Scripture: Luke 1:26-38
In today’s sermon, I want us to see how much we already have in common with Mary—and to aspire to have even more in common with her! I’m going to do so by answering three important “how” questions: Number One, the question that Mary asks, “How will this be…?” Number Two, “How will the birth of Jesus begin to solve humanity’s deepest problem?” And Number Three, “How then shall we live?”
But first, Point Number One, “How will this be…?”
I want to begin by sharing with you one super-cool fact about our very own Dave Schreiber—this is only one of many cool facts about Dave, of course… but I’m only sharing one right now. When he was in the Navy he served on board the U.S.S. Enterprise—an aircraft carrier. When I found this information out I told him—with great excitement—that there’s a scene in the Star Trek movies where they show all the Navy ships over the years that have had the name “Enterprise,” including the one that Dave himself served on! They show a picture of it in the movies! Because of course on Star Trek, the name of the ship is the “U.S.S. Enterprise.” It’s in the same lineage with the ship that Dave served on—except “U.S.S.,” in this case, stands for “United Star Ship.”
Anyway, Dave wasn’t nearly as blown away by this fact as I was…
Speaking of Star Trek, years ago, when I was in my 20s, I was watching an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In this episode, the Enterprise comes into contact with a remote planet on which some Klingon families have been stranded for many generations—cut off from their Klingon culture and civilization. When the Enterprise rescues these families, Lt. Worf—the proud Klingon who serves onboard the Enterprise—takes it upon himself to teach these Klingon children the culture and values of his home planet—including Klingon religion.
Worf is reading a passage from ancient Klingon scripture to some children—words that sound supernatural, miraculous, and hard to explain, scientifically. One skeptical child challenges Worf: “Did that really happen? Is that really true?” And Worf responds: “I have studied [these scriptures] all my life, and I find new truths in them every day.”
Of course, I did not study Klingon scripture in seminary, but I suspect that the writers of that show were trying to make a point about our Christian scriptures, the Bible… that you don’t have to take it “literally” for it to nevertheless be true.
And while I agree that there are parts of the Bible—like the parables of Jesus, for instance, or the Book of Revelation, or the many parts of the Old Testament—especially the Psalms and prophets—that include poetic and figurative language—that we shouldn’t interpret literally—so much of scripture describes historical events… and these historical events ought to be taken literally.
Including, yes, the Virgin Birth…
Years ago, in New York City, an atheist organization made national headlines by putting up a billboard over Lincoln Tunnel with a picture of a manger scene and the words, “You know it’s a myth… Celebrate reason this season.”
The premise of this and other scornful messages is something like this: People who lived two-thousand years ago were really dumb, really naive, really gullible. And today we modern people know better.
But this is a lie. While it’s true that ancient people didn’t know about X and Y chromosomes, or DNA, or the human genome—guess what? They knew the facts of life… they knew as well as any modern person that having a baby required both a mother and a father.
And we even see clues in the gospels that people in the first century had a hard time believing in the Virgin Birth: In John 8:41, for instance, when scribes and Pharisees are arguing with Jesus about whether they can claim Abraham as their father, they say to Jesus, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one father—even God.”
We were not born of sexual immorality? What a strange thing to say—unless they believed that Jesus was born of sexual immorality… in other words, they had heard the story of the Virgin Birth, and they didn’t believe it. So they thought Jesus was an illegitimate child.
And next week, we see the best evidence of how difficult it was for people in the first century to believe in the Virgin Birth: that Joseph himself, Mary’s fiancé, was going to break off his engagement. Why? Because he believed that Mary had been unfaithful to him… that another man got her pregnant… which is what any reasonable person would conclude.
And of course, Mary herself, even though she’s only 13 or 14—because that’s the age at which young women in her culture got engaged… even though she’s young, she also knows the facts of life: That’s why she asks the question in verse 34: How…?
“How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
But if you remember what I preached on last week—the story of Zechariah from earlier in this chapter—then you also remember that he got into trouble for asking this angel, Gabriel, a question. Verse 18: “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” Does the angel hold Mary to a different standard than Zechariah?
When Gabriel tells Mary that she’s going to miraculously conceive a son who will be the Savior, the Son of God, and the Messiah, she also asks a how question: “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” Isn’t she expressing doubt? Isn’t her question basically the same as Zechariah’s?
And the answer is, “Not at all.” It’s drastically different from Zechariah’s!
Zechariah is saying, “I don’t really believe God has the power or, more likely, the desire to do this—so will you please give me a sign that it’s going to happen?” Mary, by contrast, is saying, “I know that God is somehow going to work this miracle. I’m just trying to figure out how it’s going to happen, since I know the facts of life, and I know that I’ve never slept with a man.” Mary’s question is not whether God can or will fulfill this promise, but how he’s going to do it.
Because this is just the kind of person Mary is! She’s inquisitive. She ponders things. She thinks things through—deeply. We see this in a few different places. After the angel greets her, Luke tells us that she was “trying to discern what sort of greeting this might be.” Later, after Jesus was born and the shepherds come to the manger and tell her about the angels’ announcement to them, Luke tells us, “Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.” 1
Twelve years later, after Mary finds Jesus in the temple, astounding the Bible teachers with his wisdom and insight, Luke tells us that Mary “treasured up all these things in her heart.” 2
And this is Point Number One: the first “how” question: “How will this be…?”
