Steve: Hi, this is Steve Webb, your OG Godcaster.
Steve: You're about to hear the LifeSpring Advent Calendar, which was recorded in 2006.
Steve: It's a daily show which will run right up to Christmas Day,
Steve: so be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.
Steve: Now, the story of Advent and Christmas is a timeless story, so it doesn't age.
Steve: However, the links and the phone numbers mentioned on the podcast have all changed but one.
Steve: WhyChristmas.com is still current and active,
Steve: and it's the best Christmas information website on the Internet.
Steve: LifeSpringPodcast.com now forwards you to LifeSpringMedia.com.
Steve: And the phone number you'll hear on the show is changed to plus 1-951-732-8511.
Steve: Hello and welcome to Day 17 of the LifeSpring Advent Calendar and I'm Steve Webb, your host.
Steve: I wonder what the calendar has in store for us today.
James: Today is the third Sunday of Advent
James: and on our calendar that represents Mary, the mother of Jesus.
James: This Sunday we light three of our Advent candles, so let's do that and find out more about Mary.
James: The story today comes from the book of Luke in chapter 1 and says this.
Ron: In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee,
Ron: to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David.
Ron: The virgin's name was Mary.
Ron: The angel went to her and said,
Ron: Greetings, you who are highly favored. The Lord is with you.
Ron: Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.
Ron: But the angel said to her,
Ron: Do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God.
Ron: You will be with child and give birth to a son.
Ron: and you are to give him the name Jesus.
Ron: He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.
Ron: The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David
Ron: and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever.
Ron: His kingdom will never end.
Ron: How will this be? Mary asked the angel, since I am a virgin.
Ron: The angel answered, The Holy Spirit will come upon you
Ron: and the power of the Most High will overshadow you
Ron: so the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.
Ron: Even Elizabeth, your relative, is going to have a child in her old age
Ron: and she, who is said to be barren, is in her sixth month
Ron: for nothing is impossible with God.
Ron: I am the Lord's servant, Mary answered.
Ron: May it be to me as you have said.
Ron: Then the angel left her.
James: Now that's quite a story, but it's even more amazing
James: when you find out about some of the facts behind it.
James: Well, how old do you think Mary was when she had this experience and had her baby?
James: Her early 30s, mid-20s, something like that?
James: Well, no, she was probably only 14 or 16.
James: Yes, that's right, Jesus had a teenage mother.
James: And that was quite common in biblical times.
James: Girls were often engaged and married about this age.
James: Joseph, who Mary was engaged to, was probably quite a bit older than her,
James: in his 30s or even 40s.
Steve: You know, Joseph and Mary would have been a pretty average couple.
Steve: Both Joseph and Mary were descendants of King David of Israel,
Steve: who ruled Israel about a thousand years before the birth of Jesus.
Steve: Mary was also related to the traditional priest families of Israel through her cousin Elizabeth.
Steve: We don't know what Mary did for a living, if anything, but Joseph was a carpenter.
Steve: This job was seen by some religious leaders as a religious duty rather than as a profession,
Steve: and the job involved being a stonemason as well as working with wood.
James: So Mary is a pretty normal young woman and then one day suddenly an angel appears telling her that she's going to have a child.
James: I think the sentence, Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greetings this might be, is rather a big understatement.
James: The angel Gabriel, who visited Mary, is God's chief messenger angel and only appeared a few times to very important people in the Bible.
James: The first words that Gabriel spoke to Mary, greetings you who are highly favoured, the Lord is with you, have a very important meaning.
James: The term highly favored meant God's holy grace is upon you and was a special blessing from God,
James: something that would never have normally been said to a peasant girl like Mary.
James: You can only imagine that she would have been scared, puzzled and amazed by this.
James: So Gabriel says, do not be afraid.
Steve: The name Jesus or Yeshua, as it would have been said then, was a very common name in Israel at that time.
Steve: If you had gone down a normal street and called out Yeshua to a group of children playing,
Steve: it's more than likely that a couple of them would have come running.
Steve: The name Jesus means Savior and has a very important meaning in the Christmas story.
