Mary's Faith

This is the message given on Sunday morning, December 13, 2020, in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  The Bible verses used are Luke 1:26-38.

It sounds like the angel Gabriel was pretty busy about this time two thousand years ago.  About six months before our reading for today, Gabriel visited Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, to tell him he was going to have a son and he should name that son John.  Now, Gabriel shows up again.  This time, Gabriel visits Mary, the earthly mother of Jesus.

            We don’t know all that much about Mary, really.  In fact, a lot of what we think we know is actually assumptions and guesses.  We know that she was a virgin, but that’s about it.  We assume that she had no particular status because the Bible says nothing about her having one, and usually the Bible does makes reference to a title or to wealth or something like that if they exist.  We assume that she was young, partly because women tended to marry young at that time and partly because she outlived Jesus.  On the other hand, she was a cousin of Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, whose husband had considered her too old to have children.

            The fact that the Bible gives us no particular information about Mary tells us that she was considered to be nobody special.  In fact, after Jesus started his ministry, one of the things his critics often said was, “Is this not Mary’s son?”  It’s as if Jesus could not possibly be anybody special if he was just Mary’s son.  Even the name “Mary” was pretty common.  The gospels alone give us several different women named Mary who played a part in Jesus’ life.

            We’ve talked before about how God often asks us to do things that take us out of our comfort zones.  To say Mary was being taken out of her comfort zone, though, is to really minimize what she was going through when Gabriel came to her.

            Think of all the things that had to be going through Mary’s mind when all this happened.  Think of the roller-coaster of emotions she must have felt.  I mean, here Mary is.  As far as we can tell, it’s just an ordinary day, a day like every other day.  Mary is doing her daily chores, doing whatever she did on an ordinary day.  And all of a sudden, the angel Gabriel shows up. 

And apparently, Mary is really scared at seeing him.  I say that because the first thing Gabriel says after greeting her is “Do not be afraid.”  But his greeting before saying that was odd, or at least it seemed like it to Mary.  What Gabriel said was, “Greetings you who are highly favored!  The Lord is with you.”  

We’re told Mary really had no idea what that meant.  She probably wondered, “Why would I be highly favored?  I’m nobody special.  What’s that all about?”  Then, though, Gabriel confirms it, saying “you have found favor with God.”

So far, so good.  Then, though, Gabriel hits her with what she’s going to do.  Gabriel says, “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 the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”

            Mary still does not understand.  In fact, she’s probably totally confused by now.  I think anyone would be.  Her mind was probably reeling.  She’s being told all this stuff that’s going to happen to her, stuff she cannot possibly understand.  The thing is, too, that Mary is really not given a choice here, or at least it does not sound like it.  Gabriel does not ask her whether she’ll agree to have these things happen to her.  Gabriel does not ask if Mary wants these things to happen.  Gabriel also does not ask how she feels about any of it.  Gabriel just says this is what’s going to happen.

            Could Mary have said no?  It’s hard to tell.  But she did not try to, or if she did it’s not recorded.  The only thing she says is, “How will this be?”  Maybe she was thinking she could get out of this on the ground that it was impossible, we don’t know.  Gabriel, though, says they’ve got that covered.  Gabriel says, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.  So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.”

            Listen to what Mary says in response to that.  This is the proof that God made the right choice in choosing Mary.  Mary says, “I am the Lord’s servant.  May it be to me according to your word.”

            Think of the faith Mary had.  Think of the courage she had.  She’s being thrown into a situation that she had nothing to do with creating.  She really does not even have any clear idea of what’s going on here.  She’s told that she’s going to have a son.  How’s she going to explain that to Joseph?  I mean, yeah, she can tell him what the angel said, but how likely is he to believe that?  Would you?  Joseph might very well refuse to marry her, and who could blame him, really?  How’s her own family going to react?  They probably won’t believe her, either.  Will they support her?  Or will they throw her out?  If they do, how’s she going to take care of herself and the baby?  How’s she going to get enough money to survive?

