“A Christmas Point of View” – Mary – Luke 1

Her Diary:

Tonight, I thought my husband was acting weird. We had made plans to meet at a nice restaurant for dinner. I was shopping with my friends all day long, so I thought he was upset at the fact that I was a bit late, but he made no comment on it. Conversation wasn't flowing, so I suggested that we go somewhere quiet so we could talk. He agreed, but he didn't say much. I asked him what was wrong; He said, 'Nothing.' I asked him if it was my fault that he was upset. He said he wasn't upset, that it had nothing to do with me, and not to worry about it. On the way home, I told him that I loved him. He smiled slightly, and kept driving. I can't explain his behavior I don't know why he didn't say, 'I love you, too.' When we got home, I felt as if I had lost him completely, as if he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. He just sat there quietly, and watched TV. He continued to seem distant and absent. Finally, with silence all around us, I decided to go to bed.

About 15 minutes later, he came to bed. But I still felt that he was distracted, and his thoughts were somewhere else. He fell asleep - I cried. I don't know what to do. I'm almost sure that his thoughts are with someone else. My life is a disaster.



His Diary:

Motorcycle won't start, can't figure out why.

That cracks me up because there is so much reality there, isn’t there?  Ladies, most men are not that difficult to figure out.  Most of the time if you want to know what a man is thinking all you have to do is ask and you will get a short, concise answer.  Men, if you want a short, concise answer from women what do you do?  No, really, I’m asking because I don’t know.  J

I did some research (I googled it) and found that scientists have actually discovered what women want.  It was a great break-through except that the women immediately changed their minds.  So, guys, we may never know.  But that’s ok.  It won’t be for a lack of them trying to tell us. 

As we head into the Christmas season full steam I thought it would be good to know what the main characters in the first Christmas were thinking so we are going to look at Christmas from the point of view of Mary, Joseph and then Jesus Himself.  Today we look from the point of view of Mary, the mother of Jesus in Luke chapter 1.

Dr. Luke wrote this book mainly by interviewing the people involved first-hand so that he would be able to know exactly what happened.  So, when we read the Christmas story in his book, you know it is true and that it happened to the people just like they said so we know as well as we can what they were thinking and what their point of view actually was.

The first time we read anything about Mary is in this story and you need to know that at this point Mary is probably between 12 and 14 years old.  She’s just a little girl but we can ascertain that she was raised in a good Jewish home from the tribe of Judah, a virgin and a descendent of King David.  Those are all important things to remember about her as we look at Luke 1:26-38.

²⁶ In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, ²⁷ to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” ²⁹ Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. ³⁰ But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. ³¹ You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, ³³ and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” ³⁴ “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” ³⁵ The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. ³⁶ Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. ³⁷ For no word from God will ever fail.” ³⁸ “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

In spite of Gabriel’s well-meaning and sincere attempt to comfort her, I can’t imagine Mary not being scared and she had at least two good reasons to be scared.  The first reason is that she has an angel standing in front of her.  We sometimes have this vision of angels as the little fairy on our shoulders or as the cute and chubby little cherubs we see in paintings but they can evidently take almost any form, sometimes with the appearance of a man or sometimes dazzling white like those at the empty tomb.

Whatever Gabriel looked like, it would be enough to scare anybody.  But the other thing I think of that might have scared her was Gabriel’s message.  Yes, he started out by saying that she was highly favored there in verse 28 but then he basically tells her, “Hey, good news!  You’re going to have a baby.”  Well, that is kind of a big deal in and of itself, right?  Just that would scare most people but Gabriel continued on.  “Oh, don’t worry.  You are just being charged with carrying and raising the Savior of the world.  That’s all.”

Gee, Gabe, I don’t know if I want to be “highly favored.”  I don’t know why God chose Mary to be the mother of Jesus.  Just add that to the long list of things I don’t know but while there were some things definitely in her favor, like being a descendent of David and being a virgin, it boils down to grace.  That’s what that word “favored” means.  In the Greek it is “charis” which simply means grace.  Mary was “highly graced.”

You know that grace means to receive unmerited favor.  Whatever good things Mary had going for her, it was only by God’s favor - that she did not deserve - that He chose her.  Mary experienced the grace of God.  GW Knight said, “When a person works an eight-hour day and receives a fair day's pay for his time, that is a wage. When a person competes with an opponent and receives a trophy for his performance, that is a prize. When a person receives appropriate recognition for his long service or high achievements, that is an award. But when a person is not capable of earning a wage, can win no prize, and deserves no award--yet receives such a gift anyway--that is a good picture of God's unmerited favor. This is what we mean when we talk about the grace of God.”

Mary experienced that unmerited favor of God.  Maybe some of you can relate to that.  Maybe some of you can testify like Mary that sometimes God’s grace can be painful for a time.  I’m sure Mary was scared of what Gabriel was telling her because she knew this was going to be pretty hard to explain and that even her soon-to-be-husband Joseph might not understand.  That would be pretty scary for a teenage girl who knew that the penalty for adultery could be death.  Yeah, thanks a lot Gabriel.

