The reading: Luke 1:26-38

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin pledged in marriage to a man named Joseph, who was of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. The angel appeared to her and said, “Greetings you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. So the angel told her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. Behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name 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 the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end!”

“How can this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon 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. Look, even Elizabeth your relative has conceived a son in her old age, and she who was called barren is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”

“I am the Lord’s handmaiden,” Mary answered. “May it happen to me according to your word.” Then the angel left her.

The favour of the Lord

Many of us will have heard these words year after year in carol services, whether from a class of infants, or being beautifully read in Kings College, Cambridge. It’s important to remember as we explore this experience today that we are looking at a mighty encounter – and that after all is what the Bible is all about – we’re not talking about something safe and orderly and absolutely not sugar saccharine sweet: we’re speaking about a heavenly angel astonishing a teenage girl first by revealing himself, and then by commissioning her for the highest calling imaginable, telling her that she was God’s favoured choice to bear His Son into His world, to redeem it through the good news that He would bring.

The whole episode speaks volumes about the way God accomplishes His purposes, and where His grace and favour lie. Jesus Himself would one day have much to say and demonstrate about it being the poor and humble in spirit who will be exalted, and who will inherit the Kingdom of God – and the Lord saw those qualities in Mary and trusted her with this amazing calling.

We’re going to be delving into the WHERE, the WHO, the WHAT, the WHY and the HOW this utterly glorious but unexpected encounter, in which the angel Gabriel played such a central role, as well as the greeting that he gave to Mary, and the whole theme of FAVOUR.

But after that, we’ll be bringing the whole message and meaning of this episode much closer to home by thinking about our own unique vocation – even if it isn’t remotely on the same scale as Mary’s. Her willingness to say ‘YES’ to the angel’s seemingly impossible commission was the starting point through which Christ was to come into the world to fulfil His calling – and for us, too, the willingness to say YES to God lies at the heart of everything.

Where?

First things first, let’s think for a moment about the ‘Where?’ this all happened – because places too can have ‘vocations’ – even seemingly insignificant little ones like Nazareth, which was, for the Romans, in a small and relatively unimportant province of Judea in their vast Empire.

That’s why Luke, when he recorded that ‘God sent Gabriel to Nazareth,’ he was well aware that most people wouldn’t have a first clue as to where that was, so he added the fact that it was in Galilee. It is a great sprawling city nowadays, that I have had the privilege of spending a week in, but back then, perhaps only three or four hundred people lived there. So God chose an obscure little place to be the home for His Son to be born in. It wasn’t entirely remote though; it was only four miles from the cosmopolitan market town of Sepphoris, which was a centre of Jewish scholarship and a place that Roman and Greek culture had significantly influenced. That was where Jesus would have absorbed an understanding of the wider world beyond His Jewish heritage. It’s the home today of an extensive replica of Nazareth Village, and it’s a great place to visit.

Throughout the gospels we see critics and detractors, even demons sometimes referring to Jesus disparagingly as ‘Jesus of Nazareth – oooo, Nazareth, what good can come from there?!’ But Mary’s Son honoured His heritage, and when He later revealed Himself to the hostile Pharisee Saul on the road to Damascus, He wasn’t in the least ashamed of His heritage but made a point of saying, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting.’ (Acts 22:8)

For as long as God keeps you here, you are Colin and Audrey of Malvern, Roy and Jitka, David and Janet, Andrew and Elizabeth of Malvern, Sue, Bethany and Cerys from the worship group from Malvern and so on, rather as we speak of Therese of Lisieux, Catherine of Sienna and Francis of Assisi and drink from their wisdom. Forever Jesus would be known as Jesus of Nazareth despite it being such a small place.

Shoots out of dry ground: the vocation of a town

The prophets had foretold the destruction of Israel at the hands of the Assyrians and Judah at the hands of the Babylonians, but they had also they foretold its reemergence, and that the Messiah would send forth shoots out of His roots. At the scent of water the tree would put forth new buds from its stump and flourish again. Etymologists reckon that the name Nazareth from the Hebrew word netzer, which is closely related to the Hebrew word for ‘branch’ or ‘shoot.’ One of the great promises of Scripture is that there is hope for a tree that is cut down; at the scent of water, it will put forth new buds from its stump and flourish again. (Job 14:7-9) That shoot is called a netzer – and the Messiah Himself is often referred to in the Hebrew Bible as ‘the Branch’, especially in the great Messianic prophecy of Isaiah 11:1-6.

