Mary

That was so fun wasn’t it, I love this time on Christmas Eve when we have the kids come up and get to listen to a story that points them to Jesus for the night. Good evening everyone, I hope that you have been encouraged so far by the worship time this evening. As a church we have been in a series called the Emotions of Christmas. It has been a fun time for us to walk through the Christmas story looking at the all of the emotions that various people who were active in the Christmas story would have experienced. This evening Im going to just give us all a brief reminder of what Mary would have experienced in the first century when she was pregnant with Jesus.

So, Im going to read Scripture to you and I want to encourage you to read along in your own Bible. We will be in the first couple of chapters of Luke and Matthew , so you can go ahead and turn to those places and hold your Bible open as we get ready to read through. We will start off with

Luke 1:26–56 (ESV)

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her. In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.” And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.

Then, really the first thing we need to know is…

Who is Mary?

She is a young lady that is from Nazareth. She is engaged to a man named Joseph and he is descendant of David. So there is a couple of things you should know about Mary, and maybe you already know them. In that time period an engagement was a bit more than what we think of, as a matter of fact they would have already been called husband and wife, they just didn’t live together yet. Also, in that culture Jewish women married very young, and so it is likely that she is a teenager at this point. Maybe 14-16 years old. Something else you should know is that the Jewish community would not exactly approve of people like Mary and Joseph. They were poor and they lived in a place that allowed for constant contact with Gentiles. This made them not “Kosher” to the “real” Jews. As a matter of fact the Jewish community actually despised people from Nazareth. We read later that they actually say “Nothing good comes from Nazareth”. However, if God chose Mary then our response should be, what can I learn about God from Mary. And what must Mary be feeling through all of this. That leads us into our look at Mary this evening…First we see…

Mary’s Surprise

Mary was surprised! Follow the story here… She is just a young lady that is engaged to a carpenter, and for some reason this angel has just showed up and said she is favored and the Lord is with her…from her perspective she’s a nobody, why would someone greet her with the term “O favored one”? But she doesn’t have too much time to think about that, because the angel kept talking… as we look at how startled Mary was we are able to see that Mary was humble and honest. We see that she was just a normal girl. Actually, she was less than a normal girl because of where she was and what her socio-economic status was. There was nothing unique about her, at least from her eyes. However many theologians and others will claim that she was somehow unique. If this was true, if she was so good compared to others in her own eyes, then her response likely would have been something like “Well, it’s about time…Ive been waiting for this.” But that wasn’t her response…this was all a surprise to her and she didn’t understand exactly what was happening. We see in vs. 29 that she was trying to figure out what was happening. She was scared and the angel tells her to calm down. Eventually the angel tells her about her cousin Elizabeth. You see Mary is scared, confused, surprised, she is going through a huge range of emotions as she is trying to process everything that this angel has just told her. Oh, by they way, you should know that God has been silent for 400 years as far as the spoken word to prophets. This is the first time Mary would have heard about God speaking to anyone in her lifetime. That adds a whole other level of fear to this situation. Now think about what the angel has just told Mary…Gabriel has just told Mary that she will be the mother of the Messiah and she will name him Jesus. Mary receives the message that Jesus will be fully man being born through her, and that he is fully Divine as the Son of the most high God.

Now we can see and understand Mary’s struggle and we can see that our struggle from this week is nothing compared to what Mary was experiencing in this moment. As we continue through he story though we see that Mary has a choice to make. Either she ignores what this angel says and walks away and fights with God about this, or she surrenders and follows God’s leading. The second option is the option she took. She took that option immediately, there is no record of her arguing with God about this and trying to talk him out of it, but she simply responded with, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” After Mary’s surprise we are able to see…

Mary’s Surrender

You see, Mary accepted what would happen but she didn’t know how it would happen. This proves her acceptance of God’s word. When she questioned Gabriel saying, “How can this be” she was not denying God, but she was showing that she understands and is surrendering to this, but doesn’t understand how this works. Isn’t that the question of all of us ask as we surrender to God every day? God, I know you are in control, but I don’t know how you’re going to deal with this… I love what Warren Wiersbe says about Mary here, “Mary’s believing response was to surrender herself to God as His willing servant. She experienced the grace of God (Luke 1:30) and believed the Word of God, and therefore she could be used by the Spirit to accomplish the will of God. A “handmaid” was the lowest kind of female servant, which shows how much Mary trusted God. She belonged totally to the Lord, body (Luke 1:38), soul (Luke 1:46), and spirit (Luke 1:47). What an example for us to follow! (Rom. 12:1–2)”

Later, starting in vs. 46 we are able to see

Mary’s Joy

Mary has a song in her spirit that just has to come out. She has hidden the Word of the Lord in her heart and that has led to surrender Surrender allows her to experience true joy as she recalls what God has done for her. Yeah, she still has to deal with Jospeh and the others as they find out she is pregnant. She still has to face the world tomorrow, but right now she is able to experience the joy of the Lord in her life to the point of a song that is coming out of her. Her biggest desire through this song is to glorify God and not herself. Look how many times she says, “He has”. Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about 3 months, about the time John the Baptist was born, and then she went home and that is where we pick up the story in

Matthew 1:18–25 (ESV)

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

As we read this passage we are reminded of the culture that Mary lives in. You see, she has to go home and face everyone that knows she in engaged to Joseph. She has to go home and face Joseph and attempt to tell him that she has not been unfaithful, but that the child she is carrying is actually the Messiah. This is likely not an easy conversation that Mary has and there are likely many who do not believe her. For Mary, Surrender to God meant doing uncomfortable things. Let’s go back over to Luke and see what will happen to Mary

Luke 2:1–7 (ESV)

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

later the angels came to the Shepherds and told them about Jesus.

Luke 2:16–19 (ESV)

And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.

Mary and Joseph head over to Bethlehem and next she will give birth to Jesus and lay him in a manger and the shepherds will come and tell her all about what the angels had told them, and all about the things that had been happening in that moment. Then look at what Mary did…vs. 19 tells us that Mary treasured these things and pondered them in her heart. What Mary did is more than just remember these words. You see what Mary is doing is sitting there thinking through this last year of her life “pondering” or trying to figure out what it all means. She doesn’t fully understand. She started this story being confused with what the angel of the Lord said, and now she ends this part of the story still trying to put everything together and figure out how all of this works. However, even as she is trying to figure it all out and understand why she was chosen for this task, she is fully surrendered to God and God’s leading because that is what gives her joy.

Mary is confused, but remains faithful to God in her confusion. Sometimes in life we are going to be hit with situations that are confusing. There have been times when I have been utterly confused about what God is doing. As a matter of fact my family and I had no idea what was going to happen and where we were going to be going after I graduated from seminary, but we knew God was doing something. The option we had is to try and deal with it ourselves (which at times I definitely did), or to trust that God had a plan. The option Mary had was to run away and try to ignore God, or to trust God had a plan. Mary was surprised by God, and that surprise led to her surrender which gave her joy. So, tomorrow is Christmas…the day that we have chosen to celebrate the birth of Christ. My question to you is are you going to let the confusing things that happen in life push you away from God, or will you focus on God during the confusing moments of life…thats what we saw Mary do, and if we can learn anything from Mary, we need to learn to take our confusion…take our fear…take our emotions to God, and not ourselves. This evening, let me encourage you to take control of your emotions, whatever they are, and use them to lead you to worship Jesus, and not self. If you are seeking joy this season…follow Mary’s example and surrender to the Lord allowing his joy to fill you up, like only God can.

Let’s Pray (pray in gratitude for Jesus’ birth and for conviction of any times that we allow our emotions to lead us away from the Lord instead of to the Lord.)