A very good morning to you and also Happy New Year. We are only a few days into January and it is a real delight to be here today. I know many of you here. I've been a member here for quite a long time. I think I'm heading not far off 20 years, but it is a great joy to be here. I'm also on staff here, so a lot of you will know me in a far more operational capacity than what you see me here today.
In fact, you won't know me in this capacity at all. I am definitely a case of a long time listener, first time speaker. I emphasise a little bit with Mary today as I have slightly been placed in the spotlight, so to say. So thank you very much for that, Steve. I appreciate that.
But in all seriousness, though, it is actually a joy and a privilege to be asked to speak on Mary, Jesus' mother.
And I hopefully will encourage you all, and Mary will encourage us all, to be inspired by her faith in what we'll see as really quite scandalous circumstances.
So let's begin by having a little bit of a look about who Mary is.
Mostly, we think of Mary at Christmas, don't we? We might see her in a nativity. I grab this from my nativity scene at home.
That's generally where we might see Mary. We don't even really see her much in the shops anymore.
Every now and again, you might see a little bit of a nativity scene. But generally, this is what we think of when we think of Mary.
Mary. She's very much part of Christmas.
And in fact, the Bible doesn't give us a lot of specific information about who Mary actually was in terms of a biography.
Of course, the spotlight and the gospel tends to be more focused on her son, Jesus, and rightly so.
And we don't actually hear anything about Mary until Gabriel, the angel, comes and speaks to her.
Some things we do now about Mary is that she was a Jewish woman.
She was probably born around 20 BC in Nazareth, in Galilee.
And she would have been living in the first century Roman Empire.
As a Jewish woman of this particular time, her path in life would have already been planned out for her.
When we very first meet her, she's actually engaged to Joseph.
And she probably wouldn't have been much more than 15, which is not very old.
I have a daughter who's 15, so this story blows my mind every day.
As a Jew, Mary would have been taught about and learnt to memorise the Hebrew Scriptures, which is also known as our Old Testament now.
Jewish people had to know Scripture.
They had to commit it to their hearts and their minds.
They knew it inside and back to front.
So she would have known about the promised Messiah.
Mary is mentioned a few other times in the New Testament, but without much more insight as to who she is as a person.
One key moment worth mentioning is at the wedding in Cana, where Jesus turns water into wine.
In John chapter 2.
This event is actually quite a significant turning point in the relationship that Mary has with her son, Jesus.
She shifts a bit from being his mother.
She continues to be still his mother, but she takes on more of a discipleship and a follower role as he turns water into wine and brings on some miracles in his life.
Mary was also at Jesus' crucifixion.
And we do know that she was still alive when the new church began, and we can see that in Acts chapter 1.
After this time, there's no other mention of her in the Bible at all.
We know that Mary had other children, such as James, who went on to lead the early church in Jerusalem.
And while we don't have a lot of details about Mary's life, we know a lot more about her than we do about her husband, Joseph,
which is incredibly significant and very unusual in this patriarchal society.
As the most significant woman in the early Christian movement, quite a lot of speculation and legend has surrounded her.
For instance, the Roman Catholic Church teaches that Mary was sinless.
And as someone sinless, they teach that she would have been bodily raised into heaven before she neared death.
And for some, she's actually even more significant than Jesus to the Christian faith.
She is prayed to as the mother who has the ear of her son and can therefore intercede on behalf of those who pray for her, pray to her.
However, if the Bible is our authority in these matters, and here at St. Paul's the Bible is,
we hold fast to the truth that the Bible is the word of God here,
then there's no explicit evidence or even implied assumptions that this is the case for Mary.
The Bible encourages us to have a very realistic picture of who Mary was.
She was a human in every way, just like we were.
She's not to be elevated to any kind of demigod status.
Mary is an engaged teenage peasant girl of Jewish heritage from a backwater nothing village in Galilee.
She has absolutely no social standing, and she is well on her way to disappearing into a life of obscurity, just like most of us.
And then everything changed.
Our Mary of history is thrust into the spotlight, and her life takes a substantial shift.
So let's have a look at what her life might have looked like as it takes a turn.
Everything changed when she had a visit from an angel.
This angel has informed her that she is going to have a baby.
