Proud Mary

May 28, 2008 in Worth's Sermons by WNG

That first Christmas Eve is populated with players. There is no Santa Claus, no Elves, and no reindeer; but there are angels, shepherds, a Carpenter named Joseph, an innkeeper with a full house and full pockets (off-stage), and a cast of animal characters who are at least as famous as the Beanie Babies. But these are all just bit players. At the center of the drama is the babe, Jesus, whom we Christians believe to be the Eternal Son of God, the Incarnate Word. Then, of course, there is Mary, the wide-eyed little girl who would spend a lifetime pondering these things in her heart and trying to understand the miracle of which she was a major part.

Proud Mary

Now we Protestants have given short shrift to Mary, but that is our loss. For, in the eyes of God, she is at least as important as Peter and Paul, and the other Disciples of Christ. She wrote no epistles, she headed no church, but this young Jewish maiden was the Choice of God the Father, to be the very human mother of God the Son.

It was St. Ignatius of Antioch (c. 50-117 A.D.) who would first articulate Mary’s full importance, calling her “Mary the Mother of God.” If we too quickly by-pass the lessons of this woman’s life, we ignore what Jesus himself could not ignore, the godly example of the one who first held him in her arms and first took him into her heart. It has been rightly said that she was the first to belive in the Master.

But what can we know of Mary?

There are several things that we can know for certain.

First, and this is the most important thing about her, she said, “Yes,” to the Lord.

When the angel told the part she was to play in the birth of the Messiah, she said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

Now some will say that it is easy to submit to God when in the presence of angels. How can anyone lack faith in God when a heavenly messenger is staring you in the face, and telling you the end of a thing from its beginning?

Now this may be so for a Joshua who was told by an angel that he could topple the walls of Jericho with trumpets and shouting. And it may be so for Zechariah who was told that the son of his old age would go before the Messiah in the spirit and power of Elijah. (Luke 1:17)

But it was not so easy for Mary.

Consider the scene. The angel of the Lord appears to her and calls her “the favored one.” Immediately, she is troubled. Perhaps she is troubled because she remembers that Job—who suffered the loss of everything, had been one of God’s favorites, too?

The next words out of the angel’s mouth trouble her still more. The angel says to her that she will conceive, and bear a son, who is to be named, “Jesus.” The angel says that Jesus will be called “Son of the Most High,” and “sit on the throne of David” to “reign over the house of Israel for ever.”

Mary raises a forceful objection. “How can this be?” she says, “for I have no husband.”

Then the angel heaps trouble upon trouble. The angel says to her:

Mary,) 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.

The angel then reminds her that, “with God nothing will be impossible.”

For most of us, the idea of the Virgin Birth of Jesus is not too difficult. We have swallowed the camel of his resurrection, why gag on the gnat of the Virgin Birth? Comparatively, it is such a small thing. Besides, it has been the universal faith of the church for the better part of two millennia. The Apostle’s Creed that we say almost every Sunday declares that Jesus was “…conceived by the Holy Spirit and Born of the Virgin Mary.” For most of our lives we have sung:

Silent Night, Holy Night;
all is come, all is bright;
Round yon Virgin, mother and child,
holy infant, so tender and mild…

The Virgin Birth is no big deal to us.

But Mary must have heard the angel’s announcement with fear and trepidation. No doubt a gaggle of doubts must have raced through her mind. First, she must have thought, “My reputation’s shot!” and despaired of ever having a husband. Then she must have realized that no one was going to believe her story. Finally, she must have given at least a passing thought to how financially difficult it was going to be to be a single mother in a poor family.

Still, she submitted her self completely to God saying, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

Secondly, we can be assured that Mary’s situation was doubly difficult and her dedication doubly remarkable because she was so very young.

In those days, a Jewish girl was considered ready for marriage at the age of 12 and ½. Now the actual age of marriage varied from girl to girl and woman to woman, and there was always a long period of engagement. But, in all probability, Mary was not older than sixteen or seventeen, and more likely fourteen or fifteen.

