Day Two

I learned a bit about this lineage. There's this whole tricky deal about a royal line and a priest line, from King David and the Levites. I don't necessarily have an answer for that. In the next paragraph, it goes on to tell about Jesus' virgin conception, which to me rules out that Joseph could be his father.. That never seriously crossed my mind, I just didn't like how I couldn't see the blood line, it was only like a legal connection through his "adopted" father. Still counts. There were a couple different ideas of interpretation about how it's actually talking about Mary's line.. Hard to tell.

This is maybe how I picture the "Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you." Luke 1:35

Actually, just pause and take this in. An angel comes to you and says, you're going to have a baby boy. Like she's 15 or something! Mary, in your womb there is a baby boy. He's going to be great. He will be the son of God. Oh my! That just knocks my socks off. Maybe she didn't want children, or at least wasn't thinking about it yet. I'm picturing this happening to me. I'd be like, what about my plans for my life? They're all gonna stop cuz now I'm pregnant with God. What a weird concept. Weiiird actually! Woah, blowing my mind. She must have been soo careful, not to let anything bad happen to the baby. I sometimes picture Jesus as a baby, or a toddler even, and he falls and scrapes his knee and cries, and Mary looks at him and thinks to herself - that's God! In this little baby form, who can't feed himself, and cries to  me when he gets hurt. How could this little baby be God?
She replies to the angel: "How could this be, since I am a virgin?" I might feel uncomfortable saying that out loud like that. Kind of a private thing I wouldn't go around telling a man. I'd want to know how it worked too though. How is God going to impregnate her. She must have been so confused. And what about Joseph too. I also only realized this recently, how awkward that conversation is when Mary (who is engaged at this point to Joseph) has to tell him that she's pregnant. Poor Joseph! He was probably brokenhearted. All pumped to marry her, plans are half done and everything, is planning his life with her, probably thinking about her all the time, just to realize she's gotten herself pregnant, or so it seems. He must have been so mad, and probably caught off guard, seeing as Mary was a good girl - actually, no where does it say that Mary was any better than anyone else. So I'm going to take that last statement back.
She must have felt something when she became pregnant, when "the power of the Most High overshadowed" her. Just like how Jesus felt the power leave him when that woman was healed by touching his shirt, Mary must have felt something along those lines. A miracle, a transfer of power. You can feel the Holy Spirit. I can feel it sometimes. I feel like every cells breathes in a breath of life, and are just rejuvenated with life. It's a lively, tingling, shivery, airy feeling. Like a cool wind on your neck. It's a beautiful feeling, and I just feel that when he's close. But if he were working some kind of miracle inside me, it must have been such a strong feeling, I think.
In the movie The Nativity Story I watched around Christmas, Mary falls to the ground holding her stomach and gasping and like laughing. Something has happened inside of her. That's crazy! Man!
Another cool part, this is not what I read in Matthew tonight, but it's when Mary goes to visit her cousin who is also miraculously pregnant cuz she's really old, with Jesus' cousin, the baby jumps inside of her stomach. I wonder if that even happens normally to other women, with contact with certain people the baby jumps? Or if that was a miraculous connection in spirit. That's beautiful!
Question: (I have had this same question for months) God chose John the Baptist to be the guy to prepare people for Jesus, right? God chose him, before he was even born. It seems John had no say in whether or not he believed what the Bible (was it even around then?) said or if he wanted to follow God and stuff eh? How does that work?

Gots to go. It's good breaking it down this way, cuz I never ask those questions about actual life and actual feelings and stuff. I kind of just take the text at face value, but you kind of connect the dots and it's this whole real, crazy thing. I love it.