About four or five years ago we had a contest to
pick the favorite Bible character of the people of this parish. We took
Jesus out of it--he plays in a separate league--but the winner of the contest
was Mary, the mother of Jesus.
At the time I was a little surprised at that. I’d
been thinking that maybe Moses or the Apostle Paul or someone like that would
win. But as I think about it, I can understand why Mary is so popular
with us. Those great heroes of the
Bible--the people like Paul, or Peter, or Moses, or Abraham, or any of
those--we admire them and all, but it’s hard for us to really relate to them.
We feel like they’re somehow above us.
We cannot imagine ourselves doing the things they did.
But Mary--Mary is someone we can relate to. Mary
strikes us as an ordinary person. The
Bible certainly does not tell us anything about her that indicates she was
among the elite or among the wealthy. This passage from Luke that we read
today is the first time we learn anything about Mary, and what does it say
about her? Just that she was a virgin
pledged to be married to a man named Joseph. That’s all it says about her
in the first chapter of Matthew, too, when we read about the angel appearing to
Joseph.
We talked last week about how amazing it is that God chose
to have the divine Son, one of the members of the trinity, come to earth in the
form of a helpless human baby. But once that decision was made, God had
another important decision to make. Who
was going to be the baby’s mother? Who
would be the woman who would be responsible for giving birth to and raising the
God the Son in his incarnation on earth?
As we know, it was Mary. But why? Why Mary?
Why, out of all the women in the world, did God choose to have Mary be
the one to give birth to and to raise Jesus, the divine Son of God?
It may well be that Mary’s very ordinariness, at least in
human eyes, was part of the reason. You know, the fact of Jesus’ birth in
a stable in Bethlehem is so ingrained into us that we really cannot imagine
Jesus’ birth happening any other way. But Jesus could have been born in
lots of ways. He could’ve been born to
wealthy parents. He could’ve been born
in a palace. He could have been
surrounded by all kinds of privilege and prestige. In fact, that’s how a
lot of people expected the Savior to be born.
But that was not the way it was, and I don’t think that was
an accident. I don’t think God would’ve left anything about the birth of
the divine Son to chance. The fact that Jesus was raised by ordinary
people gave him an understanding of human beings that he might not have had
otherwise.
Now, maybe you say, wait a
minute. If Jesus is God--God the Son--he should understand everything.
Why would he need to be raised by ordinary people to understand human
beings? And there is truth in that.
But remember, while Jesus was fully divine, he was also fully human.
That means he had to grow and develop and learn, just as all humans
do. It also means his parents would have
an influence on him, just as all parents do.
And the other part of it is
that, to fully understand something, you have to experience it yourself.
I did not know what it was really like to be a lawyer until I became
one. I did not know what it was really
like to be a pastor until I became one. I did not know what it was really
like to be a husband until I became one.
And I’m sure you can think of a lot of things like that in your life. You never really know what something is like
until you experience it. Jesus, as the divine Son of God, clearly did
understand human beings. But I have to
think that actually living as a human being somehow gave him a deeper and
clearer understanding of us than he had before.
So that’s one part of it.
But still, there are an awful lot of ordinary people in the world.
There’s an old quote, attributed to Abraham Lincoln, to the effect that
God must love common people because He made so many of them. So while
saying that Jesus needed to be born to an ordinary woman eliminates some
people, it still does not answer the question:
why Mary? Why, out of all the ordinary women in the world, was
Mary chosen to be the mother of the divine Son of God?
Mary was a woman of great
faith. Look at our reading for today.
Mary is minding her own business one day, and all at once the angel
Gabriel appears to her. And Gabriel says she’s going to have a son, she’s
going to name him Jesus, he’s going to be great and be called the Son of the
Most High, he’ll have the throne of David, and his kingdom will never end.
Suppose that was you.
Suppose you were minding your own business, doing whatever you do, and
this happened to you. What would your reaction be?
I’d probably freak out. I
mean, just having an angel appear to you would be weird enough. And then
to have the angel tell you all these incredible, unbelievable things? I’d
be going, who, me? I’m going to do
what? My son’s going to be who? Are you crazy? Am I crazy? What’s this all about?
And yet, Mary just accepts it.
She stays calm about it. She never
protests. She never doubts. She
never even thinks about refusing. She only asks one question: how will this be?
How will this be. No
doubts that it’s going to happen. No fear about being chosen. No fear about what’s going to happen when
people find out that she’s pregnant. She accepts it all. All she wants to know is how it’s all going
to happen.