James: I don't think it's surprising how Mary asked how she was going to have a child.
James: She wasn't married and she was still a virgin.
James: And the answer she received would have amazed her even more.
Steve: In the old Jewish religious stories,
Steve: only the very important people, such as prophets and kings,
Steve: had the Holy Spirit come into them.
Steve: She might not have even believed that it was going to happen,
Steve: so she went to see her cousin Elizabeth.
Steve: who Gabriel said would have a baby, to see if it was really true.
Steve: She did this even before she told Joseph about Gabriel and Jesus.
James: Mary's visit to Elizabeth is another story,
James: and I guess we might find out more about that later on in the calendar.
James: The town that Mary and Joseph lived in, Nazareth, was a pretty small hill town,
James: but it was on a major caravan route, and lots of people travelled through it,
James: and it also had a centre for the temple priests,
James: where they came to pray when they were not on duty at the temple.
Steve: In Jewish law, an engagement like Joseph and Mary's was treated almost like a marriage
Steve: and could only be broken by an official divorce.
Steve: Do you remember that Mary hadn't told Joseph about this yet?
Steve: Well, he found out. We can read about it in the book of Matthew, chapter 1.
Ron: This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.
Ron: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph.
Ron: But before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.
Ron: Because Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace,
Ron: he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
Ron: But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,
Ron: Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife,
Ron: because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
Ron: She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,
Ron: because he will save his people from their sins.
Ron: All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet.
Ron: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son,
Ron: and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God is with us.
Ron: When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him
Ron: and took Mary home as his wife.
Ron: But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son.
Ron: He gave him the name Jesus.
James: It must have been very hard for Mary to tell Joseph
James: and to Joseph it must have sounded like an incredible story.
James: In fact, he probably thought that she'd been unfaithful to him.
Steve: Even though they were engaged and not yet officially married,
Steve: to break up the relationship, Joseph would have had to divorce Mary.
Steve: In fact, adultery during engagement was even punishable by death in some cases.
Steve: But Joseph was a good man and so decided to divorce her quietly, in private,
Steve: even though this would have really damaged his reputation.
Steve: This type of divorce only needed two witnesses rather than going through the Jewish courts
Steve: and no formal grounds needed to be given for the divorce.
Steve: But in a dream, an angel appeared to Joseph and told him to trust Mary.
Steve: The angel also told Joseph that the child should be called Jesus.
James: Having a vision and a dream from God was also very unusual and only happened to a few important people elsewhere in the Bible.
James: So this would have made Joseph pay attention and do what the angel had said.
Music: Mary, did you know that your baby boy will one day walk on water?
Music: Mary, did you know that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?
Music: Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?
Music: This child that you delivered will soon deliver you.
Music: Mary, did you know that your baby boy will give sight to a blind man?
Music: Mary, did you know that your baby boy will calm a storm with his hand?
Music: Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
Music: When you kiss your little baby, you've kissed the face of God.
Music: The blind will see, the deaf will hear, and the dead will live again.
Music: The lame will leap, the dumb will speak the praises of the Lamb.
Music: Mary
Music: Did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Music: Mary, did you know that your baby boy will one day rule the nations?
Music: Did you know that your baby boy is heaven's perfect lamb?
Music: This sleeping child you're holding
Music: Is the great I have
Music: Thank you.
Steve: the words for. The name of the song is Mary Did You Know. Mark is a friend of mine and he gave us
Steve: permission to play that song on the show today. Thank you, Mark, so very much. The background
Steve: music today was by Doug Bolt with Hark the Herald Angels Sing with Angels We Have Heard on High.
Steve: The scripture reading today was Ron from Griddle Cakes Radio. That's a podcast I highly recommend.
Steve: Of course, the theme music was Brian Duncan and the Neil Soul Band with This Christmas.
Steve: Please keep on listening to the LifeSpring Advent Calendar to hear more about Christmas and the Christmas story.
Steve: This has been Day No. 17.
Steve: For James Cooper, I'm Steve Webb.
Steve: God bless you.
Music: Best of all, I know this Christmas brings long after Christmas time.