Luke 2:19 “But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.”
This past Sunday we began the first part of the Christmas teachings “Mary & Joseph / How Did It Happen?” I encourage you to take some time and take in the message: “Mary & Joseph / How Did It Happen?”.
Now, Mary and Joseph, two young people that had done things well; morally, submissively and with the right hearts were HAND PICKED BY GOD for this task. But, it certainly was not easy. The gossip that circulated about them (John 8:41) would have been quite difficult to deal with. The shock to Joseph when he heard that Mary was pregnant.
But more than all of that… the pain Mary must have experienced not at the birth but at Jesus’ death. What was her relationship with God like? Imagine, this mother, standing at the cross, seeing Jesus. Did she cry out to the Father, ‘what can I do? Yes, I am His mother, but You are His Father…’
You see, her name Mary means “bitterness” and it’s wonderful that Mary did not allow that to define her. Her experience and what she did reminds me of what happened with Moses and the Israelites back in Exodus 15:22-25
“So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea; then they went out into the Wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people complained against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet.”
Mary could have left her son Jesus’ crucifixion angry and bitter, but she didn’t. She stayed the course and thank God she did. You see, on the third day following Jesus crucifixion, when Jesus rose out from among the dead, Mary’s personal waters were made sweet by the RESURRECTED JESUS. The last place we see Mary in scripture is gathered together with the disciples in the Upper Room of Acts 2 being filled with the Holy Spirit.
What about you this Christmas? Have you allowed a bitter situation or circumstance to get you off course? Are you in line with God’s Word in such a way that the Resurrected Jesus can miraculously turn your bitterness to joy?
I pray that God would make any bitterness in your life a wellspring of joy and goodness. In Jesus name.
By His Spirit,
Pastor Bill