Something about Mary
Notes
Transcript
Oh, Christmas Tree.
Oh, Christmas Tree.
Up went we, up the mountainside to find the perfect tree.
Searching through the ice and snow, we seven, four and three.
Then, carefully we carried the tree in and unwrapped it from the tarp. 50% of the pinecones had fallen off. Sad story.
But we got it in the stand, got the stand full of water, tightened everything up tight and stood back to enjoy our tree.
It… kind of seems like it is tilting away from the wall. Was it straight before? I was under the tree and couldn’t see. Logan tilted it back, slid a board under the front, cover with the tree skirt.. Boom! Perfect. Time for dinner.
At dinner, Ella gets up from the table to grab something and brushes past the tree and Bam! Down comes the tree, just missing her.
Get it up straight, lock it back in place, tighten the bolts even tighter. Over falls the tree.
Maybe it is cut crooked on the bottom. We take the whole thing out, recut the trunk, straight as can be, reset it now it’s fixed.
Bam! Down comes the tree.
Oh, it’s pivoting inside the stand??? We cut wooden wedges and pound those down inside the stand, now the tree can’t pivot.
With hope and confidence we start decorating the tree. I stand back as we are nearly almost done and… does the tree look like it’s leaning to you? I sit under it while the kids decorate it and sure enough, not 10 minutes later, down comes the tree and… I catch it!
(it was awesome)!
With a series of triangulated festive red bunjee cords, 45 pound counter weights from downstairs, wooden wedges and the loss of every pine cone from that beautiful tree save 1… our beautiful Christmas tree stands today, perfect in every way.
It was a mess… but it’s beautiful.
All we need is the Christmas tree lighting on fire and it’s Christmas Vacation.
The First Messy Christmas
The First Messy Christmas
Why is the Christmas story so complicated? Why is it messy and confusing?
Couldn’t Jesus have been born to a stable married couple in the normal way?
It’s one thing to say “it was to fulfill prophecy...” but look, that’s not how prophecy works.
Jesus was not constrained in how he became a human being by prophecy. It works the other way around. Jesus, Son of God, part of the Trinity… God decided how He would become incarnate, and then He dropped hints along the way at how it would happen...
so that when it happened we would believe and know that He is God with Us.
So couldn’t Jesus have come in a less confusing, less stable filled, mangery kind of way? More reputable witnesses, maybe? Shepherds and teenage mothers?
Questionable parentage?
Last week we took a look at Good Guy Joseph. Let’s take a deeper look at this young woman, blessed above all women, Mary, Mother of Jesus.
Mary’s Vision
Mary’s Vision
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary.
Note. Not a dream. Mary gets a straight up visit.
Note the way she is introduced. Not as “Mary” first… as a virgin… and the virgin’s name was Mary.
Betrothed to Joseph (see last week).
And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”
God’s favor and God’s presence - hand in hand. God’s favor, or His grace… a word which I love because it underlines this: it isn’t something Mary deserves.
God’s freely bestowed favor. It isn’t owed to Mary, it isn’t something Mary earned. And Mary seems powerfully aware of this:
But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.
There is a narrative, a theology, that would hold Mary up, even at this early moment, as a paragon of virtue. The phrase “immaculate conception” speaks to Mary herself being born of a virgin… because she must have been if she is so holy and good so as to be chosen to be Jesus’ Mom.
I don’t see any of that here. And at the least, I am certain Mary doesn’t see any of that. Here she expresses surprise, maybe even suspicion.
She was “greatly troubled” or “confused” or “perplexed.” Who me??? What kind of greeting is this? Is this a prank?
Who is Mary?
15 year-old girl. Looking at an arranged marriage with Joseph. Not from a famous family. Nothing here says she is without sin. She is a human… so she is a sinner.
She doesn’t think she is the “favored one of the Lord...” she reacts like you’d react. “trying to discern what sort of greeting that might be.”
Who… me?
And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
Kind of repeating the first greeting, this time with a formula that is said of many of the greats in Biblical history: Abraham found favor, Moses found favor, David found favor.
Mary’s about to be significantly more troubled.
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
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.”
I love how the angel moves on to all this stuff… Mary is stuck on the first five words.
“you will conceive in your womb.” Wait… what? I had health class and that’s not how this works!
And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
Good question, Mary! Mary understands how this works.
And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.
Does that answer anything? It’s a bit weird. It’s complicated… maybe unnecessarily so?
And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.
and here’s the key:
For nothing will be impossible with God.”
And Mary gives these incredible words of faith:
And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.
Was Mary the most perfect woman ever? Born herself by immaculate conception? No… she is favored by God, God is with her, because God chose her to be His Mom - part of His origin story. The Christmas story isn’t clean or polished, it isn’t ever the easy way. Jesus enters into our mess, our brokenness, our doubt confusion and uncertainty and He is Immanuel - God with us.
Jesus enters into our mess.
Jesus could have been born to Mary and Joseph at home with a midwife. Jesus could have appeared on earth as a 30 year-old man ready to minister. Instead God chose to enter this world in brokenness and messiness, metaphorically and literally.
Mary - she’s going to be the first woman, the first person to be persecuted for their faith in Christ. She will almost lose her fiancee, she will certainly face scorn and condemnation from anyone who knows. Maybe staying away from their hometown for a few years is part of that plan, keeps less people counting the days between delivery and the wedding date.
What makes the moment beautiful and great… it isn’t because Joseph is great. It isn’t because Mary is great.
I think that’s the great loss of holding up Mary as an unapproachable impossible saint.
Mary is blessed above all woman… because God chose her, because Jesus entered in (in her case literally).
Joseph is blessed because He gets to be a part of Jesus’ story… he doesn’t get to be a part of the story because He’s already blessed or awesome or perfect or even good.
And what a relief that is for you and I. You don’t have to get cleaned up before coming to Jesus right now, as you are, mess and all.
You don’t have to be the best and know you’re the best to find favor in God’s eyes.
He is already Immanuel - God with us - God with you.
He has already entered into our mess, my mess and your mess.
The story gets messier doesn’t it? Traveling late in pregnancy, stables and feeding troughs or mangers. Sheep and donkey, filthy night-time shepherds… angels singing and born is the King of Kings.
Jesus enters into our mess. He makes it beautiful.
Mary’s Magnificat
Mary’s Magnificat
Hear her humility.
Hear her rejoicing that God is with her.
Hear her rejoicing in her Savior.
And Mary said, I’m bursting with God-news;
I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.
God took one good look at me, and look what happened— I’m the most fortunate woman on earth! What God has done for me will never be forgotten,
the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
His mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him.
He bared his arm and showed his strength, scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold.
He embraced his chosen child, Israel; he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
It’s exactly what he promised, beginning with Abraham and right up to now.
Amen… and have a Mary Christmas
Mary Christmas ;)
Mary Christmas ;)