Luke 1:31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.

         

Perhaps we have read these words so often we almost take them for granted because they are so familiar. This is the angel's message to Mary, young Mary, unmarried Mary. No doubt she dreamt of a day in the future, after she is married, when she will have a family. It's a natural desire for a young woman. So far there is nothing to indicate there will be anything unusual about this, beyond the fact that the angel says, in modern parlance, don't worry about having a scan, it will be a boy! Right! And his name will be Jesus. Well, again, nothing unusual about that; it was a common name. Of course when Israelites named their children the name often had a meaning, reflecting something of their desire usually, for the child. Jesus means deliverer.

 

For Mary at that second, that probably didn't mean too much. It was a good name, a good ambition, like some of the men of old. Of course now we know that Jesus came as THE deliverer of the world, to deliver us from God's judgement and from sin, but at that moment Mary didn't have a clue!

 

Have you realised that that is how it is so often with God's word. He speaks to us and we get excited, but the truth is that really we hardly have a clue of what He has on His heart for us. We just trust in the bit we've heard (or read) and understood and gradually we learn that we can trust Him with the whole thing – whatever it means!