Dear Mr. Lowry (an Advent Devotional)

Mary did you know...?

"Yes, and I know a lot more about all of it than you do Mr. Lowry and everyone else to ever cover this beautiful, yet Biblically unsound question. Let me tell you what I knew.

I know that an angel appeared to me and called me favored, but not only favored in some general way, favored by the most high God, the I Am, the I will be, the one who created and sustained and delivered and made free.

I know the angel told me to not be afraid, even though I had every reason to be. I was more child than woman at that point. And while I was to be joined with Joseph I had not yet been, and this angel told me that I would be a mother.

I may not know much but I know that virgins do not give birth, but this one did.

I know that the angel told me that the Holy Spirit of the Most High would come upon me and plant within me life. I know that the life within me, a son, would not just be my child, but would be the very Son of God. That he would be a king with a kingdom that would not end.

I know that from that point on people would call me, a scared virgin girl, blessed.

I know that by the life within me God would show mercy to all generations. By the life within me God would scatter the proud and powerful. By the life within me God would bring down rulers from their thrones but would also uplift the humble. By the life within me God would fill the hungry with good things but take away the things that "the rich" had. By the life within me things would get turned upside down and that the way of the Lord would walk upon the world.

I know that angels appeared to shepherds who arrived at the baby's bedside to worship him. I know they left that place and told more and more. 

I know that when we brought Jesus to the temple an old man called him God's salvation and told me that he would cause the rising and falling of many, and that he would cause a sword to pierce my side, if it were only my side that had been pierced. I also know that Anna, a prophetess, said that my child would bring about the redemption of Israel.

So yes, I knew that the sleeping child that I held was the great I AM. I knew that he would deliver me, but had I known how that deliverance would have happened I would have spirited him away to Egypt and never returned. The better question Mr. Lowry is, do you know what it cost me to give my son to deliver you?"

Adapted from Luke 1:26-2:40

Peace and Love,

Pastor K