2014: Mission Improbable

I’m not done thinking about Christmas and the biblical narrative. We should read Luke 1 & 2 more often, lest it become rote. 

For with God nothing will be impossible.
For with God nothing will be impossible.
For with God nothing will be impossible.

Those were the last words the angel said to Mary when she got the surprise of her life. I can see her now, pacing, figuring out how to break the news to her family, to Joseph. Surely she would repeat those words several times to help people believe the unbelievable. “I know it sounds absurd, but I’m telling you the angel said ‘For with God nothing will be impossible!’”

When God Speaks, You Listen

But the phrase wasn’t just for her family. It wasn’t only for credibility of the story. No, it was for Mary herself. I don’t know about you, but if I was told by Gabriel—the angel—that I would be pregnant with the Son of God by the Holy Spirit, I’d have to start believing in the impossible real quick. Mary needed those words more than anyone. The next nine months would be challenging, to say the least. And after that? I imagine she expected many impossibilities on the road ahead, as any new mother would. But for now, this God-baby thing was impossible enough. The Scriptures say she remembered all of this and pondered it in her heart. Gabriel’s words would never, ever leave her.

Turns out, Gabe’s words weren’t only for Mary, either. They are for you and me, too. And no, I don’t mean just for cross-stitched pillows and stock wall-hangings. The phrase isn’t trite. It’s Truth.

Us: “Impossible.”
God: “Improbable.”

Each January I look at the coming year and get slightly overwhelmed (which is probably why I don’t do the resolutions thing). And as we have previously established, I’m not an adventurous person. Some see January as the door to a thousand possibilities awaiting discovery. I enter January seeing a surplus of unknowns—dreams with unclear roads. Impossibilities is a good word to capture my first new-year impression.

But as I review what we’ve just finished celebrating on December 25th, I’m reminded that my God specializes in impossibilities. Even in 2014.

Hear this today: The God Who created the universe, caused a virgin to conceive, became a human, lived a perfect life, vanquished death and made sinners eligible for Heaven can be trusted with all of your impossibilities. Take this truth, ponder it in your heart.

For with God nothing will be impossible.