AC – two mums to be

After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying, “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.” (Luke’s AD 60 research report re Jesus: Chapter 1: 24-40)

This "Elizabeth" (above) was very elderly in the year immediately preceding AD 0. So was her husband, Zechariah, a Jerusalem priest. But the angel Gabriel had appeared to Zechariah and announced that they would shortly have a son. He must be called John. He would “return many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God” and would “go before him [the Lord God of Israel] in the spirit and power of Elijah … to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” Elizabeth believes and is overjoyed when the impossible takes place. But will her son – her miraculous son - actually prepare the way for the “Lord God”, for the long-foretold Messiah? In fact, in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a male whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Rejoice, O favoured one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. Luke (who wrote this research report) now links Elizabeth’s 6-month pregnancy with a young lady, Mary, living in Galilee - 90 miles north of Jerusalem. She is a nobody, legally contracted in marriage, but, as was the custom, awaiting the consummation day. Her husband’s ancestry could be traced back to illustrious King David, one thousand years earlier.
“The angel Gabriel” meets Mary and calls on her to “rejoice”. “The Lord is with you!” Understandably, Mary is “greatly troubled” and puzzled.	.
And the angel, responding, said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob into the aeons, and of his realm there will be no end.” Another promised son. This time he is to be called "Jesus". And he “will be called the Son of the Most High.” Joseph is a distant descendant of King “David” (circa BC 1000. But Mary’s son will be given “the throne of his father David.” And of her son’s realm “there will be no end”. And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I do not know a male?” Mary did not contradict “the angel Gabriel”. She believed him. All she wanted to know was the “how”. Was there something she needed to do? And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore, the one to be born will be called Holy Son of God.” Joseph has no part in it all. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” For those two reasons, “the one to be born will be called Holy Son of God.” “Holy” (an adjective) – because of the “Holy Spirit” of the Lord God; “Son of God” because of the “power of the Most High” overshadowing her. “And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For no message will be impossible with God.” The words of “Gabriel” to Elizabeth were true. Same again. And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your message.” And the angel came away from her.
Mary is willing to go ahead with it. “I am the servant of the Lord.”	.
In those days Mary rose up and moved with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.

Sinner Syvret

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