The Thrill of Hope - 3 - Hope Surrenders

The Thrill of Hope – 3 – Hope Surrenders

Luke 1:26-38

Introduction

Every year in the month of December, we spend time at Broadway looking at the Christmas account from various angles. It is such a rich story that we could spend countless years pondering its implications. This year we have been looking at the different figures in the nativity set and how the thrill of hope inspired their lives. When you take these set figures out of the nativity and brush them off, you can see the full context of their role in Christmas. This causes their stories to burst with richness, depth, and relevance.

Nowhere is that more true than with Mary, the mother of Jesus. She plays such a pivotal role, such a special role, that many faith groups turn her into something she is not. Luke begins his Gospel like this:

Luke 1:3 – 3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus,

Luke diligently studies the account of Jesus’ life. He says things here that only Mary could have known. So perhaps he sat down with her some 35 years or so after all this happened and asked her to tell him the whole story. Let’s join in that conversation between Luke and Mary. We can do that because Luke recorded it in chapter 1.

Luke 1:26-38 – 26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” 29 But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. 30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 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, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

35 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. 36 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. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.”38 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.

It is far too easy to get so used to this story that we miss the significance of Mary and her life. She labels herself as a ‘virgin.’ That word has two connotations to it: 1) she is a young maiden between 12 and 14 years old; 2) she has had no sexual activity with anyone, including Joseph, her fiancé. She lives in Nazareth, a little town in the region of Galilee of about 1500 people. Small-town life can be pretty challenging when everyone knows your business. The society she lives in is chauvinistic. A woman had to do whatever her husband told her to do, without question. Women were subservient to men. Women were very much looked down upon. Women, like the shepherds we talked about a couple weeks ago, were not considered trustworthy enough to testify in a court of law. To them, the only important thing they did was bear children. She lives in a shame-based culture that focuses in on everyone’s sin. What she does, or doesn’t do, tends to be everyone’s business. Those who think she is guilty will shun her and seek out ways to punish her.

With that background in mind – young teenager, small-town girl, in a society that doesn’t highly value women, focused on shame – think of the significance of what the angel told her. Baby! What God has asked her to do is going to be really challenging. Tonight, let’s look at three aspects of Mary’s life that bring this statue to life.

1. DEGREE OF HER DIFFICULTIES

Social difficulty – we have this idea that everyone was just okay with Mary being pregnant. In her context, they absolutely were not! Two guys sitting on a street corner and Mary walks by. “I hear she’s pregnant. Oh, that’s nice. She has that pregnant girl glow!” Nope. Imagine if a teenage girl came into this church and said she was still a virgin but was pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Would you believe her? Of course not. The penalty for adultery (which is the only logical conclusion one could draw from the circumstance) is stoning to death in the streets.

Physical difficulty – one of the most fascinating aspects of pregnancy (from my un-understanding male perspective) is the physical transformation of a woman’s body over the course of those 40 weeks. God has hardwired the female body to be like Optimus Prime and change around to accommodate the baby. Ladies, you understand the pain and discomfort of childbirth. Imagine having to face that at 13.

Family difficulty – there is no doubt some in her family would have shunned her for this. Even Joseph, her fiancé, planned to secretly divorce her, according to Matthew’s account. She had to have known that, in a shame-based culture such as hers, this was going to happen.

Ultimate difficulty – after enduring all this for the sake of bringing this little boy into the world, 33 years later she will stand at the foot of the cross and helplessly watch him suffer and die at the hands of wicked, evil men. She knew the OT scriptures. She knew what God had said would happen to the Messiah, the Suffering Servant.

TS – yet even with all of that hovering in the background…

2. SENSE OF HER SURRENDER

Do you hear the power of her words in verse 38? 38 And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” Do you see how important her surrender to God’s will is? Without Mary’s surrender here, there would be no first Christmas as we know it. Without that first Christmas, there would be no first Easter. Without the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, without his resurrection from the dead, there is no hope for sinners like us.

The Bible teaches us reality…we have sinned. God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, is holy. He is perfect. He is righteous. And then there’s us. By nature and by choice, we are unholy. Imperfect. Unrighteous. On our own, as the NT letter of Ephesians describes, we are “without hope and without God in the world.” Our sin, our falling short of God’s perfect standard and expectations, has separated us from him. The relationship with God is strained. It is broken. And many of you feel that. You’ve sensed it for some time already. Maybe that’s why you’re here tonight. You feel distant from God and want to get close. Well, I have good news for you! The message of Christmas is that God has come near. There is a reason that this night is ‘O holy night.’ God didn’t write you off. God didn’t condemn you. God came to save you.

And now, because of Jesus’ sinless life and sacrificial death, you can be reconciled to the God who made you, to the God who loves you. You don’t have to feel at a distance anymore. But…none of that goes down unless Mary surrenders to God’s plan for her.

The Lord asks us to do things that don’t always make sense. He commands us to live in ways that are sometimes counterintuitive. We think we know better. We think our ideas make more sense. But they never do. Remember, God is perfect, we aren’t. Whatever it is that He wants to do in your life, there is much at stake in your surrendering, or lack thereof.

What Mary does here is pretty fantastic. But that does not make her worthy of worship or veneration. She is no more special than any one of you who says ‘yes’ to God. What good things would happen in your life tonight and in the days to come if you said ‘yes’ to God? Mary did. And it changed everything.

3. RICHNESS OF HER REWARDS

Saying ‘yes’ to God carried a price tag for Mary. There were risks. There were challenges. There were difficulties. Following God’s will always brings that reality. But there were also unimaginable rewards for her.

Three days after they laid Jesus in the tomb, a group of women were going to the tomb to prepare Jesus’ body for final burial. As they were going, they were wondering who was going to roll the stone away from the entrance to the tomb to let them in. As they arrived, they discovered that the stone had already been rolled away and there was an angel there. “He is not here. He is risen. He is alive!” Mary was the first person to hear such great news.

The last reference we have to Mary is in Acts 1:14. Jesus has ascended into Heaven and the early followers of Jesus are assembled in an upper room on the Day of Pentecost. She was there that day when the Holy Spirit fell on the apostles. She was there when 3000 people repented of their sin and were baptized into Christ…in response to a sermon about her son.

Conclusion

On November 25, 2001, Jonathan Michael Spann, a CIA agent, was killed during a prison uprising in Afghanistan. He was the first American to be killed in combat during the US invasion of Afghanistan. In the days following his tragic death, his father was interviewed on the Today Show. He welled up in pride as he quoted his son as to why he was leaving the military to join in the dangerous work of the CIA. He is quoted as saying, “Somebody has to do what no one else will do.”

Mary’s reward was that she knew her son, God’s Son, did…not what no one else WOULD do, but what no one else COULD do. He alone is the one who could stand in our place before God. He alone is the one who could go to the cross. He alone is the one who could forgive your sin. He alone is the one who can give you the thrill of hope.

We first meet Mary when she hears she will have a baby. Then we see her on that first Christmas night. We cannot join Mary there – there is a span of 2000 years that separate us. We can’t join Mary at the empty tomb, nor can we join her in the upper room on the Day of Pentecost. But we can enter into the experience with Mary…we can join her in trusting in God’s Son, in worshiping God’s Son.