ニューイングランドの母校からアドベントの便り、その23
2016 Gordon-Conwell
Advent Devotional | Day 24 | A New Reality
Luke 1:39-56
Two special women meet in a small town in the Judean hill country. In a few months they will give birth to two very special children through whom God will fulfill the deepest hopes and dreams of his people, indeed of the entire fallen human race. The two children are not of equal significance: It is Mary, the virgin who became pregnant through the Holy Spirit (v. 35), who bears the “Lord,” the messianic child (v. 43). Mary, who believes what God had told her about the identity and the ministry of her child (v. 45; cf. vv. 31-33, 35), places her miraculous pregnancy and the child that she carries into the history that God has been writing in and through Israel.
Mary joyously praises God as Savior (v. 47). God has reversed her low social state and chose her as the mother of the messianic Son of God when he took the initiative to bring salvation to all future generations (vv. 48-49a). God is holy, he is faithful to his covenant commitment and he accomplishes in the birth of Jesus the salvation that had been promised to all Israel (vv. 49b-50). God again intervenes in history and demonstrates his sovereign power (v. 51). God reverses the traditional perspectives regarding social status: Jesus’ birth brings about a new reality in which God, by his sovereign power, newly apportions salvation and doom (vv. 52-53).
God’s new initiative, which begins with Jesus’ birth, powerfully demonstrates his covenant faithfulness and climactically fulfills the promises of salvation that he made throughout Israel’s history (vv. 54-55).
