The Women of Christmas: Mary, Part 3

“How can this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God. Look, even Elizabeth, your relative, has conceived a son in her old age, and she who was called barren is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it happen to me according to your word.” Then the angel left her.” (Luke 1:34-38 BSB)


In part 1 of our series of the Women of Christmas, we looked at the lineage of Jesus, how that was connected to Mary, and his right to be King. In part 2, we explored the grace of God that was coming and how that contrasted with the Jewish law the people had been living according to. In part 3 we are going to talk about the presence of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is a person. He is the third person of The Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We first learn about Him in the book of Genesis.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.”(Genesis 1:2 BSB)

This sounds so familiar doesn’t it? It sounds like what the Holy Spirit would do when Jesus was conceived.

The word “hovering” in the Old Testament is the Hebrew word “rachaph.” According to Strong’s Lexicon, it means “To hover, to brood, to flutter.”

Under the word “rachaph” on Biblehub.com, there is an entry that says,

“While there is no direct Greek equivalent in the Septuagint for "rachaph," the concept of divine hovering or overshadowing can be seen in the New Testament with the Greek word "ἐπισκιάζω" (episkiazō), Strong's Greek 1982, used in Luke 1:35 to describe the Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary.”

The activity of the Holy Spirit was very reminiscent of the story of creation in Genesis. It’s like there was a Re-Genesis. Isn’t that amazing? I am always amazed by the Old Testament and the New Testament connections!

The Holy Spirit overshadowing or hovering over Mary would bring about the birth of the Son of God. In his message, “Christmas: the Wisdom of God,” Dr. Charles Stanley said about this event,

“The Spirit of God planted within that woman, the very life, the very person of the Son of God.”

What would be next?

The Holy Spirit would also be coming into the earth in a greater way than He had before. We talked earlier in the series about how under the Old Covenant, the Holy Spirit would seem to come and go. Men and women were anointed by God into the offices of prophet, priest, and king. The Holy Spirit would “come upon” them, and then would receive spiritual gifting to carry out the plans and purposes of God. But, He didn't live in them.

There was a very significant change coming. And it was for us.

In John chapter 1, speaking about Jesus, John says,

“And John bore witness saying, "I have beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and it remained upon Him.” (John 1:32 BLB)

The Holy Spirit came and remained on Jesus.

That word “remain" is the same word that Jesus used to teach the disciples about the Holy Spirit in John 14:17.

“...the Spirit of truth. The world cannot receive Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you do know Him, for He abides with you and will be in you.” (BSB)

Abide here means to remain. He will remain. He will abide in you, never to leave.

Ephesians 1:13 says about our relationship to the Holy Spirit,

“And in Him, having heard and believed the word of truth—the gospel of your salvation—you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the pledge of our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession, to the praise of His glory.” (BSB)


Many blessings to you as you rest and remain in the Lord this season! Thank you for reading this short series on Mary, part of The Women of Christmas.


Merry Christmas!

Beth


P.S.I am sorry I didn't get to Elizabeth and Anna. Christmas caught up with me, and the parts about Mary became longer than I had originally anticipated.


I wrote a series about the Holy Spirit starting with the baptism of Jesus. You can read about that here. The links to the rest of the series are at the bottom of the post.


If you missed the first two posts about Mary, you can go here to The Women of Christmas at Bethlisteningtohim.blogspot.com.

God's Love Comes First

We love because he first loved us.-1 John 4:19

Last night we went to church again, but my daughter is overwhelmed by the vastness of the sanctuary.  It is huge and has lots of screens, so she is freaked out a little by it. I remember when I first went in the sanctuary, I was like "Wow!  This is huge!" So, we didn't get to stay inside the sanctuary, but sat on the benches outside and listened to the service, and waited on brother to get out of children's church.

As we were walking around, we walked past the babies' rooms and I could hear them teaching the babies, "God loves you."  This morning I thought how appropriate that was in regards to teaching New Believers about God. And it is how Jesus demonstrated who God was.

We cannot tell people to love God, which happens all the time, without telling Him how much He loves them first.  They won't know who He is, or how to even love Him, or anybody else.

The Bible says in Hebrews 1:3 "The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God..."  Jesus came to demonstrate God to us. He loved people first, and then they came to love Him. 1 John 4:19 says "We love Him because He first loved us."

It is impossible to tell a New Believer,  or any human that they must love God, without helping them to understand that He, through Jesus, loved them first.  Just like a little baby, they must come to understand "how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is."-Ephesians 3:18 (NLT)

A Week in the Life of a Greco-Roman Woman by Holly Beers

I recently read the book, A Week in the Life of Greco-Roman Woman by Holly Beers,  It is about the life of a woman in Ephesus when the church was just starting there.

Women's lives were so hard!! They were considered property and treated anyway their spouses wished.

The parts of the book I loved was when the woman started learning about Jesus. That was really cool. The author also included several incidents of healing, which was amazing!

I think we forget about what it is like for people who don't know anything nor have ever heard about Jesus, and then all of a sudden start learning. It was very refreshing to see what that would be like through the eyes of that woman.

I think it would be refreshing to all of us to go back to the early days and remember the love of God we felt and how clean and pure everything seemed when we first came to the Lord.

There were also a few Bible figures in the book including Paul, Priscilla, and Aquila. It was interesting to see how the author interpreted their personalities.

Another interesting aspect of the book is that pictures and factual information from that time period in Ephesus were included as part of the book. That was a little awkward reading it at first, because it is Biblical fiction, a story that is fiction, but based on events in the Bible. But it helped to understand the time period more, and the book of Ephesians more as well.

I think when you understand what was going on, it helps you to read the Bible with fresh eyes. This is only one of the books in "A Week in the Life of" series, and I can't wait to read more!