Point Number Two: the second “how” question… How will the birth of Jesus begin to solve humanity’s deepest problem?
Gabriel describes the kind of person that Jesus will be in verses 32 and 33:
He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.
Gabriel is referring to a promise that God, through the prophet Nathan, made to King David back in 2 Samuel 7, verses 12 through 16. God makes this promise to David after David expresses a desire to build a “house,” or a temple, for God. Because remember, up to this point, all the sacrifices were made in a moveable tabernacle, which is literally a tent, not a house or building. David wants to rectify that situation. And God says, “Not so fast…” Let me read a portion of God’s words to David and you can hear how similar Gabriel’s words to Mary are:
When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever…[Verse 16:] And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.” 3
Now… Nathan’s words to David are prophecy. And often in the Bible, prophecy has a near-term fulfillment, and a long-term fulfillment. The near-term fulfillment was that David’s offspring—Solomon, in this case—was going to be the one to build that house… to build the temple in Jerusalem.
But verse 16 is tricky: “And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.”
If you “journeyed through the Bible” with our church this past year, you know that that didn’t happen in the Old Testament. Israel did not remain faithful to God’s covenant, and after several hundred years the kingdom fell… and Israel was no longer even a nation. And there were no more kings on the throne of Israel.
And the authors of the Old Testament knew that that prophecy was unfulfilled… at least in the near-term—as all those sinful human kings sat on the throne of Israel and Judah. That’s why so many prophets looked forward—far into the future—to the coming of a different kind of king… a better, more faithful king… the king known as the Messiah.
See, God was going to keep his promises to David: his throne was going to be established forever… only not by any of the kings that followed in David’s wake, that’s for sure… at least until Jesus!
Even Solomon ended up being a disaster, as far as kings go. Make no mistake: he got off to a great start. He built the temple. He prayed for wisdom above all. He was faithful to the one true God… for a while. But even a man as wise as Solomon—under the influence of his hundreds of foreign wives and concubines—fell into idolatry, which you can read about in 1 Kings chapter 11, including these words: “For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God…” 4
And then the chapter goes on to describe the other gods that Solomon worshiped… in addition to the God of Israel…
A tragic ending for a king who started off with such great promise! And of course there were some good and faithful kings that followed Solomon. But none were perfect. And for that matter, even King David himself, as we all know, was far from perfect.
And this points to humanity’s main problem: our problem with sin. It infects all humans. As Paul says in Romans 3, quoting many Old Testament scriptures,
No one is righteous—not even one. No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one… They don’t know where to find peace.” “They have no fear of God at all.” 5
Even if the Messiah could be a great king, a perfect king… Even if he could succeed where kings like David and Solomon failed… Even if he could defeat all of Israel’s enemies, which in Mary’s day mostly meant the Roman Empire… Even if he could establish his kingdom not only over this geographical region that used to be called Israel, but over the whole world…
Even if he could save Israel politically… and economically… and militarily… and establish God’s kingdom on earth… that would only be a short-term solution. The larger question is, How could the Messiah save humanity from their biggest, most pressing, most pervasive problem of all… a problem that, if it remained unsolved, would mean judgment, and God’s wrath, and hell… for all us… the problem of sin.
God, please remember, is a God of love and mercy… but he’s also a God of justice. He can’t simply ignore all the world’s evil and injustice and sin that humans have perpetrated… against both themselves and God.
So the Messiah must also take care of that far larger problem, too.
And today’s scripture gives a hint about how he would do that… in verse 32: “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.”
That is literally true. Jesus is God in the flesh… Or as the creed says, he is “God from God, Light from light, True God from true God, begotten not made.” But when Mary first heard these words of the angel Gabriel, she probably didn’t understand that yet. To her, at that time, “Son of the Most High,” probably meant something like this to her: “My son is going to grow up to be the Messiah… He’s going to have a special relationship with God; he’s going to be faithful to God like no one else.” But she wouldn’t likely have believed—as we do today, on this side of the cross and resurrection—that he’s going to be God in the flesh… Mary would only learn that truth gradually over time… as Jesus’ own apostles learned that truth over time.
But if God was going to solve humanity’s deepest problem—the problem with sin—this coming Messiah also had to be God… He had to be both God and man. As man he had to be completely and sinlessly faithful to God his Father, in a way that no other human could be. But only as God could Jesus take all of the sins of humanity—including yours and mine—and suffer the penalty for our sins—which, of course, includes death.
But here’s the thing: only a human can die… How does God die? Only by becoming human.
So… That’s the answer to the deeper kind of “how” question.
And that’s Point Number Two…
Point Number Three: How then shall we live?
And here I want to focus on verse 38. I want to focus on Mary’s absolutely remarkable statement of faith and courage and love for God: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
Mary is a remarkable disciple of Jesus Christ. It’s not for nothing that many preachers have called her the very first Christian…. an example of Christian discipleship that all of us can emulate.