That God would ask a fourteen or fifteen-year-old girl to endure such hardship seems almost unfair. But God frequently calls upon young people to do what older people could not or would not do. David was just a boy when God put it into his heart to take on Goliath. (1st Samuel 17) And Jeremiah was not much older. God had to warn him against using his age for an excuse. “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth,’” God said, “for to whomsoever I send you, you will go. And whatsoever I command you, you will say.” (Jeremiah 1) Likewise, Paul had to encourage his young friend Timothy not to let anyone despise his youth. (2nd Timothy 4:12)

No doubt there are some young people in this church who think that life is unfair to them in asking them to shoulder great burdens before they are ready. I am sympathetic to your plea. I read recently that this generation of American Children is, at one and the same time, the most affluent generation ever born, and the most neglected. That seems an impossible combination! There is so much temptation for you to face, so many decisions for you to make. A director of Youth For Christ recently told me that this generation is being asked to make decision at fourteen that my generation did not face until college.

Well, if you are in this generation, and if you face difficulty, take heart, what the angel said to Mary, I would also say to you, “With God nothing will be impossible.”

I am reminded of a teenager who came to my office some years ago. She was single—and in distress.At the urging of her boy friend, she decided to abort her baby.

“I thought he loved me,” she said to me, “but that last thing I heard from him was the sound of his tires barking on the pavement as he dropped me off to face my fate.”

She wondered if she would ever be able to look life square in the face again. She wondered if anyone would ever love her. She wondered if she would ever feel forgiven. Today she is a wife and mother and very active in her church. If you asked her if life were unfair, she would say, “Sometimes, and it is difficult to face, but ‘with God nothing is impossible.’”

As the man said, “One man, one woman, one boy, one girl, plus God, is a majority in any situation.” God is not always interested in our abilities. God is interested in our availability. Mary was available, she proclaimed herself “the handmaid of the Lord,” ready to do God’s will no matter what her age and what her circumstance.

Third, we can be sure that Mary was poor.

We know that because, when Mary and Joseph took Jesus for presentation at the temple they offered, “a pair of turtledoves,” (Luke 2:24), the offering that Leviticus 5:7 prescribes for those who could not afford to offer a lamb. Jesus was the lamb of God, but there was not lamb for him.

In the passage before us this morning, which is often called “The Magnificat,” Mary marvels at the goodness of God to the poor. She says that:

My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden…51b he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, 52 he has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree; 53 he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away. ( Luke 1:46-53, selections)

In context, this Magnificat of Mary is an offering of praise to God for his goodness toward the tiny, Jewish nation, at that time, a slave to the Roman Empire. But, in scripture, God’s goodness is not reserved just for impoverished nations; it is for impoverished people.

In Luke’s sermon on the plain, Jesus lifts up his eyes upon his disciples and says, “Blessed are you poor for yours is the kingdom of God.” Thankfully, in Matthew’s sermon on the mount, he adds, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the kingdom of God.” As Americans living at the tag end of the 20th century, we know that we are among the richest in the history of the world. I read recently that our average income, even adjusted for inflation, is fourteen times as great as that of our great-grandparents. No doubt it is a hundred times greater than that of Mary and the disciples and their kin. But, as rich as we are, we can still be poor in spirit. We can still hold out our hands and our hearts to God and say, “Lord, you are my portion! Apart from you I know no good thing. God, fill me for I am empty!”

I never cease to be amazed how the collective memory that we call Christmas Past constantly applauds the poor.

One of my favorite Christmas stories revolves around my father. One Christmas during his boyhood, the country was locked in a Great Depression, and his family had absolutely nothing under the tree, and nothing to look forward to. Then the little girl next door slipped into the house and presented him with a ten-cent toy and a bag of treats. “It was one of the happiest Christmases I ever had,” he says.

And what about Dickens A Christmas Carol? In the beginning, Scrooge is well, a scrooge! But Bob Crachit and family are unexplainably happy in their poverty. All they ask for is the health of Tiny Tim.

And what about Della and Jim Dillingham Young in O Henry’s “Gift of the Magi.” Della sold her beautiful hair to buy Jim a chain for his watch, while, at the same time, in ignorance, Jim sold his beautiful watch to buy Della comb for her hair? Do you read the story and think them as just “two foolish children in a flat who unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house?” Or, like the author, do you consider them “of all those who give and receive gifts, the wisest.”

