Category: Advent 2012 – Mary

This is the last day of these Advent devotionals for 2012. For us, Advent has ended. The joy of Christmas is at hand.

When I first began organizing these thoughts and listing the emotions of Mary, my plan was to have them crescendo and end on the note of joy. But as God would have it, my plan changed. There was one more emotion Mary experienced.

Mary was…thankful.

For nine months, Jesus’ mother had participated in an experience no other person in the world has ever had. Within Mary’s virgin womb, the Son of God had grown arms, legs, lungs. He had developed a beating heart. He passed safely from the womb, through the birth canal and into the arms of his mother.

Mary was thankful for the honor of being the only person to have this intimate experience with God’s Son. She appreciated a husband who stayed by her side. She thanked God for granting her strength for that long trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Her heart overflowed with gratitude for her safe labor and delivery. And now she looked to God with praise for the wonder of the Son in cuddled in her lap.

As you gather around your tree and begin to unwrap your gifts, pause. Take a moment to express thanks to your Heavenly Father for the gift of His Son and for all the ways He has blessed you in 2012.

Sing as David did in Psalm 100:4-5:

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving;

go into his courts with praise.

Give thanks to him and bless his name.

For the Lord is good.

His unfailing love continues forever,

and his faithfulness continues to each generation.

“Joy to the World! The Lord is come!” Advent is a time for introspection and penitence, preparing believers for the excitement of Jesus’ arrival at Christmas. The contrast between the sorrow of our sin and joy of a Savior is like night turning into dawn.

Several years ago I had surgery to remove a parathyroid gland. The symptoms that led to the surgery involved rising calcium levels in my blood. I felt like two fingers were constantly pressing on my throat, creating a choking sensation. In addition, tremors shook my body from head to toe. The surgeon warned me that, because the parathyroid glands are right next to the vocal chords, the surgery could cause me to lose my voice.

I still remember waking up in the recovery area. The most amazing sensation was one of peace. After months of vigorous tremors, my body was at rest! And when the doctor later allowed me to try speaking, I learned that I still had a voice. I could talk!  My “night” had turned to dawn.  I added joy and praise to the mix.

Mary passed a long night in labor. Exhausted she lay back on the straw to rest. Her infant son lay safe in the manger. And Mary? As the sun rose the next morning, her heart overflowed with…joy.

By the time you read this, my family will have already celebrated Christmas. Packages will be torn open. Too much food will have been consumed. Hugs and laughter will warm the room. Holiday joy will fill our hearts. As you prepare to celebrate with your family, take a moment today to remember those for whom this holy day will be marked with tears. The families of the twenty schoolchildren and their teachers who died in Connecticut are still in mourning. Pray that God’s Spirit will bring them comfort and, yes, even joy.

Advent is a time of preparation not only for the Lord’s coming but for all our relatives’ coming.  Family gatherings are an important ingredient of any holiday celebration.

As our family grew and as my brothers and I brought spouses into the mix, my single brother Richard often found there was “no room for him at the inn.” At family gatherings over the 4th of July, for example, my husband and I would enjoy the guest room at my parents’ home. Another brother and his wife occupied the screened-in porch. But Richard? With no space left inside the house, he would find himself assigned to a small cot in the garage. Old bicycle tires and fishing poles hung from the rafters. Piles of tools lined the walls. Mosquitoes buzzed during the night. Moths fluttered around the bare light bulb. The atmosphere was less than homey. I am grateful for Richard’s patience and flexibility in accepting our family’s equivalent of the “stable.”

When Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem, they too found the family homestead packed with relatives. The Jewish culture, after all, values hospitality. The guest room was already occupied by Joseph’s more senior relatives, and the young mother found herself occupying the lower levels of the home where the animals hung out. Her husband’s family was nearby, but as she faced those final days of her first pregnancy, Mary must have longed for the comforting presence of her own mother. Worse, Mary’s womb began to contract, indicating that she was moving into labor. Not here! Not now! But, yes, she was going to deliver that baby there and then.

With less than perfect accommodations, Mary felt…vulnerable.

Childbirth in ancient times was fraught with danger. Almost a third of all infants died at birth or shortly thereafter. The maternal mortality rate was also high due to lack of sanitation and the likelihood of infection. And in addition to those factors, Mary faced a high-risk pregnancy: Satan was ready to do anything to keep this child from being born.

When do we feel most vulnerable? When we are far from our comfort zone. When we are in exhausted or in pain. When we are alone. When things are beyond our control. That is the time when we need to reread Matthew 8:23-27 and remember that, “Even the winds and waves obey Him!” No matter what storm we face, our God is still in control.

