Friends

Summary

If something really wonderful happened to you, who is the first person you would want to share the news with? Suppose you were offered a new job in a better organization for more pay. Who would you call up first and tell the news to? Or suppose you won a lottery to have solar panels installed for free at your home. Who’s the first person you’d tell? Or what if someone gave you a free trip to southern France? Who would you text immediately?

When something wonderful happened to Mary, the person she wanted to talk with was Elizabeth. Luke says Mary and Elizabeth were relatives (1.36), but however they may have been related, they were clearly friends. Our story for today follows right after the story we focused on two weeks ago. In that story, Gabriel offered Mary the gift of a pregnancy and asked her to become one of God’s missional partners in the life of the world. Quickly and willingly, Mary said yes, she’d be happy to do that, even though she had no way of knowing what the implications of that yes might turn out to be. The story infers that when Mary gave her consent to Gabriel and God, she immediately—or almost immediately—became pregnant