IMPORTANT NOTE TAKING NOTES
- You can take notes on this page and email them to yourself at the bottom of the page
- If you navigate away from this page before you email yourself, YOU WILL LOSE YOUR NOTES
- You may take notes anytime and email them to yourself as much as you'd like :)
Stirring
Message Outline
Luke 1:46–55 (NIV)
46 And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
50 His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
55 to Abraham and his descendants forever,
just as he promised our ancestors.”
She Who Gave Birth to God
And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. -Exodus 3:23
St. John of Damascus saw the Burning Bush as a sign of the Virgin Birth: just as the bush burned without being destroyed, Mary was filled with God’s presence at the Annunciation and was not harmed. Usually, seeing God directly is too overwhelming—Moses sees Him only from behind (Exodus 33:18–23) and Elijah only from a rock cleft (1 Kings 19:11–13). But Mary carried God in her womb without being consumed. As John of Damascus says, “The virgin bore Fire within her, yet was not consumed, when she gave birth to the Benefactor Who brings us light.” -St. John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book III, Ch. 14.
God With Us
The king’s command was so urgent and the furnace so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, 23 and these three men, firmly tied, fell into the blazing furnace. 24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?” They replied, “Certainly, Your Majesty.” 25 He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, -Daniel 3:22-25
On many occasions, back home in South Africa, when ghastly things were happening in our struggle against apartheid, often the cry went out from our people, “God, where are you? God, do you care? God, do you see?” And we would tell our people that wonderful story in the book of the prophet Daniel, of the God whose servants had been cast into a fiery furnace. And then, and then, God didn’t stand at a safe distance giving useful advise— “Guys, when you go into a fire, it would probably be sensible to put on protective clothing.” No, fantastically, God entered the fiery furnace, and was there side by side with God’s servants in their anguish and agony, because this God was Emmanuel, “God with us,” God with us in our suffering, in our oppression and in our anguish.
You have probably heard the story of the little Jew in the concentrationcamp, humiliated and taunted by his Nazi guard. And one day he is asked to clean out the restrooms, and the Nazi guard standing above him taunts him, and says, “Where is your God now?” And the little Jew replied quietly, “He’s right here with me in the muck.” - Desmund Tutu
Pondering
But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. -Luke 2:19
Pondering in Hebrew means absorbing and transforming tension, like Mary under the cross. -Ronald Rolheiser. OMI