            Then, on top of that, there’s this business of her son being a king and being the Son of God.  Do you think Mary really understood what that meant?  I doubt it.  We have a hard enough time understanding it now.  Even if she did understand it somewhat, think of the responsibility she was taking on.  Not only was she looking at quite possibly being an unwed mother and having to raise a baby on her own with no help and no clear way to make any money, this baby she was raising was supposed to grow up into some sort of king and was supposed to be the Son of God, whatever that meant. 

Think about it.  Those of you who are parents, think about the months before your first child was born.  I’ll bet you were pretty nervous.  You probably wondered about your ability to be a mother or a father.  You wondered if you’d be able to raise this child properly.  You worried that you might make mistakes.  Now imagine if that child you were going to raise was the Son of God.  What would be the consequences of messing that up?  Those consequences would not just affect you or your child; they could affect the whole future of the world.

Mary had to be tempted to wonder, “Why me?  Why did God have to choose me for this?  I was just minding my own business.  I was looking forward to getting married to Joseph, settling down, just living a normal life.  If this is what it means to be favored by God, I don’t want any part of it.  Why could God not have chosen someone else to give this great favor to?”

All this stuff and more had to be going through Mary’s mind.  She had to be scared to death.  If she asked “why me”, though, the scripture does not tell us so.  Listen again to what she said, “I am the Lord’s servant.  May it be to me according to your word.”  Mary had enough courage to face whatever she had to face, and she had enough faith to trust that God would be with her through it.

Have you ever been faced with a situation that scared you?  I suspect almost all of us have.  Maybe you’re facing it now.  Sometimes those situations are the result of something we’ve done, but sometimes they’re not.  Sometimes, we’re just like Mary was.  We’re by ourselves, minding our own business, thinking things are going okay, thinking our lives are fairly well planned out, thinking it’s going to be smooth sailing, at least for a while.

Then, all at once, something happens, or we find out about something, and suddenly our lives are completely upside down.  That plan we thought we had for our lives is out the window.  Nothing is going to happen the way we thought it was.  In fact, nothing is ever going to be the same again.  Our world has changed.  We have to find our way in a new world, a new situation.  We have to somehow, in some way, figure out how we’re going to cope with a situation we never expected or wanted. 

We’re not given a choice about it.  How we feel does not matter.  We think “this is impossible”, but we find out that it’s not impossible.  It is happening.  We wish it was not, we wish things could get back to normal, but we know things are never going to get back to normal.  Things will never be like they were ever again.

Some of you have been there.  I know you have.  Some of you are there now.  If by some chance you have not been there yet, you probably will be at some point.  If you have been, and you got through it, there’s no guarantee that you won’t be back there again.  It’s the way life works.  We like to think everything happens for a reason, and maybe it does, but if so, there are a lot of times when the reasons are not ones we can see or understand.  A lot of times, it feels like stuff just happens.  We have no control over it, and we cannot see any reason for it, and all we can do is try to find our way through the best we can.

None of us knows how we’re going to respond in a situation like that until we’re actually in it.  Mary did not know how she would respond, either.  I’m sure the possibility of something like this happening had never occurred to her.  When it did, though, Mary came through.  Her faith in God was strong enough that she could handle it.  She did not ask “why me?”  She faced the situation and prepared to deal with it.  She said, “I am the Lord’s servant.  May it be to me according to your word.”  She did not know what was going to happen.  There were all kinds of things that could go wrong.  Still, she trusted God enough to believe that God would see her through, even though the situation was something she probably neither wanted nor expected.

None of us knows how we’re going to respond in a situation like that until we’re actually in it.  If we have faith in God, though, we can handle it.  We don’t have to ask “why me?”  Instead, we can face the situation and prepare to deal with it.  We can say “I am the Lord’s servant.  May it be to me according to your word.” 

We still don’t know what’s going to happen.  There still may be all kinds of things that can go wrong.  Still, we can trust God enough to believe that God will see us through, even when the situation is something we neither want nor expect.

That’s what Mary did.  Through our faith in God, you and I can do it, too.