Rev. Richard Smith
December 19, 2022
Luke 1
35The angel told Mary ‘The Holy Spirit will come on 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. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.’ 38’I am the Lord’s servant,’ Mary answered. ‘May your word to me be fulfilled.’
I am the Lord’s servant…that’s what Mary says!
Just as God called Mary to be his servant, so He calls us.
Certainly, God needs us to be living witnesses for the person and message of Jesus beyond this special season.
Facilitating the life and truths of Jesus day by day beyond Christmas Day is a call placed upon each of our lives. We can’t let the celebration of Jesus be just a season; it’s got to be an ongoing, living witness.
St. Theresa of Avila in the sixteenth century penned words which powerfully remind us of our call day by day beyond the Christmas celebrations:
Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours,
yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion
is to look out to the earth,
yours are the feet by which He is to go about doing good
and yours are the hands by which He is to bless others now.
Perhaps a noteworthy spiritual activity this week leading to Christmas Day would be to contemplate exactly where and how God can use you as we head toward a new year. Where in your community, in your neighborhood, in your church is the love and caring of Jesus most deeply needed? And what can you do, however simple it might be, to disseminate the love of Jesus?
May we each say, with Mary, upon hearing God’s call this holy season and beyond…I am the Lord’s servant!