That’s incredible faith.
That’s incredible trust. Mary was
fully obedient to God. She was being asked to do something unbelievable,
something frightening, really--to be the mother to the divine Son of God.
And yet, she simply accepted it and trusted that if this was what God
wanted, God would make it all work out somehow.
Mary may have been an ordinary woman in some ways, but she clearly had
an extraordinary faith and trust in God.
And she needed that faith.
In Matthew, we read about how King Herod decided to kill all boys two
years old and younger, in an attempt to kill this “king” he’d heard about.
Mary and Joseph had to take Jesus and go to Egypt. They had to live in a foreign country, where
they probably did not know anyone, probably did not know the language, and
somehow make a living for themselves and their precious baby. And then,
just when they were getting established there, they were told to go back to
Nazareth and start over again. I’m
glossing over that kind of quickly because of lack of time, but read Matthew
Chapter two sometime and think about what it would’ve been like to live that.
And yet, we’re never given even a hint that Mary complained about that or
thought it was unfair of God to allow that to happen. It took incredible faith and trust in God to
do all that Mary and Joseph had to do.
We’re not told much else about
Mary’s role in raising Jesus. We have the story in Luke where Mary and
Joseph lose track of Jesus, only to find him in the temple talking to the
Rabbis. But Mary clearly stays involved in Jesus’ life. In fact, she was the one who prompted Jesus
to do his first miracle, turning water into wine at the wedding feast.
And that’s a remarkable story, too.
They’re at a wedding, the hosts run out of wine, and Mary goes to Jesus
and tells him that. Jesus does not want
to do anything, but he ultimately does.
As I was thinking about that
story, there was something about it that had not occurred to me before.
The reason Jesus gives for not wanting to act is “my time has not yet
come”. But Mary just ignores that and
goes to the servants and tells them to do whatever Jesus says.
Now, this is just speculation,
and you don’t have to agree with it. But what if Jesus saying “my time
has not yet come” was just the human side of Jesus making an excuse?
After all, Jesus knew what was in store for him once he started his ministry. He knew that once he started doing miracles
his life was never going to be the same. He knew that this was something
that was going to lead him down a road that would eventually take him to the
cross and to death. Could it be that,
knowing all this, Jesus was just reluctant to start down that road, and was
trying to put it off as long as he could? Maybe Mary knew that it was, in
fact, time for Jesus to start down that road.
After all, the angel Gabriel had told her who Jesus was and what he was
going to do. Maybe Jesus needed that
push from Mary to get started in his ministry and do what he’d come to earth to
do.
Why was Mary chosen?
Because Mary was an ordinary woman of extraordinary faith. She was
fully obedient to God. She trusted God
completely. She was able to put up with
all kinds of hardships without complaint. She accepted the responsibility
God had given her and lived up to it as well as she could.
I said at the beginning of this
message that we can relate to Mary. And I hope we all can. Because Mary was what most of us are supposed
to be--ordinary people with extraordinary faith. People who are fully
obedient to God. People who trust God
completely. People who don’t complain,
but who accept the responsibility God gives us and live up to it as well as we
can.
And maybe you say, but that’s
not me. Yes, I may be an ordinary person, but I don’t have extraordinary
faith. Well, maybe not. But maybe
you do. Do you think Mary knew she had
extraordinary faith, before all this happened? Maybe, but I doubt
it. I don’t think Mary thought there was
anything special about her. But God saw
something special about her, and God chose her to be the mother of the divine
Son of God.
Maybe you don’t think there’s
anything special about you. But I can tell you this--God sees something
special about you. God sees something special about each one of God’s
children, just like human parents see something special about each of their
children. And God has chosen you to do something, too. It may not be something as incredible as
being the divine Son of God. But it’s
still something special. There is something God has chosen you for,
something that only you can do.
What is it? I don’t know.
Maybe you don’t know. Maybe you’re already doing it. But
here’s my advice: keep your eyes open.
Keep doing what you’re doing, keep living your life, keep trying to serve
God as well as you can. But keep your eyes open. Keep your ears open. And keep your heart open. Ask God to show you what you’re supposed to
do. Ask God to give you chances to serve God. God will hear that kind of prayer. And in due time, God will always respond.
There was something about Mary.
But there’s something about you and me, too. And if we’re open to
it, God will use us in a special way, too.
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