Read Luke 1:46-56
Mary sings for joy at being seen and chosen by her mighty God. Up until this point, she was someone who had lived in expectation of the coming Messiah. We see in this passage that she was aware of how God was using her to fulfill his promise, but she was also likely aware that this would be a difficult and disruptive call on her life. While we will probably never experience it to the degree that Mary did, we can often rejoice when we see God at work without truly understanding how much perseverance and difficulty might be involved in the process.
Discussion Questions
Mary knew a lot about Jesus’s identity and mission. What more do we know with the full revelation of Scripture? How should that inform our lives?
Has God ever worked in and through your life in a way that felt difficult and uncomfortable? How did God show himself mighty through your situation?
Talk about what it might be like to be a 1st century Jewish person awaiting God’s promise to send a Messiah.
Pray that God would grant you patient endurance in the journey he has you on as a follower of Jesus.
Pray for an appreciation of the incredible story of salvation given to us in the Bible.
Read Chapter 1 of Is Christmas Unbelievable: Was Jesus even a real person?
Family Activity Think of how long the Jewish people waited for a messiah or even how Mary had to wait months to meet the child that was promised. As we start off this advent season make an appointment or two as a family, a time when you will watch a favorite Christmas movie, a time when you will go look at Christmas lights, or maybe if you are traveling for Christmas talk about the upcoming travel date.
Whatever your family likes to do, put it on the calendar in advance. Talk about it as a family and then regularly remind the kids that it is coming. Talk about what it would have been like for the Jewish people to wait for the messiah for hundreds of years! If you had to wait for that long for a fun Christmas activity, do you think you would stop being excited about it after a while? Do you think you would start to doubt that it would ever happen? When the event finally comes to pass, remember to talk about Mary welcoming Jesus into the world and what a long anticipated event it was!
Songs to enjoy