Blessed Is She Who Believed

And blessed is she who believed that there would be the fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord.” Luke 1:45

There are two words that jumped out to me as I read this. Blessed and believe! These are very familiar words in our culture these days.

The progressive narrative says, there is no black and white. The bible is a book of antiquity, we must change our thinking, and the truth is whatever is true for you.

Therefore, phrases such as, “faith”, “believe” and even “blessed” have lost their true biblical significance.

So, we need to ask ourselves what was it that Mary believed? To answer that question, we need to step back a few centuries into the Old Testament.

There are at least 300 predictions that God made to His people concerning Jesus in the Old Testament. 

But there are two in particular that I want to draw our attention to.

Isaiah 7:14 “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. (God with us)!

Is 9:6 “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

The prospect of the coming of the Divine Savior was a never-failing support to the hopes of ancient believers.

This young, teen-age virgin believed God’s word – she trusted that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord. 

This peasant girl was part of Israel’s faithful remnant. Mary was waiting for her Messiah.

She knew the prophecies and the oracles the Law and the prophets. She knew that her Savior was coming, one day to visit and redeem her people, as He had done in Egypt, so many years before.

So often Mary is exalted because of her role as the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ. But we read another reason that this special lady was so blessed. Mary was blessed because she trusted God for this wonderful fulfillment.

This birth would usher in the long-awaited Savior that our ravaged world so needs.

Remember the angels’ words to the shepherds that first Christmas?

Luke 2:10–12. “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger” 

Charlie Brown had it right when he quoted this scripture.

If Christ’s work had stopped with His entrance into the world, it would have been remarkable but not redemptive. But He didn’t stop there!

But the good news and great joy of this season are only possible because of the horror of the cross. That’s the part the doesn’t make for a pretty Christmas card.

Many of us know the reason for the season. Yet so often we find ourselves getting hooked into the buying and shopping and decorating and spending ourselves into a whirlwind of activity and anxiety.

I think the Grinch had a very telling ah-ha moment.

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.” 

The world tells us that the holidays are about love and charity. But even that falls short of its true significance.

It was fitting for baby Jesus to feel the rough-hewn wood of that rustic crib on His tiny back because soon enough He would hang from the splintered wood of the cross.

Christ didn’t just come to rescue a few. News of His arrival didn’t stop with the shepherds. Jesus came to bring good news to all people. What is the good news?

Jesus was willing to do whatever it took to become our Savior. But what did He save us from? That is the question we must force our hearts to ask this Christmas season.

Matthew 1:21 says, “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

Christ wasn’t born merely to show us how to find good within ourselves and others, but to deliver us from sin and death.

When we set aside our expectations for a Hallmark channel Christmas, we see that Christ came for:

For our fractured marriages.

For our rebellious children.

For our secret sins.

For our broken systems.

For our diseased bodies.

For our unmet expectations 

For our ungrateful hearts.

Christ was born because we are a people walking blindly in the darkness of sin…in desperate need of a Great Light. Every day we turn on the news and we are reminded of why we need a Savior and the only One who can redeem us.

Jesus said in John 8:12 I am the light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness but will have the Light of Life.

Between the last book of the Old Testament and the first book of the New Testament, there is a 400- year gap.

God was silent! His prophets stopped prophesying. It was the darkest moment on the entire timeline of history and a stark reminder of the state of the world before Jesus came.

Everyone needed a permanent remedy for their sin problem.

J. Sidlow Baxter said, “The supreme irony is that although the cure for all the world’s ill’s lies wrapped up in swaddling clothes, of that little babe in Bethlehem…the nations will not have it. We are still seeking vain remedies elsewhere!”

John 3:17 tells us, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.

Mary had been waiting for the promised deliverer and she embraced Him as more than a son but as her Savior.

Someone once said: “I wish I could describe Him to you. But He’s indescribable. He’s the well-spring of wisdom, He’s the doorway of deliverance, He’s the pathway of peace, He’s the roadway of righteousness, He’s the highway to heaven, He’s the gateway of glory…

Blessed is she who believed!