Mary
Christmas
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel
to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to
be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared
to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!” Confused and
disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. “Don’t be afraid,
Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! You will
conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very
great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him
the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his
Kingdom will never end!”
Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.” The
angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most
High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be
called the Son of God. What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant
in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son
and is now in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.” Mary
responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come
true.” And then the angel left her. (Luke 1:26-38)
Here’s what we know about Mary: her father’s name was Eli; she had a sister named Salome; she had a relative named Elizabeth; she’s young; she’s poor; she’s devout; and she’s head-over-heels in love. Mary is a teenager in love. She may have been as young as 12 or 13, or, perhaps, as old as 18 or 19. But if we said 15, let’s say for example, we probably wouldn’t be too far off.
When the story opens, Mary is “pledged” to Joseph. That meant that she said “Yes” when Joseph asked, and was probably very busy preparing for the wedding. But, like most engagements, there’s some time between the “pledge” and the wedding itself, maybe as much as six months or more. In that culture, and during that period of time, the couple was considered to be “married,” and were called husband and wife, but they didn’t live or sleep together. And during this time, Mary probably lived with her parents, and Joseph with his. Then, after the wedding feast, they’d live together as husband and wife and do what husbands and wives do.
Like teenagers everywhere, she probably had a hard time thinking of just about anything else. And if the wedding was four or five months away, her thoughts were probably centered on the same things brides think about today – the guest list, the decorations, the food, the music, what she’ll wear and where they’ll put the people up who come in from out-of-town. Mary had likely never been happier. This was probably the most exciting time of her life. And then God breaks in. He’s about to ask an unknown teenage girl to take part in something that’s so shocking that it borders on the absurd. What God asks Mary to do will change her life . . . forever.
Gone are the happy dreams of a beautiful wedding; gone are the days of sweet anticipation; gone are the carefully thought out plans for the wedding feast; gone are the hopes for “the most beautiful wedding to the most wonderful man who ever lived;” gone are all her girlish hopes of a quiet life in the home she would personally decorate. She’ll be married alright, but not before rumors spread throughout the countryside. There’ll be a wedding feast, too, but not the way she’d planned. She’ll have a home, and it’ll be filled with children, but over her family will rest an ever-present dark cloud of suspicion.
So, there’s Mary, just minding her own business and, perhaps, doing some chores around her parent’s house. Maybe it’s 2:00 p.m. or so, and “Dreamboat” is coming over tonight for dinner. She’s excited to see her JoJo; she’s excited because she wants to talk over her newest idea for the wedding feast, and something about a new dress that she thinks he’s just going to love. In her mind, she’s ticking off the things she wants to talk to him about – so many details and so little time. Tonight the two of them will probably take a romantic walk along the road leading to Capernaum. Mary can hardly wait to start getting ready for Joseph’s arrival. Lost in thought, she steps outside to fetch some water from the well and there he is, standing by the olive tree in the back yard. She wouldn’t have noticed him at all except that she bumped into him. She glanced up at him, started to say, “Excuse me,” when something made her hesitate. It wasn’t fear exactly, more like surprise or puzzlement. Who’s this stranger, and why is he standing in my backyard?
Then he spoke and she got spooked: “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!” Mary doesn’t know what to make of it. It’d be as if someone you’d never seen before came up to you and said, “Good news. This is your lucky day. God has chosen you for a special blessing.” How do you respond to that? Understandably, Mary is just a little troubled. And for good reason. She’s 15, about to be married, and dreaming about her future husband. Now some stranger steps into her life and says something so bizarre she could hardly believe what she heard. No wonder she was disturbed.
But that’s not the half of it. Without a pause, Gabriel proceeds to tell her something that completely blows her mind. She’s going to have a baby, but not just any baby. She’s going to give birth to the Son of God. So, how’s that for a conversation starter? What do you say to that? Remember, you’re 15, it’s 2:00 in the afternoon, you’re minding your own business on the way to the well, thinking about Mr. Dreamy and planning your wedding. Your life couldn’t be more perfect. Now, some stranger tells you the most preposterous-sounding thing you’ve ever heard in your life. I mean, what do you do? Do you argue? Do you ask for clarification? Do you call 911? Do you say, “Who are you and how’d you get in my yard?” Do you laugh out loud?
You couldn’t really blame her for any of those responses. But she passes over all the hard stuff, cuts right to the chase and asks a technical question: “But how can this happen? I’m a virgin.” Good question. She’s engaged, but not married, and she hasn’t slept with a man. So, how can she become pregnant and bear a son? In other words, she believed but needed a little clarification from what she’d learned in her biology class. Now that’s faith. That’s believing the impossible. That’s trusting God when the “facts” argue against it.
In the history of the church, Mary has generally been portrayed as a kind of misty, other-worldly figure. For instance, if you look at some of the great paintings of Mary, they make her look so peaceful and beatific that you almost forget she was a real person. That’s a shame, because Luke makes it clear that she was very real, with very real doubts, very real questions and a very real faith. Nowhere is this seen with more clarity than when Mary responds, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” Then the guy disappears.