Advent is quickly advancing toward Christmas. Thanks for coming back to read these brief devotionals based on Mary’s emotions during the very first Advent season.

Shortly after my husband asked me to marry him, we wanted to share our good news with my family. The news might have been good but our timing was not! My mother had just walked in after an ten-hour day of supervising the church’s annual strawberry festival. Her hair was limp from the heat of the kitchen, her apron was covered with berry stains, her sugar-splattered shoes stuck to the linoleum floor as she walked from the kitchen to the living room. Collapsing in a soft chair, she groaned with exhaustion.

Then Gene made our exciting announcement. My mother, thinking of all the work of planning a wedding, sank deeper into the chair and moaned, “I’ll give you $1000 if you elope!”

Of course she was jesting. At least I hope she was. But when one is already tired, the idea of facing yet another major obstacle can push us beyond fatigue to burn out.

Mary, almost nine months pregnant, weary from long nights with little sleep, next learned from Joseph that they would have to uproot from Nazareth and travel 80 miles to Bethlehem to register for the Roman census. No, it couldn’t wait until after the baby was born. Mary must have felt…overwhelmed.

Traditional artists paint pictures of the Holy Family traveling to the City of David. Often Mary is seated demurely on a donkey, with Joseph leading the way. But imagine how strenuous and uncomfortable riding on such an animal would be for a woman nearing the end of her pregnancy. Donkeys can be skittish and suddenly dash this way and that. The animal’s stiff coarse hair would be scratchy. If Mary’s back did not ache already with the weight of the baby, we can be certain it protested after a long ride on a donkey. But walking was the other likely alternative, an exhausting option that would require over four days of travel.

And arriving in Bethlehem, no crowd waved palm branches to welcome Mary as they did thirty years later when her Son rode into the city. All Mary and Joseph saw were dirty, dusty, crowded streets. It was all more than most of us could handle.

Have you ever come to the end of your resources? Have you felt like you simply could not go on? Reread Isaiah 40:29-31 today: “He gives power to those who are tired and worn out; he offers strength to the weak. Even youths will become exhausted, and young men will give up. But those who wait on the Lord will find new strength.”

With all the bright lights and music pointing to Christmas, Advent is a beautiful time of year.  But not everyone feels beautiful.

Have you ever felt unlovely? The teenager rues the acne that spreads across his face. The middle-aged woman looks in the mirror and sees the extra pounds the years have added. The older man combs thinning hairs over a balding pate.

When a woman is in her eighth or ninth month of pregnancy, she feels more and more like a beached whale. The clothes that were so huge and baggy a few months ago, are now stretching at the seams. Fitting into a narrow airline seat is a challenge. A protruding misshapen stomach bumps into the kitchen counter. Bending over and tying one’s shoes becomes an Olympic feat.

By this point in her pregnancy, Mary may have felt…unattractive.

In her last trimester, she may have felt less than lovely. Her ankles may have swollen. Her back likely was sore. Everything about her youthful body had changed.  Would she ever be slim again?   Looking at the classic artistic renderings of the mother and child, she might laugh out loud. Would she even recognize herself?

Every person feels unlovely at some point in his or her life. Sometimes we feel unlovely as we look in a mirror, but other times we look deeper and see all the ways we fall short of our expectations. How could anyone love us when we are so selfish? Who would want to be near us when we are angry or impatient? What person would be willing to stand at our side when we have embarrassed ourselves or brought disrepute on God’s family?

In the book of Psalms (many of which, I suspect, were filched from David’s private journal), David never hid his unattractive side from God. If he was happy, he sang about it, but if he was angry, he told God about it. If he felt remorseful, he wept about his sin. There were times when he felt, well, unattractive. He felt unworthy of any affection. In Psalm 8, he wrote, “What is man that You should think of us, mere humans that You should care for us?”  In Psalm 51, he confesses, “I recognize my shameful deeds – they haunt me day and night.”

Yet God doesn’t think about our appearance. He who looks on the heart sees only His beloved child.

If you are feeling unattractive today, read Isaiah 43:4 where your heavenly Father declares that “You are precious in My sight. . . you are honored and I love you.”

Welcome back to the 18th day of this Advent series of devotionals on the emotions Jesus’ mother felt during her pregnancy.

Holidays from work usually offer people an opportunity for rest, but sleep is always elusive for me. I average six hours per night. Through the years, I have accumulated lots of tricks to help me get to sleep. I might take a hot shower, avoid watching TV, unplug all the LED lights, make sure the room is pitch dark, and take a couple ibuprofen. If none of those steps work, I climb out of bed, head to the kitchen, and eat a slice of cheese on whole wheat bread.

