, engaged to be married to the lovely Mary and—bam!—she’s pregnant. He had some questions, and God answered them in a dream. An angel visited Joseph while he was sleeping (see Matthew 1:20-21) and let him know that everything was okay. He assured Joseph that the baby in Mary’s belly really was God’s Son and that his name would be Jesus. The angel told Joseph he should still take Mary to be his wife, and that’s what Joseph did.

What a wild beginning to this story! Two angels visit and two people decide to trust God and obey him even though everything felt kind of crazy.

When we look at Mary and Joseph, we can be encouraged to know that God uses ordinary people to do big things. He knew the young couple loved each other and loved God, so he could trust them to carry out this very important mission of bringing his Son into the world.

Girl Gab: Mom, share your favorite part of the Christmas story with your daughter today. Daughter, what is yours? Pray together. Ask God to teach you something new while we study Christmas together.