Tuesday, December 16, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Mark 16, Luke 1-2
Devotional Thought
Mark opens his Gospel’s final chapter in a garden tomb before sunrise, where three women—Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome—carry spices to anoint a body already three days dead. They worry aloud about the stone, that great sealed weight between them and their errand of love. But the stone is rolled back, a young man in a white robe sits where the body should be, and the first Easter sermon is preached to women whose hands were full of burial spices: “He is risen; he is not here.” Mark tells us they fled trembling and amazed, saying nothing to any man, for they were afraid. Then Luke takes up the same story from the other end, beginning not at the tomb but in the temple, where an old priest named Zacharias burns incense and an angel tells him his barren wife Elisabeth will bear a son. Luke gives us Mary of Nazareth, a young woman in an obscure town, hearing Gabriel’s impossible word and answering, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.” He gives us the journey to the hill country, the Magnificat sung in Elisabeth’s doorway, the birth in Bethlehem, the shepherds in the fields by night, the angels’ chorus, and Simeon in the temple holding the Christ child and asking to depart in peace.
These are the chapters we read in December, and they meet us where we live: in the ordinary, interrupted by the holy. Zacharias was simply doing his rotation of priestly duty when the angel came. Mary was simply a betrothed girl in Nazareth. The shepherds were simply watching sheep. None of them had arranged a mountaintop; God came to them at the incense altar, in a Galilean village, on a night shift in a field. That is the pattern of the Incarnation itself—the eternal Word entering a feeding trough in a small occupied province, announced first to women at a tomb and to shepherds on a hillside, not to the powerful.
Notice, too, how these readings hold joy and fear in the same hand. Zacharias is struck dumb for doubting. Mary is troubled at the angel’s greeting. The shepherds are sore afraid. The women at the tomb flee trembling. None of them respond with tidy composure, and God does not require it. He speaks, and they tremble, and He keeps speaking until trembling becomes singing—Mary’s Magnificat, the angels’ “Glory to God in the highest,” Zacharias’ restored tongue blessing the Lord.
For us in mid-December, with lists and wrapping paper and the year’s last obligations pressing in, Mark 16 and Luke 1-2 say something steadying: God works in the middle of ordinary days and ordinary duties. The same Lord who rolled away the stone first lay in a manger. The same Spirit who overshadowed Mary raised Jesus from the dead. Whatever weight sits between you and hope this week, it is not heavier than that stone.
Reflection
- The women came to the tomb expecting death and found resurrection; Zacharias served at the altar expecting routine and found an angel. Where in your ordinary routine this week might God be speaking, and are you listening?
- Mary answered Gabriel with surrender before she understood the cost. What is God asking you to receive or obey this Advent season before you can see how it will unfold?
Prayer
Lord God, we come to You as Zacharias came to the altar and as Mary received the angel’s word—ordinary people in ordinary places, met by Your extraordinary grace. Thank You for rolling away the stone and for laying Your Son in a manger. Quiet our fearful hearts as You quieted the shepherds; let trembling become singing in us. Give us Mary’s willing spirit and Elisabeth’s joyful recognition, that we might magnify You in these December days. Restore our tongues to bless You, and let us depart in peace, for our eyes have seen Your salvation. In the name of Jesus, risen and reigning, Amen.