Pregnant at Christmas

I sit pondering this idea…what if the angel were to come to me with those words he spoke to Mary. “Greetings, favored one, the Lord is with you.” Could I respond? Of course Mary was confused. Who wouldn’t be? Gabriel saw her fear, he quickly reassured her of her positive standing in God’s eyes. How often I have found myself feeling so unworthy of God’s attention, yet how quick He is to reassure me of my place as His child. Mary had to be overwhelmed with this news of her new role as mother of God’s son, Jesus. The savior that her people were waiting for was being created within her. Her response is not unlike mine has been when I feel God calling me to something new, “How can this be?” I am often quick to point out my inability to God, as if He is unaware of my shortcomings. Gabriel assures her that she is not going to have to do this alone, that God is sending His Holy Spirit to accomplish what she could never achieve on her own. He even goes so far as to offer up some reassurance in that Elizabeth her relative is also pregnant, thus she will get some advice and support along the way. It is Mary’s response that always amazes me, “I am the Lord’s servant, may it be to me according to your word.” Sometimes I get to that point, but it is not often my first response. Especially in cases where God is asking me to alter my life completely and to let go of whatever control I thought I had.

I am not pregnant. I do however believe that God (in some form) resides within me. So the question then becomes what do I do with that? What does it mean to be pregnant with Jesus, for me, today?

Do I bring Him into the world? Do I cower? Do I try to hide it? Am I overjoyed or am I ashamed? Do I ever consider abortion so to speak? Or do I expect others to rejoice with me? To shower me with gifts and help me care for this gift of life?

I am actually much more at peace with Jesus within me than the idea of actually being pregnant, at least for the time being.

Prayer for Peace

Dear Jesus,

As I think about you and all that you came to be it is hard for me to think of you as a tiny baby. To imagine you lying in a trough full of hay in the cold under the starlight. I ache knowing now what was going to come. You came to this broken world as the Prince of Peace.

No one was expecting you to come as you did except a few chosen youngsters who were most certainly expecting. Caught up in the miracle of your birth and dropped into the roles not only parents, husband and wife and adulthood. They knew nothing about you, their role in history, what it would mean to be a parent, or a full fledged adult. They possibly knew nothing of the world beyond their own town.

Their lives were never to be the same. Never again would they be innocent young children, instead they would have the most innocent child ever.

How overwhelmed they must have been. Apart from family, friends, home, about to have their first child. A child unlike any other before or since. The Son of God the Prince of Peace they had only ever been told of was about to become their full time responsibility.

A responsibility that did not come with a baby shower filled with words of wisdom or gifts to get them off on the right foot. Or even birthing classes. They were all on their own.

Mary not only had her world change, her body changed too. She went from girl to woman over night. She had to experience pain and suffering in order to bring you the Prince of Peace into this world.

What are you calling us to experience in order to join Mary in bringing you into the world we live in? Not just the news of you, but to bring your peace to a world that is still filled with sin and suffering a world that is lacking shalom. Am I willing to suffer great pain and alter my life drastically in order to bring your peace into my world? Put aside my comfort for your glory, your purpose?

Did Mary have any idea that your whole purpose in coming was to die in order to bring peace or was she expecting a warrior king, who would save her people and reign forever? This teenage girls pain lead to the birth of peace in our world and yet that was only the beginning. She had to let you leave home, wander the streets, be hated and eventually watched you sacrificed before her very eyes. All so that we might someday experience your perfect peace.

Did she want to give up? Did she have moments of doubt in God, in you, in her ability to suffer so much pain? How was she able to reconcile the death and suffering of her little prince? Even after your resurrection she had to let you go again to be with your Father in Heaven. How her heart must have ached for you, for peace.

How hard was it to leave your mom and dad, to travel and be hated, to make friends knowing you were going to have to leave them? How hard was it to love knowing you were going to have to leave behind so many saddened friends and family members? How hard was it to leave this world knowing that hundreds of years later there still would be be people hating you and your message? That there would still be no peace? Does your heart still break?

Lord Jesus Prince of Peace, restore your perfect peace this I pray. May we know the peace that can only come from you. Thank you for going through so much suffering to bring us peace that we do not deserve. Bring your wholeness, help me to administer your perfect peace to those around me. Fill me and this world with your peace this Christmas season.

Amen