Be Still And Know

READ: Luke 1:38 NLT Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” We know the story of Jesus’ miraculous birth so well that no part of it is a surprise to us. So we’ve really got to work hard to imagine how completely and stupefyingly incredible this moment was for Mary. She is probably a teenager and may well never have been outside the rural Galilee region where she was born. The news that she is going to have a baby was shockingly surprising at every level. She knew that she was a virgin and that having a baby was therefore a complete impossibility. But she listens attentively to the angel’s words and is assured that, crazy as this all sounded, nothing is impossible with God. Her response is extraordinarily impressive. She describes herself as the Lord’s servant and accepts the future that God had chosen for her. To be a servant would normally be seen as demeaning. We probably instinctively think of the TV series Downton Abbey: of the way in which servants, l