Now normally that would be a very exciting time.
It's a moment of excitement, it's a moment of joy.
You probably want to go share it with everybody that you know.
And perhaps this was actually Mary's hope after she and Joseph settled down.
Instead, Mary finds herself deep in the middle of a...
Because this baby is going to be born out of wedlock.
I just want to paint a little bit of a picture for you as what this might look like in Mary's day and in her society.
Women in this culture who had children out of marriage could at the very best carry a very unpleasant stench-like stigma around with them for the rest of their life.
Or at worst, it could actually bring physical danger, possibly even death.
And would also extend to their husbands as well as probably their extended family.
We see in Matthew 1 that even Joseph had decided to break off the engagement.
He knew that if he married her, then they and their families would be shunned,
and they'd always be suspected in their shame and honour society.
So for her to accept this situation that the angel has presented,
Mary knew that for the rest of her life, she would be stigmatised as that woman.
And there is no indication as her life went on that this speculation or this gossip ever would have left her.
It's not like everybody believed that Jesus was God's incarnate,
and so Mary carried the stigma of being an unfaithful woman for her whole life.
Who was going to believe a pregnant peasant teenage girl that God made her pregnant?
And who was even going to believe an older woman, her relative Elizabeth, that the Holy Spirit made her pregnant?
So just to add to this stigma in Mary's life,
she also had the issue of being the mother of Jesus.
I'm going to say that to raise the Son of God is probably going to bring about a fairly substantial amount of pressure.
So after the scandal surrounding his birth,
it is likely that many people around Mary would not have been very warm or welcoming as her life went on,
because as Jesus grew older and throughout his life and throughout his ministry,
Mary would have experienced speculation and disdain over many of Jesus' claims.
And I think it's also helpful to remember that she was a normal human mother.
She had normal feelings and she had normal emotions,
and yet she was raising a perfect, sinless child.
When Jesus was 12, his family was returning to Nazareth from Jerusalem after the Passover feast.
A full day after leaving, they realised that Jesus was not with them.
They lost the Son of God.
And they took three days to find him.
Now, if you are a parent or a carer of a child in any way,
and you haven't laid eyes on them for a few minutes,
you may know the feeling.
The feeling of initial stress building up,
to panic a little while after.
Even if it's just a few minutes,
it feels like hours.
One of my children used to go and hide underneath the clothing racks when we were in the shops
and couldn't find them.
Zach, where are you?
Can't find you.
But eventually you find them.
When you do, there comes this feeling of relief,
but there is also this irritation, frustration that's going on as well.
So you can imagine the frustration that Mary must have felt
and how distressed she would have been after three days.
So when they eventually located him back in the temple,
she said,
Son, why have you treated us like this?
Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.
Mary was hurt by what appeared to be the carelessness
and the selfishness of Jesus.
And while Jesus tried to explain to her,
she actually at this stage still didn't understand.
There were many times that Mary had to deal with the frustration
of taking second place in Jesus' life.
Matthew tells us of a time where she arrived at the house where he was teaching
and the crowd was so large that she had to stand outside the house
and just be patient and just wait quietly.
There were many times that she just had to wait quietly
while his ministry unfolded.
And probably the worst for a mother,
she experienced the grief and the horror of watching her son
tortured and killed by crucifixion,
the most horrendous way of death.
In so many ways,
Mary had to let go of what she treasured so much in her son Jesus
so that he could fulfil God's mission.
Mary was unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight over 2,000 years ago
and she is still in the spotlight today
despite us not knowing very much about her.
We've just celebrated Christmas.
Seems like a million years ago.
It was only a couple of weeks.
Around half of the world's population celebrate Christmas.
It's the most widely celebrated holiday in the whole world.
More than 160 countries declare it a holiday season.
So Christmas is big.
But it started very, very small.
It started with a teenage girl
in a nondescript town in the Middle East.
And what the angel told Mary
was a message that had been foretold for many years.
This teenage girl was the very first person
to get the message
that the long-promised great salvation
would come into this world
through a baby born in Bethlehem
and that his name would be Jesus.
This Jesus is Lord of the Universe
descending into time and into space
to save humanity.
