Daily devotion – Reputation on the line
Reputation on the line
Luke 1:38 Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.
Rumours of Jesus’s possible illegitimacy were being spread during His public ministry in an attempt to discredit Him. For example, when Jesus declared that certain unbelieving Jews had not Abraham but the devil as their father, they responded back taunting, “We are not illegitimate children,” which sounds like an innuendo that Jesus was. – John 8:41.
These rumours about Jesus birth persisted long after His death. In the Jewish Talmud they became explicit. How on earth could these hints and slanders have arisen unless it was known that Mary the mother of Jesus, was already pregnant when Joseph married her? Distasteful as this gossip is, it is corroborative evidence of the virgin birth.
Mary’s response to the angelic announcement wins our immediate admiration: “I am the Lord’s servant….May it be to me as you have said.” Verse 38.
Once God’s purpose and method had been explained to her, she did not demur. Mary was at God’s disposal. She expressed her total willingness to be the virgin mother of the Son of God. Of course, it was an enormous privilege for Mary: “The Mighty One has done great things for me,” she said. Yet it was also an awesome and costly responsibility that this young girl in Nazareth took upon herself at great personal sacrifice.
For it involved a readiness to become pregnant before she was married, and so expose herself to the shame and suffering of being thought an immoral woman – though absolutely innocent.
The courage of little young Mary in submitting to the virgin birth stands out in contrast to the attitudes of the critics who deny it.
Mary surrendered her reputation to God’s will. Can or could you do that today, this week, ever? For us too what matters is that we allow God to be God completely in and through our lives and to do things His way, even if with Mary we thereby risk losing our good name!