“His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.”
Luke 1:50
About 80 generations after these words of praise left the mouth of Mary, we find that the message she sang about is still true. She was elated. Of course, I imagine she was still bewildered and a bit confused, but she was being chosen to serve God in such an awesome way. And she breaks into song. We don’t know the melody but we know the words and it’s some of those words that I’d like you to think about today.
Have you ever been afraid? Ok, of course you have. For each of us it may be something different – spiders, snakes, the dark, country music, lightning, drowning, the list could go on endlessly. And usually that fear causes us to want to avoid those things. Let’s be clear right away that this is not the fear that Mary’s talking about here. When the Bible talks about fearing the Lord it means an incredible reverence.
Imagine walking into your house after a normal day of school. You throw your bag down on the ground or on the first flat surface you find. You go to the fridge to get something to eat or drink and then walk into your living room and there, sitting on your couch relaxing, is your favorite movie star of all time. They are the one that you so admire and appreciate that you’ve seen nearly all their movies and are determined to see the rest of them they produce – as long as they don’t guest star on Snakes on a Plane 2. Your jaw drops. You may have already dropped whatever you’d gotten from the fridge. Of course, you don’t much care about the soda or sandwich, you care about the star.
Let’s face it, it’s impossible to really imagine what it would be like to all of a sudden see God sitting in our living room. We can’t really imagine that too much. But I think we can imagine how we would generally react. We would be awestruck. We would want to make sure we said the right things, did the right things. We would want to make a good “first impression.” And we wouldn’t do it for fear that otherwise we would be zapped. We’d do it all because we would have this incredible reverence for Who we were in the presence of.
And imagine what it would be like if you lived with the healthy realization of God’s never-leaving presence in your life? If you lived like Jesus heard the way you spoke, saw the way you acted, knew the way you thought. I think you and I would live more and more like God wants us to. And His mercy would be on us. He’d know that we’re not perfect, but would jump at the chance to forgive us, because He knows that we really are amazed by Him. He would see the areas of our life that needed work, but would lovingly help us grow instead of just condemning us, because He knows that it’s what we want most of all.
And so that’s why God is so willing and eager to extend His mercy, His forgiveness, His grace, His love to generations of us messed up people who are aware of our need for Him and are simply amazed by Who He is. Be impressed. He’s more than worthy. And if you don’t see that, then I’d be a bit afraid.