Did you notice in yesterday’s post who delivered the message to Daniel? The angel, Gabriel, that’s who.

You may remember him from Christmas nativity pageants as the one who speaks to Mary, because he did. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Let’s take it back a few steps; back into the Old Testament first.

Puzzle Piece 6: Mother Mary

Today’s puzzle piece starts with a very famous passage in Isaiah:

Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel.

I find it interesting that even though Isaiah doesn’t appear particularly happy here, he is talking to the house of David, which is the line of Judah (which was puzzle piece #2). Despite the tone, he is saying to the line of Judah that a sign will come from them that is of significant note.

The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son.

This rings a bell, right?

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee,to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.  The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.”

I feel like I don’t even have to fill in the blanks for you, dear reader… and at this point, I want to start putting a few pieces of the puzzle together, don’t you?

We’ve got the line of Judah again, which links to Eve’s offspring through the words of Balaam. That’s clues #1,#2, #3 and #6 all being pieced together to create a significant chunk of the nativity puzzle image.

Puzzle piece #4 was John the Baptist and Puzzle piece #5 included this ‘Anointed One’ who was killed just prior to the destruction of the temple. If you know anything much about the historicity of Jesus, you should be able to confidently piece those two bits together.

Can we link them all together yet? Maybe. Maybe not.

Personally I find a bit of a link in that the angel, Gabriel gave Daniel the prophecy which was piece #5. For me it’s as though Gabriel is the supernatural messenger connecting the two points in time in our puzzle pieces #5 and #6.

But perhaps it still feels loose to you and the pieces of the puzzle need a bit more binding together.

I’ve got one last piece tomorrow.

Yours putting pieces in place,

Alison