Mary is the very first person
to hear the good news
in the form that we have it today
and it's pretty incredible
that our model for belief in Jesus
is a teenage girl,
an unwed peasant teenage mother.
Mary is still in the spotlight today
not just because she is the mother
of the most influential person in history,
but because of how she responded to him.
And this is where we might see,
this is where we see Mary's steadfast faith.
With all that Mary was navigating
from such a young age
and right through her life,
her faith is quite remarkable.
Mary's first response to the angel
is a healthy doubt.
The assumption of many of our day
is that religious people
just don't ask questions.
They just have a blind faith
and they just turn their minds off.
But this is not what Mary did
and it's not what we should do either.
When the angel showed up
and greeted Mary,
we're told in Luke 1
of Mary's response.
It says,
Mary was greatly troubled at his words
and wondered what kind of greeting
this might be.
Now to be clear,
I have not studied
any ancient languages at all.
However,
as I worked on this talk,
I had a privilege of doing
a bunch of research and reading.
And during this time,
a helpful point that I came across
was that this word in the passage,
wondered,
in its original language,
is an accounting word.
It means to take an audit.
It's a rational word.
It means taking stock
or weighing up arguments.
And I felt it's important to clarify
because when the angel showed up
and Mary started to ask questions,
her response is very thoughtful
and it's very considered.
It's the heart
and it's the head
working together.
She has her doubts.
She's asking questions.
And this is so important
because we can often assume
that these ancient people
are a little more ignorant
than us modern people.
In our modern arrogance,
we just assume
that former generations and ages
were superstitious
and that they believed anything.
And yet,
people back then
had the same kind of IQs
that we do now.
They could think.
Mary is responding
in the same way
that we would
if an angel showed up
and started talking to us.
The difference between
them back then
and us now
is that we have been trained
not to believe
in the supernatural at all.
But Mary,
as a Jew,
had been taught
not to think
that God could possibly
be human at all.
And so be assured
that the barriers
that Mary faced
for belief
back then
are just as big
as the ones
that we face today.
But a combination
of evidence
and experience
can shatter
those barriers.
It's interesting
earlier in the chapter
that an angel
appeared
to announce
another miraculous birth.
this time
to Zechariah
who was the father
of John the Baptist.
Now Zechariah
also asks questions
and he is very doubtful.
The angel
ends up striking him mute
and he can't speak
until his son
is born.
Mary's response
to the angel
is very similar
but the angel
blesses her
and leaves.
So what is that
all about?
Did Zechariah
get a grumpy angel
and Mary's
was in a better mood?
Not at all
but what we have
is the Bible's nuance
on the issue
of doubt.
The Bible doesn't
present doubt
as being all bad
or all good.
There's a kind
of doubt
that is a sign
of a closed mind
and a kind
of doubt
that is a sign
of an open mind.
One kind
wants answers
and the other
doesn't.
Mary's doubt
is the kind
that wants answers.
She is absolutely
willing to get
out of the driver's
seat of her
own life
if she can be
shown that the
truth is other
than what she
thought.
Zechariah's doubt
was using questions
as a way
to stay in control
of his life.
Mary's doubt
finally led to
what we might
call a cautious
surrender.
Her words
in Luke 1.38
are great.
It says,
I am the Lord's
servant,
Mary answered,
may your word
to me be fulfilled.
She knows
what she's
being called
into.
She's about
to have a child.
Even if Joseph
stays with her,
people will be
able to add it
up.
They had calendars.
She lived
in a traditional
paternalistic
society.
She knew
she would
always be seen
as the bearer
of an illegitimate
child.
She was
about to
begin a life
of disgrace
and she
says,
I'll take
it.
I could
only imagine
that she
was cautious
but it
was a
surrender.
When the
angel said
that she
was going
to give
birth to
a child
and you
will call
his name
Jesus,
Mary knew
right away
that something
significant
was going
on.
Mary didn't
get to do
what is normal
and right
for a parent
to do.
She didn't
get to choose
the child's
name.
In every
other normal
case,
the father
and the
mother have
authority over
the child.
It is their
right to
name the
child but
not this
child.
If Jesus
were to come
into Mary's
life or
into our
life, he
would be in
charge.
He names
us.
We don't
name him.
He calls
the shots
for us.