What do you do when you are tired but can’t rest? In bed with the lights out, I plan my day, I review scripture memory work, I pray. I go through the alphabet and pray for Anthony, Beth, Caroline, David. I fear Xavier, Yvonne and Zach don’t get their fair share of prayers since I usually fall asleep before getting to that end of the alphabet. The really frustrating part? My husband sleeps soundly the moment his head hits the pillow.

As Mary neared the seventh month of her pregnancy, she too struggled to get sleep. She felt…weary.

During the final months of pregnancy, Mary would have had an increasingly difficult time getting to sleep. She couldn’t sleep on her stomach. Turning from one side to another in bed was like heaving an enormous sack of potatoes across the room. During the day, while Mary was active, the baby was quiet within. But when she lay down to rest at night, the baby sensed that now it was safe to play. Poor Mary had to try to sleep while being pummeled from within!

It does seem unfair that Joseph, like my husband, managed to sleep soundly. Three times he was deep asleep when an angel appeared to him in dreams.

Are you weary today as you face another week? Do you feel like giving up?  Hebrews 4:10 reminds us that, “All who enter into God’s rest will find rest from their labors, just as God rested after creating the world.” If you listen for God’s voice and obey His Word, He will supply all the strength you need for this day.

Daily devotionals during Advent have been a family tradition in our home for around thirty years now. We began when our children were small and had difficulty waiting for Christmas to arrive. Like most young children, our sons and daughter would lift the packages and shake them to determine what might be inside. Did that box contain a new set of Legos? Was that an EasyBake oven? The children would sit around the tree eying all the gifts, trying to decide which one they would open on Christmas Eve.

To ease their impatience for Christmas in those early days, I placed a small box on the table each night during Advent. Wrapped in silver with a bright bow on top, the box had a false bottom which we could open night after night. Inside was a simple craft with a scripture verse that spoke about the theme for that season. One child would get to create the craft, another would read the scripture. Opening the box each night was a special honor rotated among the three kids. Opening the Advent “gift” released some of their energy as they waited to open the packages under the tree.

As the months passed and her belly swelled, Mary too felt…anticipation.

Like all pregnant mothers, Mary was anxious to meet her child. What would he look like? Would he be healthy? What would his future hold? Mary may have urged Joseph to complete the construction of a cradle. She herself gathered swaddling to wrap the baby. It was hard to wait those last months.

In Romans 8:21, the writer Paul talks about the future glory that believers will enjoy in heaven. “All creation anticipates the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay.” The new believers were anxiously looking forward to the day when they would be released from persecution and suffering, but Paul urged them to wait patiently.

A friend of mine died last week. His wait is over. This year he will get to celebrate Christmas in God’s throne room! Do you ever think about heaven? Are you eager to get there?

Thanks for continuing to come back to join in on our family’s Advent tradition.  For those who are only now joining us, be sure to read the earlier posts as well.

One year I asked our oldest son what he would like for his birthday. Tim replied that he wanted a 20-piece box of chicken McNuggets all for himself. On the rare occasions we went to a fast-food restaurant, Tim had to share a box with his two younger siblings. So that year when his special day approached, Tim and I headed to McDonald’s.

Half an hour later Tim was manfully struggling to down the last greasy bite of chicken. His stomach ached, and he learned, as most of us eventually do, that sharing offers benefits.

Did the mother of Jesus ever feel…selfish?

The child within Mary’s womb was not to be hers alone. He was destined to be the Savior of the World. Mary would have to share her precious first-born son not only with her husband and immediate family, but with all the world. Later, when Jesus traveled with His parents to Jerusalem at age twelve, He told Mary that He must be about His Father’s business, leaving His family and home in Nazareth to serve God’s people. And after He began His ministry, Jesus told the crowd in Mark 3:33-35, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” Looking around at the people, he continued, “These are are my mother and brothers. Anyone who does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

Mary may have been the mother of God but she was also very human. Such words must have pierced her heart. There must have been other times when she found it difficult to share her son with all those who demanded His attention. Sick people surrounded Him. Disciples asked questions. Pharisees and Jewish leaders tried to trick Jesus. Mary must have longed to take Him in her arms and protect Him from their attacks. Did she miss Him being home for the holidays?

Imagine how different your life would be today if Mary had refused to allow us to know her son. Because Mary shared her son and because of His unselfish love, you and I now benefit for all eternity.