Advent 4 –
Series C (December 23, 2018)
“Blessed
Mary” (Luke 1:39-56)
In spite of what our Roman Catholic
and Eastern Orthodox friends say about us Lutherans, we Lutherans also highly
honor Mary, the Mother of our Lord. We
even call her the Mother of God. If
Jesus is God, and Mary is his mother, then we can truly call her the Mother of
God. It’s not so much a commentary on
Mary as it is a confession of the deity of Jesus. Still, there is much to say about Mary and
her faith and what we can learn from her example.
Mary went to visit her relative Elizabeth in the
hill country of Judea, just west of Jerusalem, probably to get away from all
the gossips in Nazareth when word would get out that she was expecting. Elizabeth was also expecting, already six
months along carrying John the Baptist.
Upon Mary’s greeting, John jumped for joy and Elizabeth was filled with
the Spirit and began to prophesy, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is
the fruit of your womb … blessed is she who believed that there would be a
fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”
Mary was blessed.
And in blessed Mary we see a model of simple, humble faith and a picture
of the Church, which is blessed through the blessing that Mary brought into the
world.
“Blessed are you among women,” Elizabeth
said. As the mother of the Savior, Mary
was indeed honored among all women who ever lived. She was chosen for this special role by God’s
grace. The angel who came to announce
that Mary would be the Mother of the Savior said, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for
you have found favor with God” (Luke 1:30).
What brought this favor? Was there something in Mary that caused God
to choose her, some aspect of her character?
The Bible doesn’t tell us. All it
says is that it was due to God’s grace, his undeserved favor towards us sinful
human beings. And Mary was a sinful
human being, too, but chosen by grace to be the one through whom the Son of God
took on human flesh.
In this way, you
and I are much like Mary. Those who are
baptized into Mary’s Son and who trust in him for salvation are chosen by grace. There was nothing in our nature or character
that caused God to choose us. In fact, quite
the opposite is true. Our sinful nature
should cause God to want to send us away from him and his love forever. “But,” as St. Paul writes in Ephesians 2, “God, being rich
in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were
dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have
been saved” (Eph. 2:4-5).
In the Magnificat, the song of Mary which
the Church still sings in Vespers and Evening Prayer, Mary describes how God likes
to turn things upside down. While the
world pays attention to the high and mighty and overlooks the poor and the
oppressed, the Lord “has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted
those of low estate.” He did this in the
Virgin Birth of Jesus. In the eyes of
the world, Mary was insignificant. She
was the young bride-to-be of a poor carpenter from a backwater Galilean town,
far from the holy city of Jerusalem in Judea.
And who would believe the story that an angel came to her and told her
that, although she was a virgin, she would become pregnant? Enemies of Christianity have mocked Mary, too,
claiming that she was an adulterous woman, that the real father of Jesus was a
Roman soldier who seduced her, or other such lies. Humbled in the eyes of the world, Mary was
exalted in the eyes of God. In her song,
she recalls how “he who is mighty has done great things for me.” He graciously lifted her up to her high
status as the Mother of God, a title she carries because of the divine nature
of her Son.
Like Mary, the Church has seen its
share of mockery and slander. Believers
in Jesus have endured all kinds of persecution over the centuries. But unlike Mary, some of the treatment the
Church has received has been well-deserved.
The Church is made up of sinners.
You are defiled because of your sin.
The term virgin is not suitable for you.
You have been adulterous in the ways in which you have consorted with
the gods of material wealth, success, popularity, beauty, youth, and
convenience, among other modern gods with a small “g.” And even if you have had none of this, you
have still coveted it. But in spite of
your sin, you are also exalted in the eyes of God. You are declared holy and virgin-pure through
the great things the Mighty One has done for you … shedding his blood at the
cross for you, forgiving you all your sins, and leading you into repentant
trust.
