Luke 1:26–38 (NIV)
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 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, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” 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. 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. For no word from God will ever fail.”
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.”
Then the angel left her.
CONSIDER THIS
We’ve been lingering, waiting, standing on our tip toes, begging for light to break through our darkness with its glorious hope. And like the dawn of a new day, the fullness of light doesn’t arrive all at once but in ever so slight increments of glory.
Today, we catch our first glimpse of the dawn breaking into the darkness of Advent as one miraculous moment after another reveals the light of God’s love and the coming fulfillment of his long-awaited promise. As the light begins to dawn, after hundreds of years of silence from God, as we inch toward that glorious revelation of Christ’s coming, the light of Christ first begins to break in on the overlooked, ordinary, often pushed-aside places desperate for hope.
Because the good news of the light of Christ does everything in ways entirely backward to the world and its way of doing things, people who have been long-expecting a coming Messiah and lingering in the hope of Isaiah’s prophecy first catch a glimpse of a king with the most unexpected, but miraculous moments of light.
At first glance, that miracle may seem like a virgin’s simple yet unbelievable pregnancy. But the light of Christ first begins to miraculously shine just a few words before, in the simple phrase, “in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy.” Light multiplies. And the multiplication of the light of the coming Messiah first breaks on Elizabeth, who had been long-defeated by barrenness. An old, barren woman physically healed with the gift of life.
Can you imagine the light that broke loose in her life at the realization of her physical healing?! How so much darkness of doubt and struggle was dispelled in an instant realization of her pregnancy? Through the covenant relationship of husband and wife and the divine action of a covenant God, Elizabeth experienced the in-breaking light of divine healing. And because of the stigma of barrenness, this physical healing provided her more than the gift of life; it offered restoration to community and relationship with others. One miracle multiplied for a diffusion of light in her darkness, with the additional honor of using her miracle to prepare a way for the Messiah.
And because light reflects, radiates from its source, and shares its power with others, God doesn’t work this miracle in isolation but in connection with another in-breaking moment of glory. As Elizabeth is miraculously healed, Mary hears the life-altering news that she is also miraculously pregnant. An insignificant woman by any other account, chosen and anointed as the mother of the Messiah. Christ breaks in through the most unexpected means. And her miracle, the light that broke forth in the angel’s announcement, came with the darkness of uncertainty. Mary’s miracle wouldn’t end challenges to her reputation and place in relationship with her community; it would cause it.
One divine healing miracle, one miraculous call. Two beautiful miracles. One will heal former darkness. One, even with its light, will bring the darkness of sacrificial death. Both women could see the glory of the miraculous over any darkness that had been or would be. And if the physical healing and miraculous choosing wasn’t enough, light multiplied as miracle when Mary and Elizabeth caught a glimpse of the in-breaking of God’s love and shifted their gaze to its beauty over any other uncertainty of darkness.
Sometimes, light breaks in through physical healing; other times, light breaks in through divine call. In many cases, light breaks in, not in the physical healing or sacred anointing, but in the awareness of the in-breaking work of a glorious God, an awakening. And maybe, the most spectacular miracle of all is the willingness of their surrender to whatever God willed, a humble response to that awakening.
Sometimes, darkness tries to tell us that miracles don’t happen, that God doesn’t work in the same way he used to, and that light can’t possibly break in. The covering of fear, uncertainty, disconnect, doubt, or unanswered prayer shields our eyes from the light. Can you imagine the covering over God’s people that had grown so thick after four hundred years of silence? Seven hundred years after prophecies from Isaiah? After years of believing her way for a family was over. After questions about her coming future. A great covering of darkness. But in his great faithfulness, God reached into that darkness to remind us of his in-breaking power, sometimes through physical healing, sometimes through divine choosing, many times through our awareness of his presence, and most often in our willing surrender to his light.
This Advent, as we begin to turn our gaze toward the light of Christmas and peek over the edges of the horizon to see what God is unfolding, he blows us away in the opening act. Like the sunrise, painted with a spectacular color that is beautifully different from the fullness of light at midday, these miracles are ultimately preludes to the full rising of light in Christ’s coming. But don’t neglect them, don’t mistake these first rays of light as anything less than the full power of God revealed for us. For God still deals in the miraculous, in the light breaking in the darkness sort of ways that he did in the lives of Elizabeth and Mary. He still surprises with healing. He still anoints with the choosing of the most unexpected people. He still uses the overlooked to carry his glory. And he still reveals his light through our awareness and surrender to it. I know it because I’ve experienced it.
God provided healing in me, much like Elizabeth’s—entirely unexpected and fully redeeming, and God miraculously provided through the suffering following it. And though none of us are so chosen to bear the Messiah into the world, we each experience the light of Christ as we awaken to his work and surrender to his glory.
This Advent, as we lean into Christ’s coming and wait for the fullness of his glory to be revealed, we don’t want to miss the miracle of the work he does in the people in the path of the rising light. Because the light that breaks in on them can break in on us, too, taking our unexpected, overlooked, long-defeated darkness and awakening it to the possibility of glory.
THE PRAYER
As we prepare for the coming of our Messiah and Savior, help us not miss the dawn breaking in as you redeem the heartbroken, restore the outcast, choose the unexpected, and bear your message through the overlooked. We declare our confident belief that you’re still a God of miracles, and you continually reach into the darkness to reveal the glory of your light. By your Spirit, help us look wide-eyed for the radiance of your light as you work miracles in us, and as we reflect their glory back to you. This Advent, may we lay down resistance and joyfully surrender to your will so that we might see the fullness of your light. In Jesus’s name, amen.
THE QUESTION
When you consider the light of Christmas and where God moves to eradicate the darkness, is your focus on the glory of what’s to come, or the glory of what’s happening right now? What if looking for the light requires a vision for both, what God does leading to the Messiah, and the glory of the arrival itself?
Is it possible that God still moves and works now the way he did in this multiplying miracle? If you find yourself resistant or uncertain of God’s ability to heal and move now, what’s behind that doubt? If it’s the fear of disappointment, is it possible that whatever God does won’t be the disappointment you imagine?
For the Awakening,
Sarah Wanck
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One Response
Thoughts for enhancing our “awareness of the in-breaking work of a glorious God, an awakening.”
Continually upgrade
Your connection
With Jesus.
Refuse to evade
The diffusion
Of His Light.
Never let Him fade
From your awareness.