Step into the stream

By Lynelle Yoder, a senior elementary education major from Goshen, Ind.

Scripture: Luke 1:39-45 (NRSV)

DEVOTIONAL:

And with that, Mary’s world turned.

No, I’m not talking about some cute little 10-degree rotation. I’m talking about a full whopping 180-degree turn around.

With a single divine visit, Mary was no longer “simply” a young teenager, engaged to be married and great with child. Suddenly, she was the sole woman chosen to mother the only son of GOD. Yes, that’s right, GOD. Imagine the awestruck wonder that Mary must have felt at receiving a visit from an angel, and then at being informed that great miracles were to be worked in her life and that of her cousin. Not only was her barren cousin to have a child, but she, Mary, a virgin, was to give birth to God’s Son. Incredible! It’s no wonder that Mary went sprinting with joy to bear the news to her cousin, and then prayed the Magnificat, a prayer of utter reverence and astonishment. What a blessing.

My prayer for you in this Christmas season, whatever might be happening in your life, is that you will find cause to rejoice as Mary rejoiced. I pray that you will rest and soak in God’s blessing. I pray that you will experience God’s peace. I pray that God’s peace will rise to its feet within you to sing a song of reverence and astonishment, a song of awe and wonder. And I pray that you might step into the stream, however much you’re able, and allow yourself to be swept along in God’s remarkable flood of reversal.

Scripture: Luke 1:39-45 (NRSV)

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, ⁴⁰where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit ⁴²and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. ⁴³And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? ⁴⁴For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. ⁴⁵And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”