“Blessed are you among women,” Elizabeth declared,
“and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” The angel came to Mary and gave her God’s Word
of promise that she would be the mother of the Savior. We call this event “The Annunciation” and we
celebrate it on March 25 … nine months before Christmas. The Holy Spirit worked through the Word that
was spoken to Mary and miraculously conceived the baby Jesus in Mary’s womb. Christian artists over the years understood
this quite well. You see many depictions
of the Annunciation where the angel is speaking to Mary. The Holy Spirit in the form of a dove floats
overhead. Coming from its beak is a beam
of light shining right into Mary’s ear.
Other paintings show God the Father above, with a beam of light, or even
words coming from his mouth directly to Mary’s ear. Nine months later, Mary gave birth to the
Christ Child in the stable of Bethlehem.
In a similar way,
the Church now miraculously conceives and gives birth to Christians. The Church becomes the womb in which people
are born again through Water and the Word.
The Holy Spirit works through that Word, enters the ears and goes
straight to the heart and creates faith, as Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes
through hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Believers in Christ are nurtured and nourished
here with the milk of God’s Word. St.
Peter writes, “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk,
that by it you may grow up into salvation” (1 Pet. 2:2). Believers in Christ are fed here with the bread of life. Jesus said of himself, “I am the bread
of life” (John 6:48). And the Christ who rose again on Easter is
present with his people today, giving his body to eat and his blood to drink in
the Sacrament of the Altar.
“Blessed are you among women and blessed is the
fruit of your womb.” And then, Elizabeth
says, “And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of
what was spoken to her from the Lord.” Mary is a model for us of pure,
receptive faith. Faith is not a
force or a power which is used to get what you want or to manipulate God,
however sanctified you think your motivation is. Faith simply receives what God gives. It takes God at his word.
By the power of the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth was
given faith to know who the Child in Mary’s womb was. She called Mary “the mother of my Lord.” And John, while still in Elizabeth’s womb,
heard Mary’s greeting, and in faith leaped for joy over the news of the coming
birth of the Savior. Mary, too,
recognized her need and rejoiced in her Savior.
She sang, “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my
Savior.” She knew that although she had
been blessed beyond her wildest dreams, she was still a sinner in need of
forgiveness.
Mary had simple, humble trust in God
and his promises. Did she know exactly
how this was all going to work out? The
Bible doesn’t exactly tell us. You can
imagine the questions that were running through her mind. “What will Joseph
have to say about all this? Will he
believe my story? Or will he hand me
over to be stoned, supposing I am guilty of adultery? What will my family and my neighbors say
about me?”
Later on, there would have been
other questions. “Why is King Herod
trying to kill my Son? What did Simeon
mean when he said that ‘a sword will pierce through your own soul also’?” (Luke
2:35). “What pain am I going to have to face over my Son? Why did my son leave his job in Nazareth to
become this itinerant preacher, with great crowds following him? Maybe he’s out of his mind” (Mark 3:21).
And then, on Good Friday … “Why is it necessary
for my sweet, perfect Child – whom I held in my arms, nursed at my breast, and
laid in a manger – to have to die such a brutal death? I can hardly bear to
watch, but I can’t leave him, either” (Matt. 27:56).
These are questions which would challenge anyone’s
faith. Yet God was working behind the
scenes in all these painful events of Mary’s life to save the world … to save
you and me … from sin, death, and everlasting condemnation.
You don’t know how things are going
to work out in your life, either. None
of us knows from moment to moment when the foundations of our life will
crumble, when the rug is going to be pulled out from underneath us. Maybe it’s already happened for some of you.
Your loving, merciful Heavenly Father
is working behind the scenes and promises to work all things out for the good
of those who love him and who are called according to his purposes (Rom. 8:28). You can trust that promise completely,
because God already worked for your good when, in the fullness of time, he sent
forth his Son, born of Mary, to redeem you, to adopt you as his son, his
daughter, giving you the Spirit of his Son so you can call God your Father, and
making you an heir of heaven (Gal. 4:4-7).
May our Father in heaven grant us
the same simple, humble trust that Blessed Mary had in his gracious promises.
Amen.
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