Mary’s Baby

 

The angel said to her, "Don’t be afraid, Mary; God has been gracious to you. You will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High God. The Lord God will make him a king, as his ancestor David was, and he will be the king of the descendants of Jacob forever;

 his kingdom will never end!"  Mary said to the angel, "I am a virgin. How, then, can this be?"

 The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come on you, and God’s power will rest upon you.

For this reason the holy child will be called the Son of God".
" I am the Lord’s servant", said Mary; "may it happen to me as you have said".  

Prayer:

Christmas is a wonderful time of year. So many wonderful things happen at this time of the year - family gatherings, Christmas parties, visiting parents, grandparents, and brothers and sisters, and the special music and songs that are heard only at this time of the year. It is a great time - a wonderful time, a time of promise. Christmas is a fun time of the year.

But there is more than this to Christmas. There is a serious side, the side that makes it all wonderful and meaningful, the side that was promised thousands of years ago to Adam and Eve, to David, and to the prophets. The promise of God about this season came long before Jesus was born.

God had promised that evil would be defeated. He promised that there would be a time of lasting peace, of hope, joy and love. God promised that a king would be born... an everlasting king, who would rule his people with justice and truth, a king like David, but greater yet. A king whose reign would never end, a king who would look after the poor and give justice to the widow and orphan.

This hope, love, and goodness for humanity rested upon a young girl, barely a woman, who was engaged to a simple carpenter. Neither Mary nor Joseph were people of any prominence. They were just ordinary folk going about doing ordinary task of surviving during times that were difficult, let alone the added difficulty that was imposed on their lives.

Mary was most likely a young teenager since it was a custom for a father to arrange his daughter’s marriage when she was about thirteen years of age. We don’t know what Mary was doing at the time - perhaps carrying water from the village well...perhaps doing some mending, or cleaning up after a meal.

Gabriel suddenly appears and greets the startled Mary, "Peace be with you. The Lord is with you and has greatly blessed you." Luke tells us she was "deeply troubled" or "confused" by the sudden appearance of the angel.

I don’t know if Luke is being polite here in describing Mary’s reaction but most of us would be scared out of our wits if an angel suddenly appeared in front of us out of nowhere. The opening words of the angel are perplexing and troubled Mary.

More accurately Gabriel says, "Greetings, O favoured one. The Lord is with you!" We have lost the meaning of what the angel is saying to Mary through our translation. Gabriel is saying, "Greetings, you the recipient of a gift" or "Greetings, privileged one". No wonder Mary was troubled – what gift had she received?

Why would an angel call her privileged? If that wasn’t enough what Gabriel was about to tell her was even more "confusing". Mary’s visitor is not very skilled at breaking news gently. Instead, he comes straight to the point. The young teenager was told that she was about to become pregnant, and that she would give birth to a son and the name that she is to give him is "Jesus".

 

Her son is the promised king, the Messiah. He is God’s own Son. And Mary’s first reaction is but, "I am a virgin. How, then, can this be?"  Gabriel said, I know. Mary wanted to make sense out of what made no sense at all. How can I have a baby without knowing a man? Is there something my mother forgot to tell me about how a woman conceives?

How can she an ordinary girl possibly give birth to "the Son of the God Most High"? How is it that God has decided to become flesh and blood and now needed her help to bring this about. I’m sure if we were in the same situation, we would be asking Gabriel whole string of questions.

Will Joseph stick around when he finds out that I’m pregnant? How will my parents react? Who is going to believe that an angel visited me and from that time on I was pregnant? Who is going to believe when I say that the baby is God’s Son? She simple asked, "How can this be?" and then listened to the barest details as to how this will all come to pass.

"The Holy Spirit will come on you, and God’s power will rest upon you. For this reason the holy child will be called the Son of God. This is entirely the creative work of God. Through the Word, by the Holy Spirit, a young woman conceives without a man and gives birth to a Son, who is the Holy One, Immanuel, God with us.

The child she will bear will be different – he will not only be a boy like her brothers and cousins, but he will also be Lord of the universe, the eternal Word of God through whom all things were made. The infinite Son of God is contained in the finite womb of a virgin. 

