We huddle together on the couch and we watch this movie:
And every year as we watch the drama unfold, I feel something new.
This year...jealousy. Just a slight, momentary twinge of green, but still jealousy.
It happened during the scene in which Mary drops her basket in the field and runs over to her older cousin, soon-to-be mama of John the Baptist, Elizabeth.
Mary couldn't believe it. For the first time, she felt something. What she'd been told months before suddenly became very real in that moment.
The Messiah had moved.
The Savior had somersaulted.
The Christ had kicked.
She felt it. In her young, unlikely, ordinary womb.
And for a brief moment, I wanted to be Mary. I wanted to know what that felt like, too.
Very different or very similar to my own daughters' flutters when I was great with child?
Instantly, these words came to mind and I leaned over and whispered them to my husband. They were actually Paul's words, his appeal to those in Athens regarding the One true God versus their city full of idols,
"For in Him we live and move and have our being." Acts 17:28
Paul tried to tell the Athenians that God made it all. The world, us, everything. He is not served by human hands as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
The One who is before all things, and in Him all things hold together (Colossians 1:17).
But the way Jesus came to us, God in flesh appearing, and for those brief nine months, He lived and moved and had His being within Mary.
The One whose power and majesty and might can not be contained was temporarily confined to the parameters of her womb.
Crazy, mind-blowing! And it gets me every. single. time.
While Mary could have donned a trendy little graphic t-shirt with an arrow pointing down to her tummy displaying the words, "Messiah Baby", and an arrow point up to her displaying the words, "Messiah Mama", scripture actually points to her humility.
And because the Creator of the world was growing within her, she had to feel the weight of the world upon her.
So do we.
Following Christ's birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, He left us Something, or rather Someone. His Presence in the form of the Holy Spirit.
Yes, Mary was the only one physically to feel the Messiah within her, but because He is also Emmanuel, God with us, we get to experience the reality of God's presence, too.
We can know the flutters of the Spirit in the form of joy, peace, love and so much more.
We get to hear His voice and walk with Him.
We can feel Him move our spirit.
And when He does, we feel compelled to share that feeling, that weight of glory, with someone else, just as Mary did.
Scripture tells us we have Christ in us, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27).
It's still crazy, still mind-blowing. Every time I think about it.
Jealous of Mary? Nah. Not so much anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment