Mary’s song continues:
My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. (Luke 1:46-48)
Do you know that safe feeling when there is someone in our lives that “looks with favor” upon us?
I remember my grandfather, Charles Dickerson. What I know about him is that he grew up on a farm in Delaware and eventually made his way to Norfolk where he proudly sold Pontiac cars. I know he kept his own car polished and gleaming in the driveway. I know he raised beautiful flowers in the small, immaculately groomed yard of my grandparents’ city home. The colorful gladiolas he grew garnered a lot of attention.
I also know without a doubt that he looked with favor upon his three grandchildren—and I was the first, therefore the oldest, and the only granddaughter, so, unless the Ed Sullivan show was on, I managed to garner a lot of his attention too. I am positive that he never spoke a cross word to me (or my brothers) and that his heart burst with pride whenever he got to show us off. This wasn’t often, because we drove the 300 miles to visit only twice a year. If our visit was over a Sunday, my grandfather absolutely glowed. He was the superintendent (I think, remember these are childhood memories) of a crowded men’s Sunday School class. As a nine and ten year old, I was learning to play piano at the time. He took special delight in having me play something for their opening exercises. I must have played whatever music I was working on for a recital and am almost certain it had nothing to do with church and was quite ordinary. But for my grandfather, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t what I did; it was simply who I was, and for that he looked on me with favor. Looking back on it, my grandfather’s church friends must have been quite gracious as well.
Mary knows that although she is quite ordinary and she has done nothing special, God has looked on her with favor, enough favor to choose her as the one to give birth to and raise the Messiah. It is for her, quite amazing that God would take notice and turn God’s caring attention upon her in such a way.
But then, that’s the way God is for all of us. Listen to what the apostle Paul says in Ephesians about God:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as chose us in Christ before the foundations of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
Doesn’t that sound like we are looked upon with favor? And before we’ve even done anything to earn it! So with all of that favor of God being bestowed on us perhaps, on this fifth day of advent, while we wait for Christ to come, we can also be bestowers of God’s favor upon the ordinary people around us. There are so many people who need to know about this, including our own incredulous hearts.
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