The fact that Jesus’ mother was a virgin and that his conception is a complete mystery as far as human understanding is concerned is difficult enough in itself. But the fact that the God of the universe reduces himself to a growing fetus inside Mary’s womb is even harder to grasp.

There are those who regard the virgin birth as so impossible that it is an insult to their intelligence. We can’t even attempt to fathom this out. We may not understand how this happened but we do know why.

During the darkest hours of World War II in England, a gloom swept over the nation as the Luftwaffa dropped tons and tons of bombs on London. There was a legitimate fear for the safety of the King, George VI, and his family. His staff, therefore, made secret arrangements to transport the king and his family to safety in Canada, for the duration of the war.

Despite the urgings of his advisors, George refused to leave his country in its darkest hour. Shortly there after an incident in which the king was inspecting a bombed out section of London after an air raid. While walking through the rubble an elderly man walked up to King George and said, "You, here, in the midst of this. You are indeed a good King".

That is the message of God who became a fetus in Mary and was then born in a cowshed and laid in a manger. We may not understand the mystery that surrounds the Christmas events but we do know that he is Immanuel, God with us. God is with us in the ugly part of our lives as well as the good.

He does not desert us in the darkest hour of our despair. He is there in the midst of the rubble of our broken dreams and the ruin of our tangled lives. Our heavenly King has come into the rubble of our lives to give help and support. From the time of Gabriel’s visit, Mary’s life was turned upside down. Joseph had difficulty understanding how Mary became pregnant and without any fuss wants to part from her.

As the time for the baby draws near they travelled to Bethlehem where she would deliver her baby without any of the comforts of home and place the baby in a feeding trough for animals. Not long after that she and Joseph would have to flee to Egypt to protect this Child from murderous King Herod.

Thirty years later Mary would stand at the foot of a cross and watch that precious life that was conceived in her be given into death for her and for the sin of the world. Mary’s life would be different from now on. This child will bring her joy but he will also bring her pain and sorrow.

We don’t know everything that lies in the future for us, whether next year, or in the years ahead. But we can sure that at some time we will have our fair share of trouble. There will be times of sickness and health, success and failure. Things will happen that will test our faith and loyalty to God. We will stare death in the face, either that of a loved one or even our own.

Lots of things will cause our heads to spin but we can be sure of this one thing - God has become one of us. A virgin conceives and bears a son. Mary gave birth to a Son who was crucified, raised, and glorified. Mary’s baby is truly Immanuel – God with us. He has come to earth for us and in the midst of our troubles he brings us hope, peace and love.

God in Christ has come close to us - that's why he chose to become an earthly baby in a manger. That’s why one of the names given to Jesus is "Immanuel" because it means "God is with us".
In Jesus, God is with us when we are depressed and hurting.
In Jesus, God is with us when we are sick and sorrowful.
In Jesus, God is with us when we are feeling guilty and ashamed.
In Jesus, God is with us when we are celebrating and happy.

Jesus doesn’t watch what is happening in our lives from a distance like a big daddy in the sky. Rather he is here with us, right in the middle of it all like a brother or a sister. He is right here with us, giving us the support, help and comfort that we need to face the ongoing troubles that come our way.

Into our world of tragedies, of broken dreams, of crushed hopes, and of merciless demands, God came so that he could heal all of our pain and give us hope. "For nothing is impossible with God." We do not know everything that lies in the future for us, whether next year, or in the years ahead. We don't know what suffering, trials, temptations are in store for us.

We don't know if we will be sick or healthy in the coming year, prosperous or poor. We don't know what our being servants of the Lord will mean for us, or how the cross will come to us, though you can be sure the cross will come. We don't know the time and circumstances of our own death. Nor do we know the hour or day of the Lord's coming in glory and our resurrection from the dead.

But we do know this one thing on this 4th Sunday of Advent: Amazing things happen where God speaks His Word of promise. A virgin conceives and bears a son. Sins are forgiven in the name of Jesus.

Sinners are washed and reborn as baptized saints. The Body and Blood which were born of Mary, crucified, raised, and glorified, are given out as a Supper for sinners to eat and to drink. The dead are raised to life.

 

As we go from here today we will say to each other

"Merry Christmas"

and it really is a merry and joyous Christmas –

God came down to earth for you and me.

Amen.