HG005 Luke 1:26-38
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5 In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. 6 Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. 7 But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old.
8 Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, 9 he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. 10 And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.
11 Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. 12 When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. 13 But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. 14 He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, 15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. 16 He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
18 Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”
19 The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. 20 And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”
21 Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple. 22 When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak.
23 When his time of service was completed, he returned home. 24 After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. 25 “The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.”
26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 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, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “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. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
Advent is here! And for December we are going to look at some of those passages we missed on our journey through the Harmony of the Gospels for we are trying to go through them in time-order or chronologically but I have waited till now to look at these passages.
Intro & 26-35
Today we will be looking at the visitation to Mary but I wanted there to be context so had the first part also read by Helene. We can see that there is a contrast between how Zechariah responds and how Mary responds. One responds out of unbelief and the other out of faith and obedience. We have the same choice. God will work regardless of our response.
Many treat this story; the story of the birth of Jesus as if it is simply a legend, a fairy tale, or something to illustrate a truth but in the end is not based upon facts. After all, how can one be born of a virgin? We know the mechanics of how women give birth to children and it starts with sex. But that is not what happened here. This is no mere story and it should not surprise us for God is God and is He not able to make us out of dust?
Stories like the birth of Jesus are spoken of every year in churches but still the story bears being told again and again. This is not just a story for children – we imagine that because it is a story, that it has a play attached to it in which there is baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, shepherds and three kings along with all the cattle and other animals such as a donkey that the story has no relevance to adults, that it has lost its allure, its appeal – familiarity breeds contempt but this story should have all the attraction and fascination of watching the latest action movie or romantic comedy or whatever it is that holds our attention these days.
So, let’s have another look:
An angel appears to Mary in the 6th month – that is 6 months after Elizabeth became pregnant with her son, John the Baptist. Mary doesn’t seem to be bothered at all by the sight of an angel but by what the angel said to her! Rejoice O highly favoured one! Blessed are you among women! She did not understand straight away so Gabriel gets straight to business; you’re going to become pregnant, have a son – who, by the way, is God. This is shown in the fact that Jesus will be son of the Most High which, in Jewish thinking, means that Jesus will be a carbon copy of God who possesses the attributes of His Father. On Wednesday we looked at many verses showing that Jesus is God - the recording is on the Website.
Now Mary was not daft; she knew that she couldn’t get pregnant just like that despite her age which was reckoned to have been between 12 and 14; so she said I know not a man; there had been no sex so, there should not be a baby and she is told that the Holy Spirit will come over her and God’s power will overshadow her. This is curious language if it were not for Jewish tradition using the language of "overshadowing" for God's presence with his people (IVP).
36-7
She is then told that the impossible had already happened to her cousin Elizabeth who was too old to have a child – and if that was possible then Mary could get pregnant in a supernatural way too.
Nothing impossible with God. In acknowledging that we can do nothing without God we allow Him to do the impossible. God can work in the most challenging situations we have ever faced – if we have put our trust in Jesus we have been made overcomers. And what God says He will do. Here in the NIV it says that none of His words will fail. It is important that what we are putting our faith in is what God has said He will do. And if God said it He will do it, right?
11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
I doubt, though, that we have ever been told something as impossible as Mary was told that day! Yes, you’re a virgin and without knowing a man you will have a baby. She would have been reminded, for she would have known the Scriptures, the story of her ancestor Sarah, the wife of Abraham also being told that nothing is impossible with God:
14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.”
All this served to strengthen her faith for her to come to the point that she offered herself in service to God. And this should strengthen our faith too that if God can do these things then nothing is so insurmountable that God cannot help us with.
38
Whether she knew or not what the consequences of accepting this assignment would be, a real Mission Impossible, she says; be it as you say, let it be to me. What great words these are! Submission from a humble soul. let it be to me.
The Angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah in the Temple in Jerusalem to announce the birth of a prophet, John the Baptist. But here comes the Angel Gabriel to Mary in a place nothing like Jerusalem or the Temple. Instead he came to a little town called Nazareth, a place despised as here were what were considered a mixed race of people where Gentiles also lived.
