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My Name is Mary

December 9, 2007                                                                                 Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson

Last week I did something a little different, I told the Christmas story from the first person in the person of Joseph; and, in that time, I asked you suspend disbelief and listen to the story.  Well, this Sunday I am going to ask you suspend disbelief a little bit more and I am going to tell you the story from Mary’s perspective.  So when you see me, look beyond me and hear what Mary has to say.  And by the way, while I was preaching in the first service these, Christmas lights blinked for some reason.  I’ve discovered that that was a Morse code that said “Listen to Chris”; oh well, never mind….  If it happens again, that’s the message. 

I am going to read you the familiar Christmas story as we find it in Luke, chapter 1, the story of Mary.  But listen again, listen to what she says and does, listen to how she reacts. (Luke 1:26-38)

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary.  The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.  But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.  You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name 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."

"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"

The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon 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.  Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God."

"I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said."

Would you pray with me?

Father, give us eyes to see and ears to hear this story one more time.  May we find in it something that is different this time, that touches our heart, that sends us forth, that answers the call. We pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

My name is Mary, the wife of Joseph and the mother of our Lord, Jesus.  I was born in the town of Nazareth.  Nazareth was a rough town on the road between the Sea of Galilee and the coast.  My father was a trader and my mother was a weaver of cloth and we sent much time in the marketplace, buying and selling; mostly buying, it seemed.  We didn’t have much, but we were happy.  My parents taught us to be grateful for what we had and to trust God.  In fact, one of the things I remember most about my parents was that they were very devout.  It seemed that besides the marketplace and home, we spent much of our time at the synagogue or going up to the temple from time to time for sacrifices.  My parents were always telling us stories from the bible, especially my father.  My father was like fathers should be.  He felt himself responsible for the faith of his children.  Like many of the people, the promises of the prophets excited him.  The promises of the coming Messiah filled him with wonder and awe.  He would always talk about how God would one day liberate his people and restore the kingdom of Israel, how God would send a savior, a new king who would bring God’s kingdom to us.  He often talked about how our family was descended from David and that we would be relatives of this new king.  Some people thought my father was crazy.  “If God was going to send a Messiah, He would have done it a long time ago,” they said, “and if He did, He wouldn’t have anything to do with someone as poor as you.”  My father said simply, “If God says it will happen I believe it will.”  “But how can God make a new kingdom?  The Romans are still in control, who is going to get rid of them?  We don’t believe in miracles anymore, old man.”  “Do you believe the earth exists, or the stars, or the sun, or the moon, or even those trees?  If you believe in them, you believe in miracles.  If God can make these things, He can certainly raise up a son of David and make a new kingdom; for nothing is impossible with God.”

My parent’s devotion rubbed off on me and I grew up being taught to trust God.  As I grew, I grew in my awareness of Him and also that I felt like I had a purpose.  I don’t know how to explain it really, I just knew.  One of the examples of this awareness was when it came time when I was to be married.  Most girls are betrothed when they are about fifteen or sixteen in our culture.  To be betrothed means to be engaged only a lot more.  A man who wished to marry a girl would pay a bride price to the father.  The couple then would be married except the girl would remain in the home of her father for about a year until the formal marriage took place.  Now when I met Joseph, I knew he was the one I was waiting for.  So Joseph asked permission to marry me.  My parents consented and we became betrothed. 

Little did I know that God had chosen Joseph to be my husband for a greater purpose than either of us could have imagined.  It was not long after this that my life changed forever.  It was early in the morning and I had gone to the well to draw water.  There was a group of trees nearby and I often went among them and prayed and I did that this morning. While I was praying, I heard what seemed to be a man’s voice, saying, “Greetings, you who are highly favored.  The Lord is with you.”  At first I was startled and afraid.  It was very unusual for a man to greet a woman in my day; in fact, most men thought it was not proper to even talk to a woman.  To say something like this would be unheard of.  But then I turned and saw who was speaking to me and I knew I was in the presence of more than just a man – a messenger of God.  I can not describe him to you.  He seemed like a man but he seemed to shine from some inner light, his eyes piercing me down to my very bones.  When I saw it was an angel, I was afraid.  He saw the look on my face and said, “Don’t be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.”  Then he said the most amazing words.  “You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name of Jesus.  He will be great and 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; and his kingdom will have no end.”  I could scarcely take it in.  I remembered somewhere and some prophet, the words about a young girl being with child and how the rabbis thought that this would be the Messiah.  Now this angel, this messenger, was saying that I would be the one.  I would be that young girl; I would bear the king.  I know it may seem strange to you, but at that moment I did not doubt the angel’s words.  Perhaps my parent’s teaching to trust God and to believe His purposes had something to do with it.  But I believed.  But I did have a question.  I had no doubt the Lord could do it but I simply wondered how since it was not in the normal way.  And if I thought what the angel said to me before was astonishing, what he said now left me speechless.  He said, “The Holy Spirit will come upon 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.  Even Elizabeth, your relative, is going to have a child in her old age and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month.  For nothing is impossible with God.”  Ahh, there was that phrase again, the one my father always said: “Nothing was impossible with God.”  Now certainly I was frightened and, if I had time to think about it, I probably would have been even more so; but in that moment all I could feel was awe – awe in the knowledge that God would choose me as an instrument to do such a great thing.  So I simply said, “I am the Lord’s servant.  May it be to me as you have said.” 

