Emails to God

He has been merciful to our ancestors by remembering his sacred covenant— the covenant he swore with an oath to our ancestor Abraham.

Luke 1:72-73

Dear God, I’m guessing that in the midst of suffering under Rome the Israelites talked about your covenant with Abraham a lot. This is the second time I’ve seen it show up in the Christmas story with the first time being the Magnificat when Mary greeted Zechariah’s wife Elizabeth in their home.

I suppose that there are times when I am suffering that I look to your promises. But what exactly are your promises? Much like even the people in this story who were thinking you were there to physically rescue them from Rome, I think I sometimes mistakenly expect you to remove a burden or a yoke. But sometimes your plan includes the burden—either for my good or for someone else’s. So in this case your plan wasn’t to overthrow Rome with Jesus, but to create a new covenant that called people into deeper love, forgiveness and peace than they had ever known or considered. In fact, now that o think about it, I can’t really think of an Old Testament prophet or character who spoke of love and forgiveness the way Jesus did. This was a brand new message.

Father, help me to sink into your peace. Help me to have energy that is fueled by your Holy Spirit, by love, and by grace. And help me to spread and encourage that peace in others.

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen

Then his father, Zechariah, was filled with the Holy Spirit and gave this prophecy: “Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has visited and redeemed his people. He has sent us a mighty Savior from the royal line of his servant David, just as he promised through his holy prophets long ago.

Luke 1:67-70

Dear God, the theme for my morning seems to be gratitude. I am grateful for the different things you are doing in my life. I am grateful for the prayers to which I’m starting to see some answers. Especially after seeing how some people in our community are living, I am grateful for my home and my income. There are a lot of things for which I should be grateful—too man even more me to realize. I take so much for granted.

So what is my calling in this bounty? What would you have me do when you say yes to my prayers? What can I do to glorify you and spread your blessing to others? Those are the questions that are resonating with me this morning. If “to whom much is given much is required,” then I owe everyone a lot.

Father, help me to be your servant in every moment of this day. Love others through me. Be glorified through me. Make our community better through my faithful work to you. Help me to do all of this with one goal—to bring others into your presence and worship you.

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you! ”

Luke 1:26-28

Dear God, worshipping with Catholics every week has made me think about Mary a little more intentionally. It’s not that I personally believe anything about her that I didn’t before. I think my personal beliefs are still pretty standard for Protestants. But it has made me consciously consider what I do believe and how I feel about the role she played in my Salvation.

I would say the biggest thing is that as much as we say that our military lays down their lives for our freedom, both Mary and Joseph ended up sacrificing the rest of their lives, plans, and dreams to accept the responsibility of Jesus’ birth and childhood. They had to deal with pregnancy in Bethlehem (that census would have been a lot easier without that little wrinkle). They had to deal with shame in their society. They had to flee for Egypt in the middle of the night and start new lives there. They had to abandon those lives to move again, eventually ending up in Nazareth. They had the trauma of having lost the boy Jesus for a few days around Passover. And then Mary had a tough three-year stretch where she just didn’t fully understand what was going on with her grown son and eventually had to watch him be tragically killed. No, the mission (Baptists would call it a calling) that Gabriel gives her in this passage might not have been so readily accepted if she had known how hard it would be, but then again, you often obscure the pain of the path in front of us because if we knew then we might miss your glory that you have for us to experience on that path. And I’m sure, in retrospect, Mary and Jospeh wouldn’t trade the path for anything.

Father, thank you for what you did through those two simple people. Thank you for doing things through me. Thank you for keeping me on a need-to-know basis, and thank you for operating under the policy that I very rarely need to know. Help me to glorify you in all that I do, and let it be done to me as you will it.

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen