Mary, you are a little teenage girl. Can you believe that it was an angel who talked to you, or was that a mad dream?<\/p>\n
You find yourself pregnant, even without a husband\u2026 even without a man. How can this be? And if so, what will your family say? What will Joseph, your intended, say? You wonder these things.<\/p>\n
You know your scriptures. You know that God promised to send the Messiah in the form of a humble baby, born of a virgin. But\u2026 you? You know these things, but can you believe God has chosen you?<\/p>\n
You are asking: \u201cMe? Blessed among women? Of all generations?\u201d You humbly fall to your knees and weep. Yes, you are blessed. But you know scripture well enough to know that your baby will grow to heal, and teach, and love, and\u2026 be rejected of men. Be persecuted, tortured, despised, and die. Why? Because he loved.<\/p>\n
Mary, can you know?<\/p>\n
I think you do know, because you know what the scriptures foretold; you heard from angels.<\/p>\n
You know that when your baby\u2019s ministry is finished \u2013 after you give birth in a lowly place, after your baby grows in wisdom, sinless, even does mighty miracles \u2013 you will be helpless as you watch him suffer and die. At the moment when a mother should protect her son, you will be unable.<\/p>\n
On that day in the future, you will be in a small group at the foot of a cross, and maybe the only friend or family member who has remained loyal.<\/p>\n
Because you are a mother. Because you listened to an angel. Because you know scripture. Mary, can you know that at that moment your baby Jesus will look down into your eyes and say, \u201cMother, behold your son\u201d?<\/p>\n
Can you know these things?<\/p>\n
All these events \u2013 prophesied in great detail 700 years earlier in the Book of Isaiah, or looking forward to the end of days \u2013 Mary knew. And if she did not\u2026 she believed; she trusted; and she was obedient.<\/em><\/p>\n