Mary's joy

Christmas preparation

I just love watching children at Christmas time. It starts with the countdown.

Today of course there is only 12 days till Christmas!

As the day gets closer, the anticipation grows. And then on the day - it’s up early as they look at their presents ready to be opened.

Their faces are beaming for the simple fact that it is Christmas!

But then there is a flip side to all this - that is, the parents.

Now don’t get me wrong, as a parent, there is still lots of joy, but it’s a bit different.

You see, as a parent, on top of the joy, you’ve got stress!

That’s right, Christmas day can actually be quite a tricky day.

First there is all of the logistics. It starts with the planning with the extended family. Where are we going to meet? Who’s bringing the ham? And the salad? And the nibbles?

There’s also the dilemma of buying presents for people when you have no idea what to get them.

And of course, we’ve got the difficult family relations. It might be a full blown dispute, or perhaps more likely, it’s that awkwardness of that issue that no body quite wants to talk about but everyone knows is there.

You see, as an adult, we have this way of complicating things.

Now what I want to think about this morning is how can we strip back all of this complexity and re-gain the simple joy of knowing that Jesus is all we need.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to try and pretend that those other complexities aren’t there. Of course they will be. You will still need to buy presents, arrange family Christmas arrangements and deal with the awkward relationships in your family.

But rather than those things drowning out the joy, what if we elevate the simple joy of Christmas above it all.

What if we look at the kids who let the excitement of it all outweigh any negatives of the day?

Mary

Well, there is one person in the Christmas story that I think really captures this simple joy that I’m talking about - and that is, Mary.

Now, we don’t always give a lot of consideration to Mary - particularly in a protestant tradition where we want to move away from the veneration of Mary that we see in other traditions.

But as we look at scripture, there are some amazing things that we can learn from her.

Who is she?

So let’s start with some of the basic information.

Firstly her age (actually the kids in their skit addressed this one!). Truth be told, we’re not really sure of her age as the Bible never mentions it, therefore we’re only really speculating based on the traditional Jewish customs. Based on this, however, she was probably still a teenager.

Now, back in Luke 1:27, she’s described as “a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph”.

It is worth pointing out that while we might think of this like being engaged in our culture, the reality is, the pledge taken was much more binding in that culture compared with ours.

The angel’s message

Now the fact she is a virgin, which would have been expected from a good Jewish girl before the consummation of the marriage, makes the message of the angel that starts at verse 28, all the more confronting.

In fact, we find that just the greeting in verse 28 is enough to make her troubled. We’re even told that she’s wondering what kind of greeting this might be.

You can see at this point that those stresses are starting to build.

Well, the angel tells her not be be afraid, but then drops a bomb shell - you’re going to have a baby!

Actually, that’s only the start of her mind blowing news.

Let me read the exactly what the angel says as recorded in Luke’s gospel (Luke 1:31-33): You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants for ever; his kingdom will never end”.

Mary’s response

I’m pretty sure that most people at this point would probably be stammering for words as their brain tries to digest what was just said.

Mary is stuck on the first bit about the fact that she is going to have a child, because that’s kind of impossible when you’re still a virgin.

Well, I’m not quite sure how much at this point she’s taken in with regards to the fact that she has just been told that this child is going to be identified with God most high, and that he will have a throne for all of eternity. After all, how could she start to comprehend what that might possibly mean.

But here we start to see one of the main points I want to make today. And that is, while Mary couldn’t possibly fully understand it, and while this must have been very anxiety provoking - there is a simplicity to Mary’s response: “I am the Lord’s servant… may your word to me be fulfilled.”

Visiting Elizabeth

Well, I’m going to get to the passage we call “Mary’s Song”, or “Magnificat” as it’s sometimes called. But before I do, Luke’s gospel gives us another little interesting snippet, when she visits her cousin Elizabeth.

Now I’m not going to recount Elizabeth’s experience (you can read the first bit of Luke 1 if you want her back story), but she also is having a baby, and when Mary walks in, she tells Mary that her unborn baby just leaped for joy.

Something quite profound is happening. You see, we’re actually told that Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit, and consequently she is having great insight into what is going on. Elizabeth then loudly exclaims that Mary’s unborn child is someone special. So much so, that she even calls him Lord.

Mary’s reaction

Now, here’s the thing. Mary still wouldn’t quite realise what is going on. Sure she knows it’s something special. But she certainly wouldn’t be able to write a theology essay on the nature of Jesus.

There must be so many unanswered questions running around in her head.

So what does she do? Well, we get some amazing words from her that we usually refer to as a song.

And I just want to briefly consider a few aspects of this song, because it is in this that we are going to see the simple joy that I want to highlight this morning.

Mary’s song

You see, despite understanding very little, she opens with her soul glorifying the Lord.

Her spirit rejoices in God her Saviour.

And at the end of the day, this is the simple joy that Mary demonstrates.

And it’s very similar to the simple joy we see in children.

It’s the simple joy that says, you know what, I don’t understand, but something amazing is happening and I’m just going to take joy in that simple fact.

As the song continues, Mary reflects on the irony of her, just a humble person with no real claim to fame (at this point), and yet the same God who has power over everything, who brings world rulers down, this same God has blessed her in such a way.

But all of this just makes her spirit rejoice in God her Saviour.

Simple Joy

Now I could spend a long time exploring this song, but that’s actually not my intention.

Rather, let’s just think about how we can experience this simple joy.

Humble

Well, I’m going to suggest two things.

The first relates to the humility that Mary shows.

You see, Mary recognises that she has done nothing to deserve this honour. And she also recognises that it’s not her that is going to make anything better out of this situation.

So I want to suggest that the first step in recovering this simple joy is being humble. Recognising that what you have is because of God. That getting through the next tough period of your life is not going to be based on how good you are, but on how good God is.

You know, I spoke about kids being the model for us, and in some ways, I think it’s because they are still dependent on others. They don’t have this thought that maybe they can sort everything out.

But as we grow up, we gain this fanciful notion that it all depends on me.

It’s as we develop humility that we can begin to reclaim this simple joy. The joy of knowing that God loves you.

God focussed

But the second idea, and it should flow from the first, is that we should become focussed on God.

And that’s what Mary does. By taking herself out of the equation, she can just look to God as the one who has all things in control.

You see, she doesn’t understand it all. But by recognising that firstly, she’s not the one in control, and secondly, that God is, she can just allow her spirit to overflow with joy.

Our problem is that we want to understand everything.

We want to know why God does things, and what method he uses, and when he’s going to do things.

What if, instead of worrying about all of these issues, we just let God be God? Perhaps we might just end up with a whole lot more joy and a whole lot less stress.

Conclusion

This is not a call to just let go of everything and not do anything with some fanicul notion that God will do it all. I do recognise that we have to work hard and be diligent in planning and so forth.

But we can do this with humility. We can plan and implement those plans, knowing that God is working through us.

There will be stress in your life. Stress is not always a bad thing. But with humility and a focus on God, we can begin to reclaim the joy of knowing that God is with us.

And this is what Christmas is about. It’s about the fact that God has chosen to condescend himself. To come to earth and to save us.

Mary did not fully understand everything, but she understood enough to be filled with joy at the fact that God saves.

Let’s recapture that joy this Christmas.

Let me pray...