Nazareth was a town of promise, and though its villagers had no way of knowing it at the time the ‘Branch’ that Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah had spoken about where the Messiah, the Prince of Peace, would grow up like a tender shoot, like a root out of dry ground, with no special beauty or majesty to attract people to Him as Isaiah put it. That great prophet had also warned that He would be despised and rejected by most people, and be a man of suffering, only too acquainted with people’s pain and sorrow. (cf Is. 53:2-3) It’s why He can identify so deeply and so fully with us now. And by His mercy we too are ‘shoots’ that have grown out of the root that was in seemingly dry and barren ground. None of us would be here today if Jesus had not risen from the dead and sent His Holy Spirit upon us.

Jesus would spend a full thirty years in the obscurity of Nazareth, something like 90% of His earthly life before embarking on three action-packed years of non-stop ministry. We might have expected him to erupt onto the scene in his 20s, or even as a teenage prodigy, but God kept him out of sight in Nazareth far from the Roman authorities, with no speaking synagogue tours or social media to publicise His cause, yet all the time God was preparing the way for the world to be saved. (Matt. 2:23)

This was God’s chosen place of preparation. It was no more an accident of history that Gabriel should appear to Mary in Nazareth than it was that it should be the place where His Son was brought up in (albeit via hair-raising detours to Bethlehem for the actual birth and then into exile in Egypt.) As I say – places can have vocations too! So what about Malvern? It’s a town that is anything but insignificant scientifically and culturally, and spiritually – not only by being so closely associated with CS Lewis but now to the training and sending out of Elim pastors and missionaries at Regents College. In other words, its influence through the years has extended far beyond its actual size.

Praise God for the missionary minded hermit Aldwyn who felt the call a thousand years ago to establish a community in the wilderness that lay to the west of the Severn. Progress was so slow though he despaired of anything ever happening, until finally he asked the Bishop of Worcester if he could be released to go instead to the Holy Land. “Stay where you are!” Bishop Wulstan replied: “Believe me, if you knew what piety God will cause to arise in that place, you would rejoice!”

Praise God that Aldwyn obeyed and stayed put. He went on to found the Priory in Great Malvern — which in turn led to the establishing of our town, which has been the home and place of inspiration for so many who seek the Lord Jesus with all their hearts.

It’s a reminder not to worry if God calls or causes us to serve in out of the way places. We are none the less citizens of His eternal kingdom for that. He knows our address and will always find ways to reach and use us, and even to make use of the seeming waste places and periods in our life stories. Obscurity on Earth is no measure at all of our significance in Heaven, but we easily fall into the trap of measuring things by worldly measuring tools that don’t mean a thing in heavenly terms. We may never be more in touch with Him than when we are with Him in a remote place. In a sense there are just the three of us there at such times: God, ourselves and the devil. Two of us are eternal and the devil is just there for a very extended season.

At any point God can break into our lives and circumstances and breakthrough into a completely new phase of life or ministry.

Now we come to the ‘Who?’ of this episode

No, not Roger Daltry and his band, but the people and the angel we meet in this passage.

On the earthly side of this encounter, we have Mary of Nazareth, an ordinary girl who God had chosen for an extraordinary purpose. She was descended from David, which meant she had the right genes – the right seed – to fulfil the prophecies. And she was betrothed to a man who was also of the lineage of David.

On the heavenly side we have Gabriel, one of God’s most trusted angels. Praise God that they do not grow old! He it was who had been the angel sent to strengthen Daniel at a vital time, hundreds of years previously in Babylon. The word angelos in Greek, and malak in Hebrew, simply means ‘messenger:’ angels are God’s premium courier service and, as the writer to the Hebrew Christians reminds us, they are ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation.

It’s rare that angels appear in their glory – not being attention-seekers, they often prefer to visit in human guise. But on this world-shaking occasion, the better Christmas cards have probably got it about right: Gabriel would have appeared in his true magnificence and simply shone with magnificent strength, intelligence, and holiness.