Without exaggeration, Mary’s response is one of the greatest testaments of faith in the entire Bible. Unfortunately, we’ve read it so often that we forget how great it really is. But remember, it’s 2:00 in the afternoon, you’re 15 years old and you’re head-over-heels in love. Your mom’s just asked you to fetch some water to do the laundry and you’re on your way to the well. Then, you run into a man you’ve never seen before and he tells you that you’re going to get pregnant and give birth to the Son of God. And when you ask how, he says, “Don’t worry about it. The Holy Spirit will cover you like a cloud and you’ll end up pregnant. That’s all there is to it.” What do you say to that?
Well, Mary said, “Yes.” Yes to God. Yes to the impossible. Yes to the plan of God. Did her heart skip a beat when she said “Yes?” What do you think? There she is, teen head tilted high, her hands trembling just a bit, wide-eyed, nervous, open-mouthed, questioning but not afraid, wondering but not terrified, unsure but not uncertain. And when the angel said, “Nothing is impossible with God,” Mary takes a deep breath and says, May everything you have said about me come true.” And with those words Christmas came to the world.
But from that moment on, she’ll face the incredulity of friends who’ll laugh at her virgin “story,” the scurrilous gossip of neighbors who’ll gloat about Joseph getting “lucky,” and the whispers of teenage promiscuity that have continued for 2,000 years. Mary knew – or would soon realize – that saying “Yes” to God meant losing her reputation and with it her dreams of a quiet, happy life in Nazareth. And what about Joseph? What will he be thinking? Will he blow up and walk out on her? Will he humiliate her publicly? Worse yet, “Will he divorce me?” And as it turns out, Mary had good reason to worry about Joseph because although he didn’t blow up or try humiliating her, he was intent on divorcing her. Only an angel’s intervention kept that from happening. By saying “Yes,” she risked losing the man she loved. Her entire future was literally on the line.
And all these things were just the beginning. Mary couldn’t know what the future would hold. But before it was all over, she’d experience heartache, opposition, slander, confusion, anguish, despair and loneliness. After Joseph’s death, she’d be left a single mom with the responsibility of raising a bunch of kids on a carpenter’s pension. And in the end, she’d face the greatest pain a mother can endure when she would watch her son being murdered on a Roman cross. Mary couldn’t have known all those things. But if she had, would she have said “Yes” to God? Maybe it’s better not knowing what the future holds sometimes. Mary didn’t know the price of saying “Yes,” but having made her decision she never looked back. When God said, “Are you willing to believe the impossible?,” Mary said, “Yes.” And without that “Yes,” there’d be no Christmas.
I have no doubt that Mary at least once, or maybe a million times, asked, “Why me?” Why would God choose an obscure peasant girl in some out-of-the-way village as the chosen vessel to bring his son into the world? There are many answers that have nothing to do with Mary, but there’s one answer that has everything to do with her: God chose Mary because he trusted her. He knew she was willing to believe the impossible. He also knew she was willing to pay the price for that belief. He knew she was willing to bear a child out of wedlock in order to bring God’s Son into the world.
Saying “Yes” burdened her with 33 years of turmoil and heartache. But saying “Yes” gave her the inexpressible joy of being the mother of the Son of God, including its reward – because among women there has never been anyone greater. I think that if, somehow, Mary could be here today and we could ask her, “Was it worth it?,” she’d once again say, “Yes.” And to all believers she stands as a model of openness to great possibilities, and a model of faith in the face of many natural doubts.
“Nothing is impossible with God.” That’s as true today as it was 2,000 years ago. But you have to say “Yes,” or the impossible will never happen. And that ought to encourage us at this season of the year, because the Christmas story is filled with miracles from beginning to end. The Wise Men see a miraculous star in the sky and travel to Bethlehem. The angels sing to the shepherds. A virgin gets pregnant. A wicked king kills all the babies in Bethlehem … except the one he most wanted. The baby and his parents are warned in a dream of the king’s evil plan and escape to Egypt just in the nick of time. There are miracles galore in the Christmas story.
Christmas and miracles. That’s good news for all of us, and very good news for some of us. Some of us are carrying heavy burdens today. For some, Christmas will be very lonely this year. Some are facing a health and/or financial crisis that looks hopeless right now. Some are out of work and don’t have a single lead on a good job. Some are looking at a marriage that seems worse than hopeless. Some are estranged from members of their own family. Some have children who are far away from God. Some feel lonely and far away from God themselves. Who wouldn’t these COVID days? And the list goes on and on. But all these things have this one thing in common: they seem impossible to solve by human means. And for the most part they are. After all, if human means could have solved those problems, they’d have probably been solved a long time ago. But Christmas is about miracles. They happened 2,000 years ago, and they can still happen today.
So, what is it that God wants from us? Total comprehension about the future before we will trust him? No. That’s impossible. A perfect knowledge of the Bible? No. If that were the case, then there would be no need for trust. Spiritual giants on the way to sainthood? No, there’s not a whole lot of giants out there. So what does God want from us? The same thing he wanted from Mary. Simple faith that he will keep his word in unlikely and unexpected ways. So, this Christmas, rather than asking for more faith, maybe we should pray for the courage to exercise the faith we have. To make us more like Mary – willing to believe in spite of our doubts.
Mary Christmas,
Randy
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