You may remember that this past
winter we had a tournament to choose the favorite person in the Bible of our
parish. The winner was Mary, the mother
of Jesus. So today we’re going to start
a sermon series based on the life of Mary.
We start with the first time we meet Mary in the Bible, when she is
visited by an angel.
Most of us are at least somewhat familiar with this
story. It’s interesting, though, that as
familiar as we are with it, the story only appears in the gospel of Luke. Mark and John don’t deal with the birth of
Jesus at all. Matthew looks at it more
from Joseph’s point of view, and goes on to tell us about how the family had to
be on the run for a while because the government was out to kill Jesus. It’s only in Luke that we read about Mary’s
conversation with the angel Gabriel and how she learned that she was going to
give birth to the savior of the world.
We don’t really know how old Mary was when this
happened. Most people assume that she
was pretty young, probably still a teenager, maybe still in her early
teens. The Bible does not actually say
that—we assume it because the common practice at the time was that girls were
married off at a pretty young age. We
assume, again because of common practices at the time, that Joseph was probably
somewhat older, but we really don’t know that, either. Again, the Bible does not tell us.
We’re not told anything about Mary’s early life. We don’t know if Mary had any brothers or
sisters—it would be unusual if she did not, but the Bible does not tell us. A lot of people seem to assume that Mary’s
family was poor, but the Bible does not tell us that, either. They most likely were not rich—that’s
something that probably would’ve been mentioned, if it was so—but they may have
been middle class. We don’t know
anything about what Mary’s family may have done for a living. We know that Joseph was a carpenter. Assuming he was a good one, he may have been
able to provide fairly well for his family—we don’t know.
Most likely, though, Mary was still living with her
parents at the time the angel Gabriel came to see her. And every time I read this story, I’m struck
by how matter-of-factly Luke tells it.
Try to put yourself in Mary’s place.
You’re minding your own business, doing your daily work, and all of a
sudden, there’s an angel right in front of you.
We don’t know how Gabriel made himself known to Mary, if there was some
sort of heavenly fanfare, if Gabriel just suddenly appeared out of nowhere, if
Gabriel was waiting for Mary as she was walking down a path, or what. Apparently, though Mary recognized that this
was, in fact, an angel she was seeing.
And yet, Mary just seems to accept that. I mean, it seems like you’d be pretty freaked
out about this, does it not? To just
suddenly, with no warning, have this angel there talking to you? But Mary does not seem to be. We’re told that Mary was greatly troubled by
Gabriel’s words, and we’ll come to that in a minute, but she does not seem to
have been at all bothered by actually seeing Gabriel there.
What does that tell us about Mary? For one thing, it tells us that she must have
been pretty brave, right? To suddenly
see an angel and not even flinch? Mary
is clearly someone who is not easily thrown off stride. She’s pretty capable and pretty confident in
her ability to handle stuff.
The first words Gabriel says to her, the ones at which
we’re told that Mary was greatly troubled, are “Greetings, you who are highly
favored! The Lord is with you.”
We’re not told what about that greeting troubled Mary,
but we can guess. She may have wondered
why she would be “highly favored”, what she had ever done to deserve that kind
of greeting. I suspect, though, that
Mary also knew that something more was coming here. She’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. The angel Gabriel would not have just shown
up to pass the time of day. Gabriel must
be giving her a message that God wants her to do something. And of course, he was.
Let’s just think about that for a minute. For Mary, at least, the troubling thing about
seeing an angel was not the presence of the angel itself. The troubling thing was that the angel was
going to want her to do something.
And you know, that would probably be the most troubling
thing for you and me, too. I mean, yes,
I probably would be kind of freaked out if I was sitting at home or in my
office or something and an angel suddenly showed up. But that would not be the scariest thing
about it. The scariest thing about it
would be knowing that God wanted me to do something. And I suspect that might be the scariest
thing for you, too.
But why should that be so scary? If we trust God, why should we be so scared
of doing something that God told us to do?
Well, why was Mary scared of it? We’re not told, but think about it. Mary was young. She was about to start a new life with
Joseph. She thought she knew how her
life was going to go. And now, Gabriel
comes and he’s going to want her to do something. What’s it going to be? What’s it going to mean for me? How hard will it be? Is this going to mess everything up? This whole life that I’m planning with Joseph—is
it going to just be gone? Is my whole
world going to be turned upside down?
I think that would be the scariest thing of all about
having an angel show up. And really,
it’s the scariest thing about really living our faith as Christians. It’s the scariest thing about turning our lives
over to God. If I do what God wants me
to do, well, what’s it going to mean for me?
How hard will it be? Will it mess
up my whole life? This life I have,
which may not be perfect but is fairly good and is something I’m used to and am
comfortable with—is it going to just be gone if I follow God? Is my whole world going to be turned upside
down?
And all these were thoughts Mary may have had before she
even knew what it was the angel wanted her to do. They’re the thoughts we have before we even
know what it is that God wants us to do.
They are troubling. They are
scary. And if we let them, they can stop
us from ever following God and doing what God wants us to do.
They did not stop Mary.
The angel told her what was going to happen. She was going to have a son, Jesus. Jesus would be great and would be called the
son of the Most High. He would get the
throne of David. He would reign over the
house of Jacob forever.
And again, Mary accepts it. Mary does not protest. She does not say, “Who, me? You must have the wrong Mary. There’s another Mary a couple of houses down—that
must be the one you want.” She does not
say, “What? This is crazy. I cannot do this. I’m just a kid. Find somebody else.” The only thing she says is, “How will this be,
since I am a virgin?”
“How will this be.”
No protest, no complaint, not even the slightest hesitation. Not a hint that she might not be willing to
do what the angel said. Just “How will
this be.”
That’s a pretty awesome faith. That’s a faith that says, “If God wants me to
do this, then I’m going to do it. I’m
not going to worry about what’s going to happen to me. I’m not going to worry about how hard it’s
going to be. I’m not going to worry
about what anybody else says or what anybody else thinks. If God wants me to do it, then I’m going to
do it. Period.”
That’s the kind of faith Mary had. That’s the kind of faith you and I are
supposed to have. Do you have it? Do I?
Maybe you do.
Maybe I do. I’m sure a lot of us
have done things we were scared to do. A
lot of us have probably done things just because they were the right thing to
do.
The question is, how far are we willing to go in that
direction? Because it’s not enough to
just do stuff like this once in a while.
God does not say “Follow me when it’s convenient for you.” God does not say, “Follow me every once in a
while, when you can get your courage up.”
God says, “Follow me all the time.
Follow me even when it’s hard.
Follow me even when it turns your whole world upside down.” God says, “Follow me even when you don’t know
where I’m leading you.” God says, “I
don’t want just part of your life. I
want all of your life.”
Mary was willing to give God all of her life. She was willing to follow God even though it
was going to be hard. She was willing to
follow God even when it was going to turn her whole world upside down. She was willing to follow God even when she
did not know where God was going to lead her.
She was willing to give God all of her life.
The result of that was not always smooth. We’ll hear more about that in the future
weeks of this sermon series, and you know some of it already. God did not reward Mary with an easy,
carefree life while she was on earth.
But Mary still did it, and she obviously decided that it was worth it.
It’ll be worth it for us, too. It won’t be easy. We’ll want to resist. We’ll be scared. We won’t want to have our lives upset. And again, I don’t want my life upset any
more than you do. But if we can have the
faith Mary had, if we can follow God even when it’s hard and even when we don’t
know where God’s leading—if we can give God all of our lives—it will be worth
it. God will be with us. And we can be the people God wants us to be,
just like Mary was.
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