Hinge
Read Luke 1:26-38.
Doors are fairly important. They can keep things in or they can keep things out. They divide one room off from another. They keep the dog out of rooms you don't want her to go in and they (usually) keep visitors from prying into places you don't want them to see (like that closet where you threw everything just before the guests arrived). But without one particular piece of hardware, the doors in our lives would be useless. They would just be a piece of wood, probably laying on the floor.
That piece is the hinge. The hinges on the door allow the door to swing open and shut. They allow the piece of wood to hang, effectively, in mid-air. They make it possible for the door to do everything it is meant to do.
The Christmas story has a hinge, a piece that everything depends on. Without that hinge, nothing else would have come to pass. That hinge is a simple phrase, spoken by a young maiden in the village of Nazareth: "I am the Lord's servant." They are words we usually rush right past, but they are word on which everything else hangs.
Most know the story. Mary is minding her own business, going through her daily routine, when an angel shows up and announces that she is going to have a baby. Doesn't ask; just announces. (Do angels ever ask or do they just announce?) It sort of begs the question: does Mary really have a choice in this matter? Could she have said no? I'll leave that debate to the serious theologians, because what we have is simply a record of a willing heart. Mary is willing to be faithful to the God who has loved her since before she can remember, which is why she responds as she does. "I am the Lord's servant. I will do whatever he asks me to do, no matter what it costs me."
And that's the hinge: Mary's willingness to be used by God, to be an instrument of bringing his salvation to the world. You get the sense that anything God asked, Mary's response would be the same: "I am the Lord's servant." I wonder if, even in the shadow of the cross, those words came back to her: "I am the Lord's servant...and so is my son." Life changes, the world is different when anyone says those words: "I am the Lord's servant." Those words, that short little phrase, spoken from the heart is the hinge upon which history turns. Those words open the door into new possibilities, even the possibility of the world being reconciled with God himself.
Are you the Lord's servant?
Doors are fairly important. They can keep things in or they can keep things out. They divide one room off from another. They keep the dog out of rooms you don't want her to go in and they (usually) keep visitors from prying into places you don't want them to see (like that closet where you threw everything just before the guests arrived). But without one particular piece of hardware, the doors in our lives would be useless. They would just be a piece of wood, probably laying on the floor.
That piece is the hinge. The hinges on the door allow the door to swing open and shut. They allow the piece of wood to hang, effectively, in mid-air. They make it possible for the door to do everything it is meant to do.
The Christmas story has a hinge, a piece that everything depends on. Without that hinge, nothing else would have come to pass. That hinge is a simple phrase, spoken by a young maiden in the village of Nazareth: "I am the Lord's servant." They are words we usually rush right past, but they are word on which everything else hangs.
Most know the story. Mary is minding her own business, going through her daily routine, when an angel shows up and announces that she is going to have a baby. Doesn't ask; just announces. (Do angels ever ask or do they just announce?) It sort of begs the question: does Mary really have a choice in this matter? Could she have said no? I'll leave that debate to the serious theologians, because what we have is simply a record of a willing heart. Mary is willing to be faithful to the God who has loved her since before she can remember, which is why she responds as she does. "I am the Lord's servant. I will do whatever he asks me to do, no matter what it costs me."
And that's the hinge: Mary's willingness to be used by God, to be an instrument of bringing his salvation to the world. You get the sense that anything God asked, Mary's response would be the same: "I am the Lord's servant." I wonder if, even in the shadow of the cross, those words came back to her: "I am the Lord's servant...and so is my son." Life changes, the world is different when anyone says those words: "I am the Lord's servant." Those words, that short little phrase, spoken from the heart is the hinge upon which history turns. Those words open the door into new possibilities, even the possibility of the world being reconciled with God himself.
Are you the Lord's servant?
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