The more we study the annals of church history, as well as the Bible where they appear regularly, the more accounts we come across of angels appearing to help and rescue people, just when they need it most. They are with us in all we do for Jesus, and we can count on their strong support and protection. Not only that, they also instruct: sometimes just by bringing a sense or word of simple reassurance; but sometimes by carrying a particular commission from the Father’s throne room for us, just as Gabriel did for Mary. Always, their presence, visible or invisible quickens our awareness of the Lord’s presence. When we organised the ‘Love Song for Jesus’ event here a decade ago – in one of the sessions towards the end, many people sensed that there were more voices joining in the worship than there were people present!

In no fewer than three of the gospels, though, He told His hearers that, in certain aspects, we will be like the angels in the age to come. (See, for example, Lk. 20:36) in which case, let’s remind ourselves of what angels do. They divide their time between ministering before the Lord in pure and fervent worship – and then going out on fruitful God-sent errands of mercy and mission. In which case, Lord, help us as it were to get into practice! Increase our desire to worship and our willingness to get in touch with the people or situations that You lay on our hearts.

Angelic visits are always entirely unexpected , and having a heavenly being present is a truly awesome experience. That means that the way in which Gabriel introduced himself to Mary was especially important – just as any form of welcome that we offer anyone should take account of the person right there in front of us: a smile, a word in season, an act of thoughtfulness or friendship can go an incredibly long way to make a person feel welcome when they come into church for example.

We are rightly used to thinking that it is preaching that brings people into the kingdom, but long before a preacher gets to open their mouth, people are often deeply touched by the welcome that they receive as they come into church. It can go a long way to preparing and softening people’s hearts to receive the word of God, as can the quality and the heartfeltness of the worship.

You’re doing a fabulous job, Welcome Team! It is a real ministry.

And so, here is Gabriel announcing the most astonishing news to Mary. Look at the dignity with which he treats Mary, just as Jesus esteemed and showed dignity to His female followers and companions. No misogyny or condescension here. All too many societies and religions look down on women as being inferior something less than men, but Heaven doesn’t. Many men have a great deal to repent of in this respect, just as many women have a great deal to forgive because of the way we have treated them.

Gabriel had told Daniel that he was a highly favoured man – and now here he is again telling Mary on behalf of Heaven that she not only enjoyed the Lord’s favour, but was highly favoured. God knew she was a woman who would faithfully obey Him as the mother of His Son. It’s an incredible thing to live in the favour of God.

I think it would be true to say that for every person who is perhaps rather too inclined to think that they are highly favoured, and God’s gift to everyone and everything, far more of us find it difficult to believe that we could ever be on the receiving end of that amount of favour. We can’t earn it, we can only receive it. May the Lord help us to live in the power of His favour and not to spend all our time worrying in case we have fallen out of it.

We turn our attention now to the ‘What’ of this message, that is its incredible significance.

It is all summed up in these nine words from the angel: ‘You will conceive and give birth to a son.’ That’s it: the whole message really!* Unlike the angel who came to Zechariah or the one who, centuries earlier, came to Samson’s mother, Gabriel brings no specific instructions or rules of life. He simply tells the astonishing news that she will conceive, and that she is to name the boy Jesus. And that’s all. Angels can and do instruct, but that does not happen here; there is no hint of the forgiveness that would one day be available to all through this man; or of the unlimited power that would be available through Jesus, of the multi multi millions who would come to faith through him. All that was wrapped up in this commission, yet for the time being hidden from sight.

There was no need for more: the Lord trusted Mary to do what she needed to do. This is the power of her vocation – the Lord’s entrusting of a specific task to us. It is almost more than we can comprehend that He who holds our world in His hands should have specific destinies and giftings in mind for each one of us, but He does. What a Father!

Let the power and the love of the Most High overshadow each one us, and may our response be to say ‘Be it unto me according to your word.’

We rightly make a big deal out of vocational training, but Mary had none: she was not a prophetess like Anna down in the Jerusalem Temple; she wasn’t so startlingly beautiful so that she won the heart of a king, as Esther did; she wasn’t a woman leader like Boadicea or Deborah: she was just a local girl, the ‘girl next-door.’ I love the thought that, in that sense there is no difference between her calling and ours! She was just Mary.

Now for the Wow factor!

I wonder if Mary was already familiar with the wonderful promises in verses 6-7 of Isaiah Chapter 9?

