Thy Kingdom Come - 3

 Luke 1:26-38 (TNIV)

26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."

29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.30 But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."

34 "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"

35 The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail."

38 "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me according to your word." Then the angel left her.

Listening to the Passage;

As you listen to the conversation between Mary and the angel, what surfaces for you as you consider  . . .

vs. 28  "You who are highly favored"

    What do you suppose it would be like to hear that you are, in God's estimate of things, highly favored?

    Do you have a sense of God's gracious gift of "favor" to you?  Do you live the awareness of knowing you are favored by God in His love?

v. 29    "Do not be afraid"

    What do you think you would have been feeling if you were in Mary's place?

    What does it mean to you to know that the first thing  communicated after the assurance that we have found favor - is that we don't have to afraid?

vs. 34    "How will this be?"

    Questions are a part of the encounter.  What does it say to you to realize that questions are not inappropriate when we sense God calling us to something?

 Do you live the awareness that it is OK to have questions and voice them?

vs. 38  "I am the Lord's servant . . . may it be to me   according to your word."

    As you reflect on Mary's response, how do you think what she had experienced up to this point in her interaction with the angel opened the way for her to respond as she did? 

    If she had not been assured of her favor, had her fears quieted, and been able to ask her questions, how do you think it would have impacted her response?

How the Kingdom Shows up

How does one go about building a kingdom?  What does divine nation building look like?  There were lots of ideas about in the world into which Jesus was born.

Zealots looked for ways to overthrow Roman domination so they could be a kingdom again.  Others pursued various other paths of resistance.  Still others tried to work along with them.  All of them looked for the coming of a King who would set up a kingdom, and they all had their own ideas of what this looked like and how it should be done.

And then God acted.  And neither what this kingdom looked like or the way it was to be established was anything like their expectations.  The scriptures tell us of an angelic visit to a young girl looking forward to being married soon, and of one to her husband-to-be as he contemplated what he should do about the situation they found themselves in.  There are announcements made to shepherds, and insights given to leaders in foreign eastern countries, but (with the exception of Simon and Anna) few among those who one would think should have known seemed to catch on. 

But for those who did, and who became a part of the unusual kingdom, life was never the same again. 

In this week's sermon Pastor Jon explores a bit of what this looks like when God's Kingdom breaks into this world, through the lives of people like Mary, who humbly respond to God's invitation to be a part of what He is doing in the world.  If you would like to listen to the sermon again, or perhaps for the first time, you can click here to access our sermon library.