After the angel left I had time to think and it dawned on me what he really said and I really did become afraid.  What was to become of me?  What would Joseph say?  What would the people say?  Would they stone me as an adulteress?  Would they simply put me away in shame?  Or, no, I thought if the Lord had chosen me to be the bearer of His Messiah, He would certainly take care of me.  As for Joseph, I realized that God would have to take care of him too and deal with him.  But the more I thought about it, I knew I needed to tell someone.  Who should I tell?  Elizabeth.  Yes, my cousin Elizabeth.  Well she had a kind of reputation in the family of being religious.  She thought of herself sometimes as a prophet because she would walk around saying “Thus saith the Lord” sometimes.  We all thought she was a little bit odd, but I knew better.  She knew the Lord.  Yes, I will go her.  So I journeyed down to see her.  I wondered how I would tell her what had happened to me, wondered how I would tell her all that had taken place.  When I arrived at her home I greeted her but then something very strange happened.  She said “Mary, when you came in just now, my child leapt within my womb.  Yes, I see it now.  Blessed are you among women and blessed is the child you will bear, but why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me?  As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears my baby leapt for joy.  Blessed is she who believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished.”

And we know the rest of the story.  Mary had the child with Joseph’s help and he became our savior and Lord.  The question before us today is what are we to make of Mary?  Elizabeth was right.  All generations have indeed counted her blessed.  Sometimes it has gone beyond that, perhaps beyond what Elizabeth had in mind.  She’s been declared the saint of saints in some traditions, in some cases elevated to some extent to the right hand of God.  I believe Mary, if she came back to us now, would probably be a little bit embarrassed by all that.  It’s true of many of the great people of our day, that they are aware of their faults and shun being lifted up.  But despite all that, Mary is someone we ought to admire and we ought to imitate.  Think about it for a minute.  Here’s a woman who was told that she would give birth to the Messiah.  Talk about a Messiah complex.  Here’s a person, the Messiah, this person’s been looked for for hundreds of years, in the scriptures, prophesied; and now an angel comes and says you’re the one to give birth to this man – a sixteen year old girl.  And what does she do?  She asked a question.  She is so different than many of the biblical characters who when told by God that they are to do this or that, they would say something like, “How do I know it’s true?”  If I’m the angel I’m tempted to say, “Well I’m here, aren’t I?”  The same was true for Zechariah who was Elizabeth’s husband.  He was a priest having his turn in the temple.  The angel appeared to him and told him about the birth of John the Baptist and that’s what he said.  “How can I know it’s true?”  And the angel struck him dumb.  He couldn’t speak until John was born.  But not Mary, she just has a question of information.  I find her coldly logical here.  She basically says “I know this can happen, but I just want to know how, because it’s not done in the ordinary way.”  She believed.

Now how would you react to such a statement if God chose you to do something this big?  I don’t know about you but my mind goes back to the old Bill Cosby routine, when he was young in his career.  He had a routine about Noah.  Noah is told that he is to build an ark because God is going to flood the earth and Bill Cosby as Noah replies, “Right!  Am I on Candid Camera?”  Our reaction might be to think God is crazy or that we are or both; but not Mary.  She says some of the greatest words in scripture, words that ought to be our own prayer in our life on a regular basis.  She says, “I am the Lord’s servant.  May it be with me as you have said.”  It is for this reason, her great faith, that Mary is considered blessed.  Elizabeth said, “Blessed is she who has believed what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished.”  And it is because of this great faith that Mary becomes an example of what a disciple should be.

Time and time again in the bible, it says that God is pleased with and uses people most who have faith and who obey, sometimes despite their doubts and fears and inadequacies.  But still they obey.  And Mary is just such a person.  Certainly she had to have doubts; certainly she must have felt inadequate; certainly she must have had fear – fear of what people would think, fear of even for her own life.  Yet she seems to be able to put that aside and do what God wanted her to do even if it seemed incredible, even if it subjected her to ridicule and physical harm and death.  Mary believed three basic things.  She believed in her God and that God was very real and she desired to follow Him.  She believed, as the angel said, that anything was possible for God.  And third she was a woman who believed God had a purpose for her and she was willing, indeed wanted, to be used by God.  I believe she, in fact, was a person who was waiting for God to show her what she should be doing.  So when God reveals it to her, she was ready.  The question for all of is, are we ready?  Are we willing to do what God wants us to do, even if it seems crazy?  Or, are we willing to do what God wants us to do if it costs us something, whether it be money or time or our very lives?  I think Mary is an incredible example to us.  As young as she is, she is the saint of saints.  She is an incredible follower of Jesus Christ.  We should follow her example, and say in our own way, and whatever the Lord says to us maybe many times in our lives, that “I am the Lord’s servant.  May it be to me as you have said.”  And may our legacy be as Elizabeth says of Mary, “Blessed is the one who believed that what the Lord has said will be accomplished” in your life and in mine.  In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.