46 And Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
This angel appeared in the backwater of nowhere. Not only this, the Angel appeared to an unmarried woman who had no status in society, who had no experience of the world and was probably illiterate and certainly would not have accomplished anything in particular. In normal society she would be expected to marry, have numerous children who will all be poor, never go anywhere and certainly would not cross an international border and then die like all those before her at a relatively young age. A nothing in a nothing town in the middle of nowhere. This is why we’ll see next week her song at Elizabeth’s place:
46 And Mary said:
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
48 For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
Truly the Gospel is for the poor and nobodies.
the Lord comes to needy people—those who realise that without him they cannot make it—those who acknowledge their weakness and spiritual lack. The Incarnation, salvation, resurrection, Christmas are not for the proud and self-sufficient.(Hughes, R. K. (1998). Luke: that you may know the truth (p. 30). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.)
If you let God have His way, there will be consequences – but none so hard that you cannot bear them.
Mary was to be the one out of billions of women ever born to give birth to the Saviour of the World, the Son of God, God the Son. She probably didn’t know all that it was going to entail but the blessing of being the mother of God exceeded the discomfort.
Let us not get too carried away by the joy of it without realising the hardship that was to be expected by Mary. Her saying ‘let it be to me’ was a great step of faith in God.
It was not like today when a woman has children and there is no father…nobody really cares about that anymore as it is not a public shame. But in Mary’s day it was exceedingly shameful for one who was not married to be pregnant or to be thought of that she had sex before marriage. In fact, having sex before marriage or its rumour could mean she would never get married and in that society you needed a man for he was the sole-provider.
Her saying: let it be to me. This was complete submission to the will of God and allowing God to deal with the consequences of obeying Him. Remember she had to carry the child for 9 months, experience the pain of child birth, take care of the child whilst shunning the shame of what her neighbours thought of her and deal with the heart-ache that came at the time of His death.
This is what makes it so amazing that Mary was gladly willing to accept the task God had for her. She completely trusted God. The rest of her life was not in the public eye but in the background of Jesus’ life but we celebrate such a woman of faith even 2000 years after her.
And in fact we can say the ‘Blessed Virgin Mary’ along the Roman Catholic Church though, of course, we do not hold to their belief that she was sinless or that we should pray to her; Mary is not our Saviour; only Jesus is. She had a heart after God and God’s faith was well-founded in her; she is a giant among people of faith.
What about us? Are we that submitted to God’s will that if He says something we will willingly allow it? Will we say: “let it be to me.”
If God called you to go to Sierra Leone and leave behind everything to reach the people there for the Gospel, leaving behind books, TV, computers, family, trusting Him about health, no matter what the consequences. Would it be willingly knowing we would have to learn new languages, cope with the new culture? Can we say: let it be to me.
Let me bring it closer to home: God is calling you to Manselton. This is where you are today. Perhaps some should consider moving back here to do a work among the people for this Church is here to reach the people here. I’m not sure I would find that easy after retirement. It seems to me that we are more likely to be willing to go somewhere else and say: let it be to me. Can we say in response to God still: let it be to me? If we would be willing to go somewhere else and make every effort to reach people, why not here?
We are all highly favoured for God’s Son was given to us. God is with us. God is WITH us. If God is with us who can be against us and what shall we fear?
The partnership of divine and human is essential. God, for some reason, co-works through people. This is evident in using Mary to bear the Son of God. It was necessary for the Son of God to be the Son of a woman too. It is also evident that God works through His people to reach the world with the Good News. People like us. This is the season to share the good news of Jesus coming to earth.
Today’s story is of a special visitation to Mary and the amazing willingness of a young lady to be a vessel for God’s use no matter the cost. She serves as an example of one we should follow. She may have been a ‘nobody’ in the world’s eyes but in God’s sight she was of infinite worth and for that we call her blessed who gave birth to our Saviour.