Mary

                                                            Luke 1: 26-38

 

          She was a teenager, perhaps as young as 15. She was Jewish, of course. Roman Catholic legend has it that she was the daughter of Anne and Joachim, a wealthy couple who had much trouble conceiving a child. According to the legend, Mary was consecrated to the Lord and went to live in the temple at age 3, much like what Samuel did in the Old Testament. It’s all legend. There is nothing about this in the Bible. It only tells us that she was a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph.

          Her name was Mary. If we can believe any of the legend, then Mary’s life from age 3 to the appearance of the angel Gabriel in the third chapter of Luke’s gospel was anything but normal. Maybe it was better than normal life. Maybe she really did grow up in the temple. We can’t say. We can say that normal life for a teenage girl in Nazareth was not very sophisticated. Life for anyone in Nazareth in the first century was most probably simple and hard. Archeological digs in the area indicate a village centered around agriculture. The dwellings were simple and mostly structured around caves used for their domestic work and the recovery of animals. Tzippori was the trading center of Galilee and not too far away. It may have been that some commuted there to gain work. Perhaps even Jesus and his father Joseph sold some of their work there.

          Whether Mary was raised in the temple or she stayed at home, her life was restricted. The very fact that she was female meant a lack of privilege in the culture. She was either performing chores around the temple or she was doing chores around the house. There were no restaurants, no cafes, no ball parks, no movies or bowling alleys, no public schools to attend. No climate control other than an occasional breeze. But there was plenty of work.

          I wondered about how Mary’s life might compare with that of a teenage girl here in Jefferson. So I put in calls to Brook Clark and Rebecca Horton. Think about that. Here I am, some seventy miles away and I call these young women on their personal cell phones. Instant communication in your pocket or your purse. Can you imagine what Mary would think? It took her over a week to travel the same distance to see her cousin Elizabeth, who was pregnant with the child who would become known as John the Baptist.

          Brook was so busy, I never heard back from her. I did speak to Rebecca. Rebecca is also 15. I asked Rebecca about her week. This week was a typical week for Rebecca. She had three ball games and practiced the other two days. That’s five out of five nights she was out of the house. Think that’s the way Mary lived? Hardly. Then I asked Rebecca what she would think if her parents came in Saturday night and introduced her to this thirty year old guy named Larry, saying that he was a real nice guy and they wanted her to drop out of school and get married to him this spring.  Rebecca’s response to her parents went something like this: Are you out of your mind! What have you been drinking or smoking?

          We think of Mary today and she is accorded this saintly status. We see depictions of this haloed young woman holding a perfect baby. We see beauty and presence and miracle all perfectly packaged in marvelous works of art that hang in galleries and cathedrals and Sunday school classes. Do you think Mary saw herself that way? I’m thinking Mary was already stunned at the recent turn of events in her life. This very nice and respectable, but older man named Joseph had asked Mary’s parents for her hand in marriage, and the next thing she knew, she was betrothed to him. Such a nice word, betrothed. But what does it mean? It’s sort of like our modern day word for engaged. But what is different is that it was highly unlikely that Mary had any say in this bargain. It was probably just announced to her. Mary, this is Joseph. He has taken quite a shine to you. He is going to be your husband. What do you think of that?

          Is our culture different from that in which Mary grew up? Of course. But Mary was still a teenager. She was still very young and very inexperienced. Chances are that unlike Brook and Rebecca, she had no one to turn to, and no recourse except to run away.

          Now, try to imagine how Mary must have felt when Gabriel showed up on her doorstep. She has already had the rest of her life arranged for her, and now, even before she has married, she is told that she is about to become pregnant. And not just pregnant, She is going to bear the Son of God as he becomes human. Mary reacted quite calmly, but she had a question. How can that be? I am a virgin.

          No problem, says Gabriel. Just wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon you. And also, the power of the Most High will overshadow you. You see, says Gabriel, nothing is impossible with God.

          If that message came to Rebecca or Brook, what do you think their response might be? Can you see a Facebook message going virile? You are going to bear a son out of wedlock, not by your husband to be, and the Holy Spirit of God will be the father of that baby, and…that baby is the Son of God.

          Rebecca’s favorite TV show is Stranger Things. It’s a story about a young boy who vanishes, and the small town that uncovers a mystery involving secret experiments, terrifying supernatural forces and one strange little girl. That sounds a lot like Gabriel’s visit to Mary. Maybe these teenagers have more in common with the mother of our Savior than they might have thought.

          There is one thing perhaps almost as striking to me as the incredible story of the birth of God’s Son to a poor teenager from Nazareth. And that is the incredible faith and hope of Mary, just a young, small town Jewish girl from the lake country of Galilee. Mary had faith in God. And she had hope, hope the way it was defined in first century Israel. Hope is the expectation that things that are promised by God come to pass in God’s time. Not maybe. They do. Mary had that kind of hope.

          And Mary had faith.  Listen to her response to the angel Gabriel as Luke records it: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” Just that simple. That’s all she said. No what ifs. No buts. Just I am God’s servant. Let it come. In that way, Mary has just left all of us in the dirt. If we can believe what the gospel writer reports, and we can, then Mary had no questions. She took the news and reported for duty. The next sentence says that the angel departed from her.

          I would love to say that I have that kind of hope, the kind of hope that promoted a teenage girl to say let it be. This is the Advent season. Hope is one of the themes of Advent. And the kind of hope that Mary displayed is the kind of hope that our Savior wants to see in us. Not when or whether or if or maybe. Just…let it be.

          It would be just a matter of a few months. Mary and Joseph would travel the eighty miles from Nazareth down to Bethlehem. They would use a donkey, which only slowed them up, but probably gave this young mother a little rest from walking. Mary would witness the birth of her son in a stable. having to lay him in a feed trough to keep him off the ground. She would witness shepherds from the fields with great stories of angel filled skies. And at the end of that beginning, she would, as Luke tells us, treasure up all these things, pondering them in her heart. The mother of the Son of God, even as a naïve teenager, knew that she didn’t need to publish what had happened. She pondered the events of the day. There would be a time for her to talk later. In this way, Mary was wise well beyond the years of her life. She was ready for what God had asked of her. She seemed to know that while the world has seen a thousand or more babies who became kings, there has only been one king who became a baby.  She couldn’t possibly know how much would happen, how much that baby boy would change the world.

          Mark Lowry and Buddy Greene teamed up to write a Christian song that was first sung by Michael English. The lyrics capture some of what Mary must have pondered that night and the nights to come. Listen:

Mary did you know, that your baby boy will one day walk on water?
Mary did you know, that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?
Did you know, that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you've delivered, will soon deliver you

 

Mary did you know, that your baby boy will give sight to a blind man?
Mary did you know, that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
And when you kiss your little baby, you have kissed the face of God

 

Mary, did you know…

 

          Mary’s journey was hardly over with the birth of Jesus. She was always there. She was there in the beginning to give birth. She was there to get him safely to Egypt and back to protect him from a murdering Herod. She was there when he began to discover himself and his mission and debated with the scholars in the temple. She was there at his first public miracle, urging him to go ahead and help the wedding guests with more wine made from water. And she would be there at the end, watching him give himself for us on that unholy cross.

          Mary was always there. It was thought that she was one of those accompanying Magdalene to the tomb to dress Jesus for burial, and probably was with the disciples in that upper room at Pentecost. She was never in the foreground. That territory belonged to her son. But she was there. The Bible never mentions a time when Mary sinned. Not David, not Joshua, not even Moses, can make such a claim. And when Mary was called upon, she was ready and was filled with the faith from which all real hope springs.

          May we all come a little closer to being like Mary in the new Christmas season. May we be servants of the Lord. And may we let it be…according to His Word.