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and this is anything but an ordinary son, for it goes on to say that the government will be on His shoulders, and that ‘He will be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Prince of Peace’. Nobody in all history has even remotely merited such titles, let alone be reassure that it is all forever, unlike any other kingdom: ‘for of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end.’

If not I’m quite sure the Lord soon found ways to draw her attention to these promises: that a virgin would be with child and that child would be the future king, the Messiah Himself, on whose shoulders the kingdom would rest – and that this kingdom, unlike all others in history, would last forever. All the promises of prophets such as Isaiah and Daniel are all wrapped up in this, and so too Gabriel’s words to Mary. He is speaking about nothing less than the incarnation, where God and man will be together in new ways, for Jesus Christ is Immanuel, ‘God with us.’ (Isaiah 7:14)

Now that the where, who and the what are clear, it’s time to pause and ponder something of the why of all this.

Why did God want His Son to be Emmanuel, ‘God with us?’

What we are considering this morning is an unparalleled moment in human history. Heaven meets Earth as the angel Gabriel visits with Mary, a young girl from Nazareth. What an encounter! And it is the beginning of a new thing for encounters between Earth and Heaven are about to become the norm! That which God had intended from the beginning was coming to pass. From the beginning, He had sought those who would partner with Him in fulfilling His desire that we should be perfected in His image, and exercise godly dominion on Earth so that the whole of creation is brought into the completion He desired and planned.

Earth is destined to become the place where He Himself will ultimately dwell together with those who have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into His Kingdom of light. The Hebrew Bible consistently depicts God’s dwelling place as being in Heaven, but at a certain moment Revelation 21:3 will cut in, and a loud voice will come from the throne to say, “Look! Behold! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and He will dwell with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God.” Heaven in our hearts and Heaven on Earth!

Okay so the where, what, and why is clear – but how about the how?

‘How can this be? Mary asks the angel.

It’s good to ask questions – both to check that something really does come from the Lord, and then to learn from Him. So we find Mary asking, ‘How can this be since I am a virgin? The Lord loves to dialogue and interchange with us, just as we see Jesus in the gospels turning people’s questions back on them, not to be evasive but to help them to reflect for themselves and see things from a different perspective, for sometimes what we come to understand for ourselves is what goes deepest, and sometimes it is what we hear from others, especially from the Lord though His word that goes deepest into our hearts.

Sometimes, though, when the Lord doesn’t give us direct answers to our questions, it may be that He is simply allowing things to work out in ways that enable us to perceive what He was doing all along. This is particularly important when it comes to things going seemingly catastrophically wrong. You will remember how Simeon warned Mary nine months or so later that a sword would pierce her own heart. How she must have felt as any mother would that the crucifixion was an out-and-out disaster and a death knell to the gospel.

It’s too early to tell!

Ann Voskamp tells an old story from South America, that she heard from Max Lucado, about how a white stallion rode into the paddock of an old man, and all the villagers congratulated him on such good fortune. And the old man had only this to say: “Is it a curse or a blessing? All we can see is a sliver. Who can see what will come next?”

When the white horse ran off, the townsfolk were convinced the white stallion had been a curse. The old man lived surrendered and satisfied in the will of God alone: “I cannot see as He sees.”

But when the horse returned with a dozen more horses, the townsfolk declared it a blessing, yet the old man said only, “It is as He wills and I give thanks for His will.”

Then the man’s only son broke his leg when thrown from the white stallion. The townsfolk all bemoaned the bad fortune of that white stallion. And the old man had only offered, “We’ll see. We’ll see. It is as He wills and I give thanks for His will.”

When a draft for a war was issued, all the young men went off to battle, except the son with the broken leg – and the villagers all proclaimed the good fortune of that white horse. And the old man said Yes, but “We see only a sliver of the whole sum. We cannot see how the bad might be good. God is sovereign and He is good and He sees and work all things together for good.”

From earliest times in Genesis the enemy has been hard at work to try and persuade and convince people that they know best, and can rely on their own judgement.

We too like Mary are commissioned: the challenge is for us and others to believe it and to act on it. ‘The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you!’