But not only did Mary experience the grace of God but she also believed the word of God.  Now, I’m proud of Mary for just being able to think and say anything to Gabriel but in verse 34 she asks a very good question.  It wasn’t a question of doubt.  It was just a question of not understanding how it would happen.

Then in verse 35 Gabriel answers her question.  ³⁵ The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.  (Repeat)  I have to admit something.  I don’t know what that means.  I don’t understand that.  Oh, I looked all through the commentaries and checked what other people had to say about that but it still doesn’t really explain how a virgin can have a baby.

I found it fascinating that the phrases “will come on you” and “will overshadow you” are also the same phrase used in Exodus 40 to describe how the glory of the Lord filled the temple.  Mary’s body had become something like the Holy of Holies and the symbolism of that is pretty incredible for it was in the Holy of Holies that the sacrifice of atonement was found.  It was where the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled and where the mercy seat was kept. 

I don’t know if Mary could comprehend all of that while standing there talking to that shining warrior Gabriel but evidently Mary didn’t have to know all the details.  She just believed.  She believed the word of God.  What Gabriel said was enough.  I say all the time that truth is enough and when someone hears the truth of God it ought to be enough. 

When you hear that God hates divorce that ought to be enough to keep your marriage together.  When God says to be holy and different that ought to be enough to change the way you talk and where you go and what you watch.  When you read that six days you shall do your labor but the seventh is a Sabbath to the Lord and to keep it holy that ought to be enough to keep you from working on Sunday.

It was pure grace that God chose Mary to be the mother of Jesus and to be highly favored even to this day.  It was grace that He used her to raise up the Baby of all babies.  Mary didn’t do anything to deserve it but she did put herself in the place to be blessed with that grace.  She kept herself pure.  She made herself holy and when God wanted to dispense grace, there was Mary, a willing and proper vessel for that grace.

The older I get the more I realize that everything we have and everything we are and everything we will ever know is just from God’s grace.  But, as I may have said here before a time or two, there are blessings of obedience and consequences of disobedience and when someone like Mary – or you – experiences the grace of God and believes the word of God, God then pours out even more grace so that you will be able to know and accomplish the will of God.

Now, from Mary’s point of view, the will of God was pretty obvious.  He sent an angel to tell her.  He may not have been real specific but there was no denying what God’s will was for her life.  Don’t you wish God would do that for you every now and then?  You have to be careful with angels though.  I have a female cousin who met an angel one time and she begged the angel to make her irresistible to men and now she’s a Corvette.  So, I’m just saying be careful with those angels.

That was bad.  Anyway, not many people are told by an angel what the will of God is for their lives like Mary was, so how do we know?  How do we find out the will of God?  Well, we are told in Romans 12:1-2.  It says, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will."

Mary’s body had literally become a living sacrifice.  She was holy and pleasing to God and God showed her His will and He will do the same for you.  He will probably not send you an angel.  He will probably reveal it to you from His Word, the Bible, and then confirm it through the presence and peace of the Holy Spirit that is living inside you if you are a true believer in Him.

But it won’t happen if you are already out of His will.  If there is unconfessed sin in your life then that puts up a barrier between you and God and He will not give you further instructions if you don’t obey what He has already told you.  If you say you believe the Word of God but you don’t obey what His Word says then that is being a hypocrite and that is not God’s will nor will He give you answers to your prayers if you are conforming to the pattern of this world.

He insists that you be different from this world.  1 Peter 1:13-16 says, “Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. ¹⁴ As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. ¹⁵ But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; ¹⁶ for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” 

So there is obviously a correlation between being holy and experiencing grace from God.  Maybe it was easier for Mary than it is for you today.  I don’t know.  I’m about as far as possible from being able to relate to what a young girl might have gone through 2000-plus years ago and so many miles away but it was still a choice.  Mary still had to make the choice to see God’s grace and not call it something else.  She had to make the choice to believe what God told her through the angel and she most certainly had to make the choice to be holy and to let her body be a living sacrifice to Holy God.

*Bring out clean glass*

It was only when Mary had realized she had experienced the grace of God and when she made the choice to believe the Word of God that she was able to accomplish the will of God.  When we come to God as a clean vessel and with a pure heart, He can fill us up with His grace and we can be used mightily just like Mary was to accomplish God’s will.

*Bring out filthy glass*

But when you come to God and your vessel looks just like all the other filthy vessels of the world you can’t expect God to use you like He will if you were clean.  Yes, it is only by God’s grace that He doesn’t just throw that nasty cup in the trash and get another.  But if you want to be used by God and to accomplish His will in this world then you can’t look like the world.  You have to be holy.  You have to be different and set apart.  There is no other way.

That starts with a relationship with God through His Son Jesus.  Repent or turn away from your sins.  Ask God to forgive you of those sins and ask Jesus to be Lord of your life and to make you holy and watch how you receive the grace of God.  Then believe what He says in His Word and you will be used by God to accomplish His will.  Do that today.