After the angel Gabriel’s visit, Mary woke to a new reality.
The pondering of her heart emerged on her lips as she washed the dishes and passed by the beggars on her way to fetch water.
“My soul glorifies the Lord,” she sang to herself. “He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away. From now on, all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me.” The Saviour is in me! What a wondrous thought.
But weeks passed and nothing changed. Mary began to wonder if it had all been a dream, until one morning a wave of nausea propelled her out of bed just in time. She threw up in the garden, then leaned against the clay brick wall, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as perspiration cooled her brow.
It happened the next day and the next. Mary hadn’t dreamt it; she was pregnant with God’s Son. That first Advent, Mary wasn’t waiting for Christ to come. He was already there, her growing belly a testimony.
In our Advent, we, like Israel, cry, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget us forever? How long will you hide your face from us?” We keep looking for God to come in power and fill the hungry with good things. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit has already overshadowed us, seeding Christ in us.
And now it is God who is waiting for us. God waits for us to awaken to a new reality, a wondrous thought that Christ is in us, with us, and for us.
We are being filled full of God.
I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. –Ephesians 3:18-20 (The Message)
An Everyday Pilgrim 