Kelly - Luke 1

I hadn't wanted to be the first to post - but I'm a bit of a morning person, and will most likely be reading in the a.m....so I'll go ahead and take a stab.

My impressions of this chapter today were first and foremost - that it's got a ton of stuff in it. I seemed to come up with a new question or impression with almost every sentence. The most striking are:
Theophilus in v. 3...."lover of God" - I like the way that the prelude to the chapter equates love of God with curiousity and need for explanation...it relates very strongly to my own faith. I feel closest to God when I am questioning God or seeking to understand who/what/where/when/ and WHY.

Mary's initial reaction to Gabriel's greeting in v. 29 (Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be). I've somehow managed to glaze over those words the other times I've read this chapter - and I'm delighted to find that they're here. I'm used to thinking about her later words, and her song - and her reputation of willingly accepting God's plan for her life - the idealized version we've all seen so many times. I like the fact that she began by being greatly troubled - and suspect that the road from "greatly troubled" to "may it be to me as you have said" was not as smooth as these verses seem to imply. In my life, the call of God is generally troubling - God keeps asking me to move beyond where I'm comfortable and to try the new (even seems to have pulled me into this strange thing called the ELCA)....And for the ways in which her life and identity were completely changed and her well-being and security seriously threatened ....I think "greatly troubled" is a huge understatement.