“Greetings, you who are highly favored!The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered whatkind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid.” Luke 1:28-30
How often does your cell phone ring with the caller ID reading a number that you do not recognize? What goes through your mind when that happens? What do you do? I saw the number and decided that if it was someone I knew, they would leave a message. I heard the tone that verified they had done just that. Opening my voicemail and hitting play…. the message made me ‘greatly troubled!’ “Yea… this is Bob, getting back to you about that investment opportunity I promised you!”
I don’t know THIS Bob, never talked to a Bob about an investment opportunity and had never gotten a promise of a call. It was a momento interrumpo… an interrupted moment. AND an unsolicited one! Looking back, I wondered if this is how Mary felt when the angel slammed HER with a momento interrumpo?
Scripture says that Zechariah and the shepherds shared the same reaction as Mary, when the moment of their life was interrupted by an angel. Shock and fear was their immediate response as well! But things were not as they originally appeared. When a perfect, Holy being invades the space of an imperfect, unholy being, it is normal for the unholy to repel the advance… in FEAR. That the perfect would imply that ‘all is well’ was a shocker!
Fast forward to Christmas 2018. We KNOW the Christmas AND Easter story, and their results. The what’s, where’s, how’s, and why’s have been placed into the bed history. The news is not new. It has been rehearsed and repeated every year of our lives…Ad nauseam! Expectation is no longer the precious commodity this time of year, it is now ‘perseverance!’ Cold, dead, tired, overworked lives are in GREAT need of a momento interrumpo? But HOW can we get one?
The GREAT NEWS is that God still WANTS to amaze, mystify, shock and invade our normal, everyday lives! He has been calling and trying and reach out to give us ‘the investment opportunity He promised’ But too often His momento interrumpo is met with a ‘greatly troubled’ attitude. So how can He reach us if we DON’T want to be reached?
Today we are more blessed than the shepherds were, because we don’t need angels to talk with us. We have the Holy Spirit! ‘His’ visitation is not a ‘here then gone’ kind of thing. He comes to LIVE in our hearts and to CONSTANTLY speak with us about the Greatest gift on Earth… Jesus Christ. But now… there is a hitch.
If I WANT to experience a momento interrumpo, ‘I’ must be the one to WANT ‘The Gift!’ That means that every moment I live, I am to live EXPECTING my unholy moments will be interrupted by THE Holy Son of God. Because He doesn’t just want a moment from me. He wants it ALL! He doesn’t want to be an interruption… He wants to be my whole life’s story!