Anything is possible when the power of the Most High rests upon us comes upon us.~

When someone truly encounters the Lord, and the Holy Spirit rests upon them, they become entirely different people. But this can be a huge challenge for those around them who weren’t privy to the original experience. You often find God touching somebody very deeply and everybody can see it except their immediate family, who are often the last to recognise this as being truly of God. They have got such a clear impression in their mind of who their brother, sister, daughter, son, wife or husband is, that they can’t really believe that they are now a God-filled vessel.

Right to the end, Jewish leaders would say protest that they knew where Jesus had come from and who his parents were. Nazareth itself rejected Jesus’ claims. They simply couldn’t see how someone they had watched growing up could possibly be the Messiah.

Think of people you know who have changed. Think too of people you may be insufficiently honouring because you feel you know too many less admirable things about them, so that you are unwilling to own or admit to the genuine anointing that is on them. We can be so slow to see and perceive, and both we and others miss out when we fail to do so. May He forgive our blindness, and help us to recognise the reality of His calling in each other’s lives.
It is lovely to report that, for centuries now, multitudes have visited Nazareth so as to honour the place in which our Lord ‘grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man!’

How does Mary respond?

How does Mary respond to Gabriel’s announcement? She says yes – and in these verses, that is all we are told.

But how much that ‘all’ encompasses! Instead of ‘I need more time to think about that,’ or even, ‘No way – just think what Joseph would say!’ She said, ‘Be it unto Me according to Your word’. In other words, ‘YES!’ – even though that ‘yes’ could land her in a lot of trouble.

As ever, the Lord was taking a risk, but He backed her to be faithful to her task whilst He would do what was needed to reassure her bewildered and troubled fiancé. The question many of us have to face is, ‘Which matters most: our social standing or doing what God is asking of us?’ Sadly, only too many hold back at this point and choose their own convenience and preferences rather than to embrace the challenge that God had set before them.

God is always prepared to take enormous risks in what He entrusts people with. I mean, just 12 hit-or-miss disciples to take the world for Himself when He was no longer there in person? Knowing full well that not every one of those original twelve would remain faithful? But the Holy Spirit has come and the power of the Most High is overshadowing, and therefore everything is possible: God was still present but simply unseen as they courageously shared their faith and experience and began the process of reaching the world with the good news.

May we, like Mary, respond to His call. And when we fail to be as faithful as we should be to the calling, or to the people we meet along the way, then let’s be willing to confess our wrongdoing and to repent. In His great mercy, God can re-thread the needle and make it good.

“Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it unto me according Your word.”

(Luke 1:28, 38) douloi she was the Lord’s ‘handmaiden,’ or servant.

We love to speak of the helping role of a doula as a friend in attendance at childbirth, but the term comes from two Hebrew words (shiphchah and ‘amah) both meaning a female slave. Not a high calling by worldly standards, more like Hagar, or Bilhah, Rachel’s bond servant. Paul speaks of himself as being the Lord’s bondservant, as well as his heir and coheir, and he spent his entire Christian life looking to serve the Lord. To be a handmaid or a bond servant may sound like a lowly position, but it is in reality it is a very high calling indeed.

That’s why it is so important to respond as Mary did – irrespective of our gender – and say, ‘Thank You Lord that I am your handmaiden/Your bond servant.’

The final verse in this reading v 38 says, ‘Then the angel left.’

Angels visit – and then the leave. They fulfil their God-given assignments and then they depart. And like Abraham, Hagar, Gideon, and Daniel before her, Mary would have to live henceforth by faith and not by sight. In that sense, she is just like any of us, though she had the comfort of the memory, and the knowledge of what the angel had promised her, even though there would surely still have been moments of doubt and agony about it – which is anything but unusual even after a powerful commission.

When Jesus was older, Mary found it natural to turn to Him for support as mothers often do with their sons. She knew how reliable He was, and was confident in telling others to just do whatever He says, at the reception that had run out of wine. But for now, she had received the message from Heaven, and was about to conceive the holy child, and she got on with it. We can be sure that Nazareth was every bit as gossipy a place as any other village, and I love the fact that long before the bump showed, and she risked being the target of scuttlebutt title tattle and sideways looks the Lord whisked her off to be with Elizabeth, where she would be safely away from all that. Mary would have been on her own, had not the Lord reassured Joseph about what was going on, and had she not had her precious friendship with her cousin Elizabeth.