We don't
call the
shots for
him.
Mary says,
I am the
Lord's
servant.
May your
word to
me be
fulfilled.
Mary knows
she is
taking her
hands off
her own
life and
she is
taking Jesus
into her
arms.
Her
surrender
was willing
and it
was joyful
even if it
was cautious.
She doesn't
do it under
duress.
In fact,
Mary heads
off to
visit her
cousin
Elizabeth.
We see
from verse
36 that
she is
miraculously
pregnant with
John the
Baptist.
When the
pregnant Mary
arrives at
Elizabeth's
house,
John leaps
inside of
Elizabeth.
While Mary
is visiting
her relative
here,
it is
actually a
meeting of
the two
children.
Even as
an unborn
baby,
John
acknowledges
that someone
greater is
in the
room,
so to
speak.
Elizabeth
confirms to
Mary that
in fact Mary
is carrying
the Son
of God.
She says,
blessed are
you among
women and
blessed is
the child
you will
bear.
But why
am I so
favoured that
the mother
of my
Lord should
come to
me?
And at
this point,
Mary overflows
with joy that
God's promised
Son and
Rescuer is
coming into
the world and
she breaks
out in song.
I'm not
going to sing.
It is a song
that declares
God is true to
his promises.
He is a
merciful God.
He is a
powerful God.
He is a
God who
turns the
values of
the world
on their
head by
favouring the
poor, the
hungry and
the lowly.
So what can
we take away
from Mary
here?
Why are we
looking at
Mary now
after Christmas?
This poor
teenage girl
at the bottom
of the first
century social
ladder is
now known by
the vast
majority of
people who
ever lived.
Not because
she made
herself great
but because
she humbled
herself and
she surrendered
to the one
infinitely greater.
What is even
more amazing is
that she did
this before
she knew what
the greater
one was going
to do for
her.
The Easter
events tell
us that
everything Mary
did for
Jesus, Jesus
had done for
Mary but by
infinite
measure.
We're told
later in the
New Testament
that though
Jesus is the
creator, God
of the universe,
he humbled
himself and
he became a
servant for
all.
He went
lower than
anyone before
him.
He became
the baby of
the lowest.
The God
whose power
and might
created the
universe was
cradled in
the arms of
the teenager
that he
made.
This God
took his
hands off
his life.
Just before
his execution,
his prayer to
his father
was,
not my
will but
yours be
done.
Just like
Mary said.
As we head
into 2025,
as we think
of our own
faith in God,
as we consider
the depth of
our relationship
with Jesus,
this side of
the cross in
the 21st
century,
may we not
fall lower
or fall short
of the faith
that this
first century
unwed,
peasant teenage
mother from
Palestine.
We have more
resources than
Mary did.
We live this
side of Jesus.
We have Easter.
We have the
ultimate reason
to follow in
Mary's footsteps.
Mary didn't
have the benefit
of knowing that
her son would
die.
that he would
be resurrected
and that he
would repair
the broken
relationship
between humanity
and our
creator God.
We have that
benefit.
We have the
benefit of
God's gift to
us over 2,000
years ago.
We have the
evidence of
Jesus' death
and his
resurrection and
we have the
evidence of
his promise to
this world
fulfilled.
We are able
to see Jesus
being a great
servant.
we have
God's
goodness.
We have
his kindness,
his infinite
generosity.
We have the
gift of the
Holy Spirit.
Mary believed
the angel when
he said in
verse 37 that
with God
nothing is
impossible.
A poor
15-year-old
near the bottom
of the social
ladder knew
that if she
surrendered to
God she would
fall even
lower.
yet her
faith, her
trust and
her deep
love of
God allowed
her to
accept his
plan.
She humbled
herself and
she became a
servant and
she sings.
In this
scandalous
situation,
unsure
situation,
she breaks
out in song
and she
spends time
praising God.
and for
2,000 years
she has been
celebrated as
blessed.
The way of
greatness is
the way of
the humble
surrender to
the infinitely
great one.
So this
year, as
you consider
your next
step, please
treasure Jesus.
Open your
heart and
your mind.
Echo the
words of
Mary over
every aspect
of your
life.
Let it be
done according
to your
will.
Amen.