I know what I want for Christmas: I want my health; my family around me; the sound of music; the assurance of God’s love and the prospect of telling others just how much God loves them; the opportunity to “Magnify the Lord!”

Mary may have been poor in the eyes of her neighbors, but she had a joy in her heart—the joy of knowing that God had regarded her, and loved her, and had been faithful to her, and her people before her. Her joy came in the opportunity to “Magnify the Lord,” and to “rejoice in God” whom she called, “my Saviour.”

There is a difference you know, in celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour of the World, and in celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, my Saviour.” Do not settle for the former without the latter!

Finally, though many more things could be said about Mary, I think it must be said that she survived the worst fate any parent can. She lost a child, and lived through it.

Think for a minute about those words, “She lost a child, and lived through it.” There are two ways of hearing that.

First, I will allow you to hear it as most of us naturally would. Mary lost a child and lived (with a small “l”) through it. She survived the death of her son. She battled the pain, the loss, the suffering. Still, she went on.

Tradition says that Mary survived the death of Jesus for at least two decades, living first in Jerusalem, then, perhaps, with John in Ephesus.

Some will fault me for not mentioning that Mary survived the resurrection of Jesus for almost as long. “Mary only had to suffer her loss for three days,” they would say, “Then it was over. Our loses last much longer.”

Is it fair to say that Mary suffered only three days? There are two reasons I do not think so.

First, though the Acts of the Apostles says that Mary was with the disciples in Jerusalem after the resurrection of Jesus, it nowhere even hints that she was a witness of that resurrection. The only thing she had to go on was the encouragement of her friends, and the same faith required of you and me. She had the pride of knowing that Jesus was her Saviour in heaven; still she had to endure the separation, and, like many of you, look forward to that day when 10,000 times 10,000 will throng up the steps of light, and severed friendships are knitted up, and partings are no more.

Secondly, I would point out that Mary’s suffering was not confined to that time after the death of Jesus. When Mary and Joseph presented baby Jesus at the temple, Simon warned her that a sword would pierce her, too. Mary had almost thirty years of pondering these things in her heart, thirty years of watching, and waiting, and wondering when she would be separated from him to whom she gave life, and nourishment, and council, and love. Then, at the end of three decades, she had three horrible years when everyone thought that Jesus, the son of the Carpenter from Nazareth, the son of Mary, was beside himself, a fruitcake, and a lunatic. Most importantly, she was at the foot of the cross when he died.

I would argue that though we might rightly call her, Mary the Mother of God, we must not divorce her from the real world of uncertainty and pain that we are called upon to live. If Mary survived and thrived, it was simply because she did as you and I must do. When called upon by God to serve him, she said, “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

Now hear that same phrase as you must hear it: Mary lost a child and Lived (with a capital “L”) through it.

The Son that Mary watched suffer on the cross was the very means of her salvation.

Now Mary was a good person. She was Virgin, she was the handmaid of the Lord, and she was good enough to be the choice of God the Father to be the mother of God the Son. But Mary was not perfect. She stood under the condemnation of sin. And, according to Romans 6:23, “the wages of sin is death.”

We must get it out of our head that Mary had to be perfect. Thank, God, God does not depend upon perfect people. David was an adulterer and a murder, and God still forgave him, and let his name stand in the genealogy of Jesus as “the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah.” (Matthew 1:6)

There was only one perfect person. It was not Mary the Mother of God, but Jesus the Son of Mary. “He,” says the writer of Hebrews, “was tempted in all points like we are, yet was without sin.”

Jesus died that Mary, and Joseph, and the Shepherds, and the Wise Men, and the Inn Keeper, and all the rest of us might live.

If Mary was Proud Mary, it was because of the role she played in giving to the world the greatest gift of all, the Gift of God’s Son. It was God the Father who “gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him might not perish, but have everlasting life.” But Proud Mary had her role to play, too. What Father, what mother, has ever given a greater gift.

Prayer: