And She Will Be Blessed

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

November 30, 2014

And She Will Be Blessed

Luke 1:46-55

Stories about Mary abound,

stories that try to satisfy our hunger,

our desire to know something, anything

about the mother of Jesus;

the one chosen by God to give birth to

“the Son of the Most High,

the Son of God,

the Holy One,

whose kingdom shall have no end.”

(Luke 1:32-33)

The Bible tells us surprisingly little about Mary:

nothing about her family,

nothing about where she came from,

or where she grew up,

or what her father did,

or how old she was,

or how her betrothal to Joseph was arranged,

or whether she had more children

after Jesus was born.

We’ve tried over the centuries to fill in the pieces;

there is no shortage of stories

that purport to tell us about

the life of this young woman,

this young woman who really is

the beginning of Christmas.

There is, for example,

an apocryphal story called the

“Infancy Gospel of James”

which tells us that Mary’s parents               

were named Joachim  and Anna,

and that Mary’s birth was the result of

immaculate conception,

an essential doctrine in the

Roman Catholic Church.

The story tells us that at age 3,

Mary was so filled with the Spirit of God,

that when her parents took her to the Temple

to leave her to be raised and taught by the priests,

she danced up the stairs in joy.

Another apocryphal story is called

the “Infancy Gospel of Pseudo Matthew”

and it tells us that while Mary lived in the Temple,

“Daily an angel of the Lord [spoke] with [her];

daily she accepted food from the hand of an angel.”

The stories go on to tell us that

at age 12 Temple priests

asked widowers in the community

to contest for Mary’s hand.

Joseph was chosen,

protesting at first that he wasn’t interested,

and then telling his young bride-to-be

that he would be leaving immediately,

to go build houses elsewhere,

and that he’d be gone

for a very convenient 9 months.

The gospels themselves tell us little of Mary

beyond what we find in the birth narratives.

But what they tell us paints a picture

of a woman of remarkable faith,

a woman humbly obedient to the Lord her God.

Imagine: there she is, little more than a teenager,

probably from a rather humble background,

if the best her father could do

was arrange a marriage

to an itinerant carpenter,

and suddenly she is visited by an angel,

the angel Gabriel.

It shouldn’t surprise us at all

that Gabriel’s first words to Mary were,

“Do not be afraid”.

Watch the classic movie, “The Bishop’s Wife”

in which the Bishop, played by David Niven,

can never quite figure out whether the angel,

played by Cary Grant,

has come to help him or do him harm.

“Do not be afraid, for the Lord is with you!”

Gabriel reassures Mary.

Gabriel then tells Mary that she will give birth

to the Son of God,

the Son of the Most High.

Mary doesn’t protest that she should be let alone,

as almost every Old Testament prophet did;

nor does she ask the obvious question,

“why me?”

Instead she asks the more practical question

about how she could conceive

since she was still unmarried.

Why did God select Mary?

She was neither famous, nor powerful,

nor influential, nor wealthy.

She didn’t come from the right family,

the right town,

the right school.

But she had what mattered to God:

faith, deep and abiding faith,

faith that led to obedience.

God’s will was enough for her:

“Here am I the servant of the Lord,”

she said to Gabriel,

let it be with me according to your word.”

(Luke 1:38)

And so she gave birth to Jesus,

gave birth in the most humble of circumstances,

far from home, in a stable,

because there was no room for her and Joseph

anywhere but in a barn behind a crowded inn.

Her baby’s first bed would be a manger,

the feeding trough for cattle, donkey, and oxen.

It is Luke’s gospel that tells us this birth story;

focusing as he does on Mary.

Matthew’s gospel looks at the birth

through Joseph’s eyes, rather than Mary’s.

It is really only Luke who paints

any real picture of Mary.

After the birth of our Lord,

we find only a few more glimpses of Mary:

an anxious mother,

when Jesus stayed behind in the Temple at age 12

and Mary could not find him;

a proud mother accompanying her son

to a wedding in Cana;

a grief-stricken mother

collapsed at the base of the cross

watching her son die in agony,

hung as a common criminal,

hearing his last gasps for breath

until there was nothing but terrifying silence.

It is the prayer that Mary offers

when she visits Elizabeth

that tells us the most about Mary,

tells us what we need to know,

tells us that for as young as she was,

as modest a background as she might have had,

she was a woman of deep faith,

obedient faith,

humble faith.

“My soul magnifies the Lord

and my spirit rejoices in God

my Savior.”

Mary sang out,

God her savior.

God the one who would redeem her,

watch over her,

grace her with hope,

bless her.

Mary’s prayer echoed the prayer offered by Hannah,

the mother of the prophet Samuel,

when she gave birth to her son

a thousand years before,

and then sang with joyful exuberance:

“My heart exults in the Lord;
my strength is exalted in my God.
…There is no Holy One like the Lord,
no one besides you;

 there is no Rock like our God.

Talk no more so very proudly,

 let not arrogance come from your mouth;
for the Lord is a God of knowledge,
and by him actions are weighed.

The bows of the mighty are broken,
but the feeble gird on strength.

Those who were full

have hired themselves out for bread,
but those who were hungry are fat with spoil.

…The Lord…raises up the poor from the dust;

he lifts the needy from the ash heap,

to make them sit with princes

and inherit a seat of honor.”

(1 Samuel 2)

The Lord God is Hannah’s savior.

The Lord God is Mary’s savior.

The Lord God is our savior.

We begin our Advent season today;

Advent is a time of preparation,

a time for us, yes,

to prepare ourselves for Christmas,

a time for us to decorate our homes,

to shop for gifts,

to get ready for visiting family and friends,

and all the festivities that come with Christmas.

But Advent is also a time for us

to prepare ourselves

for the coming of our Lord;

and of course, not just the coming

we celebrate at Christmas,

the coming of our Lord as a

baby born in a manger,

but the coming we anticipate,

the coming our Lord has promised us,

the coming our Lord calls us to prepare for:

                                                     

That day when our Lord will

come again in glory

and bring about the Kingdom of God,

the Kingdom God and our Lord Jesus describe

time and time again,

the kingdom that will show

Mary’s and Hannah’s words

to be prophetic and true:

 the lowly lifted up

the rich sent away empty handed;

the proud scattered,

the powerful brought down;

swords beaten into plowshares,

spears into pruning hooks,

a kingdom so completely different

from the world we know

that even the wolf will live with the lamb,

the leopard will lie down with the kid,

and the lion will eat straw like an ox.

The world we work so hard to create

to suit our every need

will be turned upside down

to become the Kingdom God will create,

which will, paradoxically

truly suit our every real need,

filling us all with good things,

satisfying our hunger,

quenching our thirst,

and gracing us with that peace

that surpasses all understanding.

As one scholar wrote, in God’s Kingdom,

“A barren woman can bear a child.

A virgin can conceive.

The Lord can enter into human history as a child.

And from a tomb can come resurrection.”

The Advent of the Kingdom of God is before us.

We stand on the threshold of a room called December

and in that room we see a

baby born to a humble young woman,

born to a faithful young woman,

born to give us hope.

                 

It is the baby who draws our attention.

But Advent encourages us to focus on the mother,

even just for a few moments,

to hear the words of her Magnificat,

to learn from her example of

humble, obedient faith,

And then sing with her:

“My soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

…Let it be with us according to your Word.”

To God be the glory.

AMEN