God knows our purpose!

Luke 1:26-38

The angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. He went in and said to her, ‘Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you.’ She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean, but the angel said to her, ‘Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God’s favour. Listen! You are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David; he will rule over the House of Jacob forever and his reign will have no end.’ Mary said to the angel, ‘But how can this come about, since I am a virgin?’ ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you’ the angel answered ‘and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God. Know this too: your kinswoman Elizabeth has, in her old age, herself conceived a son, and she whom people called barren is now in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible to God’ ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord,’ said Mary ‘let what you have said be done to me.’ And the angel left her.

Food for thought!

If yesterday you didn't celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Conception, you should be celebrating it today. Simply put, immaculate means without sin, or pure. It means that Mary was conceived without sin, that Mary was purely conceived. The basis of this doctrine are the words of the angel to Mary, "so highly favoured. The Lord is with you." Some Bibles translate "so highly favoured" as "full of grace." To be full of grace means just that, to be not half full but 100% full; it means to be wholly blessed, completely graced. And if Mary is 100% full of grace, then she must be, in other words, without sin; she could not be FULL and the same time half graced. Mary is immaculate. Period.

This said, the greatness of Mary is not Mary; it is Jesus. Without Jesus Mary would not be the Mary we know; without Jesus Mary is nothing. This is why the angel reminded Mary why she is favoured or blessed the way she was: "You are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David; he will rule over the House of Jacob forever and his reign will have no end."

Like Mary, all of us came into this life for a definite purpose; all of us have a reason. Mary's purpose was to conceive and bear a son called Jesus. God spared Mary from sin because of this holy of holiest missions. Like Mary, God prepared each one of us to be and do something in this life; God made each one of us for a mission to accomplish in life. 

As R. Warren puts it, "If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose… You exist only because God wills that you exist. You were made by God and for God — and until you understand that, life will never make sense to you… It is only in God that we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny… You were made for God, not vice versa, and life is about letting God use you for his purposes, not your using him for your own purpose."

Just as Mary without Jesus would not be the Mary we know, so do we; without Jesus, we cannot know ourselves, neither the purpose of our living. The Bible says this many times: "For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible,…everything got started in him (Jesus) and finds its purpose in him." (Colossians 1:16); "All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made." (John 1:3); "Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist." (1 Corinthians 8:6); "For from him (Jesus) and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen." (Romans 11:36).