I found out last Sunday firsthand that life can bring you all kinds of surprises! If you weren’t in worship at St. Luke’s Edmond, I’ll fill you in briefly on what happened without boring you with the finer details. Almost every week at St. Luke’s Edmond we have the opportunity to see Dr. Bob Long’s sermon broadcast during both worship services. It is able to be transferred to us through the internet from our Downtown Campus. For almost three years now, we have never had a problem getting the sermon delivered.
This past Sunday morning we were preparing for our 9:15 service. A few minutes before 9:00 I was told there was a problem with the internet in the downtown Oklahoma City area and we had no way to send the sermon video out from the Downtown Campus. That meant I had about 15 minutes to come up with a sermon for the service – SURPRISE!
This week I have spent a lot of time reflecting on that and thinking about the Christmas story I ended up preaching. We looked at the story of Mary and Elizabeth in Luke’s gospel who had both been told they would be having babies, and it was a big surprise to both of them, but for different reasons.
When that surprise came to me on Sunday I could have either shut down and panicked or I could decide to make the most of it and trust in God’s presence with me during that time. Mary faced the same choice. She found out she was pregnant, she was a young girl, she was not married and she could have either panicked, run away, and denied the whole thing or she could choose to embrace it and trust that God would be with her through it all.
As we see in Luke’s telling of the story, Mary chose the latter. She embraced it with a beautiful song known as “Mary’s Magnificat”. She trusted in God’s presence with her through the biggest surprise of her life, and it turned out to be the greatest news the world has ever known.
Next time something surprises you in life and you’re caught totally off guard, choose to be like Mary. Embrace the situation, trust in God’s presence with you, and enjoy the journey of seeing how God uses your surprise to bring good news of great joy to the world.