The Lord finds special ways to compensate. Late one evening towards the end of 1976 I met with the Lord Jesus in a really deep and precious way for three amazing hours. He told me that I would not meet with Him in quite such a way again until the time comes when I will in Heaven. I knew at the time, then, that this experience would not last forever, and even in the sweetness of His presence a flicker of sadness was going through me because I was not looking forward to his leaving, any more than anyone believer does who has had an authentic vision of Heaven, and knows that they will not be permitted to stay there then.

Before He left He poured out the Holy Spirit on me, and, as He had promised, gave me the gift of tongues, which I had been hearing about – and which as a linguist I was intrigued by. I mean, how can you speak a language without doing a GCE in the subject or going to live in a country that speaks that tongue?

Recognising our vocation

Some of us can point to a specific moment in our lives, like Mary, and say, ‘That was it. That was the moment when I was born again. That was when my calling took a deeper turn, and became a vocation rather than just something I happened to do.’

I wonder if some of us haven’t yet recognised how just how real and genuine our own calling actually is? The Lord tailor makes His calling for each one us, and gifts us to be able to fulfil it, and He wants to use us to the full. There is no formula. Some people become aware of the Lord commissioning them to some particular place or project. I remember the Lord saying to Stephen Hildreth back in the 1980s ‘Gird up your loins’ to administrate our conferences. Praise God that he obeyed!

Sometimes it needs – or the Lord chooses – that others should be present when the calling comes, perhaps as it did when Paul laid hands on his young protégé Timothy. When Nicky Gumble was filled with the Spirit it looked pretty extreme, but John Wimber was present and reassured people that it was more than okay: Nicky was receiving a mighty anointing to be the evangelist who would introduce the Alpha course to the world!

God almost seems to delight in choosing the least likely people to accomplish his most important work. God chose an enslaved people to be His chosen nation. He called the youngest of Jesse’s seven sheepherding sons, David, to become Israel’s greatest king. Just think of all the unknown people God is anointing and raising up in remarkably out of the way ways and places! And He raised up a classical oboist called Jackie Pullinger to give up her profession and, remarkably, following the advice of a rector, to buy a round-the-world ticket and to get off where the Lord told her to. It’s not how reputable mission schools teach and prepare people to do. She stopped off at Hong Kong and the rest is history. See here for a summary of her calling.

With the Lord there are a wide range of callings possible, everything from: “Go to be a missionary in Hony Kong” at one end of the scale to a nudge to pop round and chat to a particular neighbour at the other end. All that matters is to be we ready to hear God if He speaks to us – and act on it. Mary was a whole lot prompter in that respect than Zechariah had been. The grown-up Mary’s advice to the servants at the wedding remains valid to this day: ‘Whatever He says to you – do it.’

We never know when God will call. He loves to take us by surprise, and it’s never too late! Ed Marshall at 70. Moses even older when God commissioned him. Whether sudden or gradual, callings from the Lord cause the ordinary to become extraordinary, such as when Jesus met with the fishermen by the lake of Galilee.

However familiar you are with your calling, and confident in it, the Lord will still surely have many extra angles and dimensions of it to share with you. Maybe it is time to give it more priority, or to find some new angle to beaver away within that calling. Maybe you need a fresh dose of courage to pursue it, because there is opposition to you following it. There always is. Or simply because it just doesn’t feel convenient to do it. God honours it when we are willing to go the extra mile.

Not all callings are forever of course. Our vocations may well change from season to season, but our life mission is to strengthen the faith of those who know him, and to introduce Him to those who do not.

In conclusion

Or maybe there is something that has crept or crowded in that has sought to block the free flow of God’s Spirit in your heart. All too many reach a point in their lives where they fail to forgive someone who has offended them, and as a result it’s quite possible over a period of time to find the power and presence of the Lord weakening, not necessarily in the heart of the person who is guilty of committing the offence against us but in us who refuse to forgive. Forgiveness means letting go of all that, however unfair it all feels: God’s answer is the same as it has always been: ‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.’

May the Lord keep us from taking offence and being touchy. I think of Immaculee Illigaza, who hid in a small bathroom in Rwanda for 90 days while all around her the massacre was going on, killing all her friends and family – but who God has raised up now to have a remarkable television ministry, sharing the testimonies of people who have suffered terrible things at the hands of others but who have chosen to forgive.

We saw how perfect Mary’s response was: how awful if she had answered back said, ‘But Gabriel, what you’re asking of me would ruin my reputation. No way!’ Gracious and simple Mary said, ‘Yes be it unto me according to Your word.’ Yes, Lord, yes, I will allow nothing to get in the of following You! Let the power You promised come on me. The word in Greek is dunamis, from which we get dynamite. It is unlimited. May we welcome that power in our own lives, and let nothing keep us from it.

How God chooses to apply that power in our lives, and how much He gives is entirely up to Him. It is His to give and apply – or to withhold. It may often be the case that God knows that we are not as ready to handle it as we think we are, and therefore limits how much He gives. It requires deep humility to handle spiritual power; it is only too easy to misuse it. At other times it is our fault when the power is withheld, and we must cry out to God and say something like: ‘Lord, effectively I said NO when you called; I have not responded as You would have wanted me to do. I am so sorry. Please forgive me and give another chance to put this right.’**

May I invite you to come before the Lord and try completing this sentence: the Spirit of the Lord has anointed me to . . . and . . .

SELAH

Ask Him too if there is anything that still needs to be cleared out within your heart, whether some seed of unbelief, or germ of reluctance. Refuse anything that would distract and divert you from your calling, whether that is a habit you need to overcome, or the inclination to despair and despondency. Lean on Him, Emmanuel, God with us, Christ, the hope of glory.

Each of us experiences the Lord in a unique way, and are called to follow Him along a unique path. No one else will receive quite the same vision of Him as we do. Our own contribution to the riches of the Body of Christ may feel infinitesimally small, but it is nonetheless necessary, for God has so ordained it – and desires it.

He has chosen us, and stand and serve in a particular place with our own uniquely given vision and knowledge of Him. We did not choose Him: He chose and appointed us, to go and bear fruit that will last. He places us where we are so that we can help to fulfil the ‘redemptive task’ that He has in mind for us to fulfil. No matter how daunting that may look and feel, it can’t by definition be an impossible task that He lays on us. Neither does He leave us to wrestle on our own, because He is with us every step we take as we seek to fulfil it.

See afresh how great a thing a vocation is! And that we are His witnesses!

Step out with what you have. It is as we start weaving, that God provides the thread, as an old proverb has it.

And the story never ends, for this same Jesus, who was conceived in Nazareth and was taken up 33 years or so later into Heaven, will come back in the same way His disciples saw Him go into Heaven” (Acts 1:11) – this time to rule and reign over the whole Earth. The most amazing thing the world has ever seen, but which has been so quietly and discreetly and beautifully prepared for by the angel’s visit.

Let’s listen to a lovely song that Sue’s going to sing for us, and that we can join in with if we wish….. and then after it we will hold silence for a while to thank the Lord for what He has done, and to talk to Jesus about our own vocation, and to allow Him to speak to us about our vocation. We can carry on doing this throughout this Advent season to see what extra things He may have to say about our vocation.

Jesus, You are calling our name, and we won’t turn away. If we hear Your voice, we won’t harden our heart, but will press in to take hold of that for which You have taken hold of us.

*Talking about nine words – there is a lovely passage in one of Elizabeth Goudge’s books about an old priest who most people don’t have much time for because he is socially clumsy, but he loved the Lord and he passed on nine precious words in three brief prayer phrases that stand the test of time and that we can make our own:

Lord, have mercy.
Thee I adore.
Into Thy hands.

See: https://ruachministries.co.uk/project/three-prayers-in-nine-words/

What excellent starters for ten those three phrases make to sustain our relationship, and to commit all that we are and all that we do into His hands.

** Let blockages to power – especially unforgiveness be resolved, to make people willing to let go of offences, consciously choosing to forgive those who have sinned against them, even as we ask the Lord to forgive us our own many sins and shortcomings.

While preparing to give this message, I read a powerful account of how such blockages can come about – and how it would have massively reduced the power and effectiveness of Rick Renner’s worldwide Moscow-based ministry had he not been willing to address the issue that the Lord put His finger on and convicted him of, as he found himself embroiled in a slagging conflict with a fellow pastor. Rather along the lines of John Bevere’s book The Bait of Satan, this short article contains a really significant warning.

Photo by Ivana Cajina on Unsplash