And not to pick on our Catholic brothers and sisters, but this is where they often go wrong… They think that Mary’s being “highly favored by God,” or “full of grace,” means that she is some kind of superhero of the faith… some kind of super-saint… that she is extra extra extra ordinary… that she is especially holy… So we think, “I could never be like her!” Especially when you consider the fact that when she conceived Jesus in her womb, there was literally no human being in history up to that point who had ever been closer to God than her! Think about it! She had God literally living inside her! Growing inside her! God was physically connected to her! Because remember: Jesus is both fully human and at the same time fully God.
So by all means, what God called Mary to do, none of us will ever have to repeat… Her mission was unique. And she accomplished her mission beautifully…
But we need to keep Mary in perspective. Later in Luke’s gospel, for instance, after Jesus begins his ministry of teaching, preaching, and healing, a woman in the crowd cries out, “’God bless your mother—the womb from which you came, and the breasts that nursed you!’ Jesus replied, ‘But even more blessed are all who hear the word of God and put it into practice.’”6
And brothers and sisters, that’s you… and me… it’s all of us who are born again through faith in Christ!
If you are in Christ, you have God living inside you, too! What does the Bible say in 1 Corinthians 6? Your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God! If you’re in Christ, the Spirit, the very Spirit of Christ, lives inside you! In fact, if you are in Christ, the Bible says that you too are now “highly favored by God.” In Ephesians 1:6, the same Greek word that Gabriel uses of Mary in today’s scripture, translated as “highly favored,” Paul now uses of all of us Christians!
Remember, also, the angels’ message to the shepherds abiding in the field in Luke chapter 2, verse 14: They say, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” 7 And God’s favor rests on us who are in Christ just as his favor rested on Mary.
If you’re a Christian, that means you enjoy God’s favor, too. Just like Mary enjoyed God’s favor!
My point here is, we already have so much in common with Mary…
Now let’s look at something else that we have in common with her… by looking at the second part of verse 38: “And the angel departed from her.”
The angel departed from her… Mary, in other words, was left alone… I mean, God was with her, of course… Just like God is with us. But we can’t see God! At least if we have an angel alongside us, we will constantly be reminded that God is with us… and that God is working in a powerful way in our lives… when we may otherwise be tempted to doubt it.
But sadly, angels don’t visit us very often, do they?
Now… I don’t deny that we may have encounters with angels today—the New Testament says we might. 8 I can’t prove this, but I think I have encountered an angel, for instance. And I’ve heard credible testimonies from other Christians who say they have.
But wouldn’t it be nice to always have an angel around… to sort of keep things in perspective for us.
George Bailey, the character played by Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life, had an angel around for at least a few hours of his life one Christmas Eve… in 1945.
To refresh your memory, George was an ambitious young man who wanted to “see the world,” as he famously tells his love interest, played by Donna Reed. But “seeing the world” was just one of many dreams that George sacrificed when his father died, and George got stuck running his father’s Savings and Loan business.
To be clear, there’s nothing at all wrong with running a bank… [Did you hear that, Ben?]
It’s just not what George Bailey wanted to do with his life…
George also sacrificed his dream of going to college, of becoming an architect, of “building things.” Instead, he watched his classmates and his brother achieve the fame, the wealth, the glory that he thought should have been his. George, unlike his war-hero brother, was even unable to enlist or be drafted into the army to fight the Nazis because of a childhood injury that left him deaf in one ear.
And then, to add insult to injury, when his absent-minded Uncle Billy misplaces a deposit that today would amount to over $80,000, George fears that he’s lost what little he does have—and he even faces possible prison time… because he’s going to take the fall for Billy’s mistake. The authorities are going to think George embezzled the money.
So George decides he’s worth more dead than alive… that at least if he kills himself, his family can collect his life insurance. But before he can follow through on that plan, that angel I mentioned earlier, Clarence, intervenes and saves his life. And in the most famous part of the movie, Clarence allows George to see what his wife, what his fellow townspeople, what his friends—and not to mention the town itself—would be like if he had never been born.
And remember what it’s like? It’s like some urban hellscape! The people’s lives are so much worse! The town is so much worse… I mean, George’s town is even worse than Clarkesville!
So by seeing all this, George comes to appreciate how many lives he’s touched and changed for the better…
But do you see what George’s problem was… before the angel showed up and showed him his problem? He lacked the perspective to see to see all the good he was accomplishing… when he was angry, disappointed, full of self-pity and resentment… when he was feeling as if he were wasting his life and throwing away his potential.
And although the movie doesn’t make this point, what we believers understand is that George lacked the God-like perspective to see how God was using George’s life—to see all the good that God was working through George!
So what Clarence taught George to do was to reinterpret all these disappointments, these setbacks, these failures, these troubles, this pain, this suffering.
So in case we don’t happen to have an angel in front of us—reminding us of what God is doing in our lives—we need to instead constantly remember God’s promises for his children. Among them, Romans 8:28: “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” 9
We Methodists like to pray a prayer that John Wesley wrote or adapted called “The Wesleyan Covenant Prayer.” When we pray this prayer, we are saying to God, in so many words, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
So, in response to this message, let’s pray it together:
I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.