Mary

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0:00 Well, Christmas in March, that's kind of fun. We're on chapter 22 of the first story in the New Testament. It goes through the birth of Jesus, through the escape into Egypt and back from when it's Herod dies. And there's like, I mean, we talk about this story a lot, but to think about this story

0:34 together, I want to think first about the book really starts in John chapter 1. So if you want to look there with me, we think John's gospel was like actually the very last thing written that made it into the New Testament. Like John, we're pretty sure that John lived the longest of all of the twelve disciples of Jesus.

1:05 So he was alive the latest and then he wrote his gospel very last. It's a very last thing. And one of the things he was defending against by then there was this idea that maybe, like that there's no way, people really had trouble with the idea of God and man being in one. And so they had this notion that either Jesus was man and kind of was anointed for the job

1:38 of salvation as baptism or that he wasn't fully fleshed and human but was divine some other way. John, one of the main points of writing his gospel is to dispel this notion of the separation but to celebrate the unification to offset this Gnostic idea that God couldn't come into flesh, that he couldn't come into full humanity. And so he gets at that right away at the very beginning of his gospel.

2:09 It's famous, right? In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him without him was not a thing made that was made. In him was life and that life was the light of men and light charrings in the darkness and the darkness has overcome it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to bear witness to the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light but came to bear witness to the light, the true light which enlightens

2:42 everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own did not receive him but to all who did receive him who believed in his name he gave the right to become children of God who were born not of blood nor of the will of flesh nor of the will of man but of God. Here is the point I wanted to get to for us this morning in verse 14 of chapter 1. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory as of the Son of the

3:13 only Son from the Father full of grace and truth. John bore witness to this and cried out. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The Christmas story we talk about all the time and it's fascinating and really beautiful and makes a nice little manger scene. But when you take a step back from it of course it's crazy that somehow God becomes flesh.

3:46 It's not an idea that you or I would have come up with that we could have thought of to figure out how to rescue humanity and it's certainly nothing that we could have accomplished figuring out how to find the unbounded God in flesh. The assertion for Christianity or for the way of God coming from Israel through Christ is that there is a God creator of all things out of nothing.

4:17 Unbounded and infinite right. Just like spirit, infinite spirit all knowing all creating the origin of all things. And John says that this origin of all things from whom all things were made without whom nothing that's been made would ever be made. That this origin of all things found out some way to get down into the womb of a woman and the flesh of a baby like somehow the unbounded infinite God binds himself in the finite flesh.

4:51 It's a crazy idea and it's so significant that only God could accomplish it. And so even God can't undo it. So this this act of incarnation of locating the unbounded infinite God in the flesh of a person is can't be reversed. So what we learn when we read the story of scripture is that it's complete that the second person the Trinity the word of God forever then is bound in the flesh of Jesus. That means the one who was born of Mary and raised in Nazareth and then dies on the cross

5:29 ascends into heaven and waits now somewhere in flesh. Complete human with arms and eyes and mouth to speak the words well done good and faithful servant that the person Jesus of Nazareth awaits return to welcome you into eternity with him now. The work of the incarnation is this like complete lead divine act that only God can do and even

6:00 God can't undo. But when I was thinking about that I've thought about that a lot that story of the incarnation is fascinating to me what I was thinking about it today is I was thinking about the fact that he does this with Mary. Just crazy. Look at Luke chapter one if you're following along here or listen while I read it. In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent to God or from God to the city of Galilee

6:32 named Nazareth to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin but drove to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David and the virgin's name was Mary and he came to her and said greetings oh favored one the Lord is with you but she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be and the angel said to her don't be afraid Mary for you have found favor with God and behold you will conceive in your room and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus and he will be great and

7:04 he will be called the son of the most high and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and his kingdom will have no end and Mary said to the angel how will this be since I'm a virgin and the angel said to her the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you and therefore the child will be to be born will be called holy the son of God and behold your relative Elizabeth so the angel says the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you because God the father has found favor in

7:36 you and you see like here in the story of the virgin Mary is all three persons of the Trinity right we don't ever hear the word Trinity ushered in the story of scripture but the theology of the Trinity develops because we see God working in three persons throughout the story of scripture in several places but this is one of them the angel Gabriel comes from heaven and says God has found favor on you so the spirit will hover over you and the word of God will be in flesh in your womb all three persons of the Trinity just like

8:07 in the story of creation where God the father wills the spirit hovers and the word constitutes and creates he's doing it again with this person Mary it's kind of like fascinating so fascinating that a lot of like you know kind of theology is developed around the person of Mary like it's a I don't know what it takes to allow the spirit to conceive and form a

8:46 baby in your womb what kind of submission to God or collaboration with God it takes but I have trouble getting the spirit like I have trouble believing the spirit can provide for me or will protect me or as a plan for me when Mary says how can this be and Gabriel says it'll be and she's like okay you know in the by the 1800s in the Catholic church they had

9:24 spent so much time thinking about Mary and trying to understand how is it that this kind of collaboration happens that they developed the theology of the Immaculate Conception have you heard that phrase before the Immaculate Conception a lot of times we think it's about the conception of Jesus but it's actually a theology they developed about the conception of Mary the Immaculate Conception was Mary's Conception so by the 1800s the Catholic Church had declared that Mary was

9:58 conceived without sin and so then she lived in a state of perpetual virginity and sinlessness throughout her life they did this because they're trying to figure out how on earth could the God of the universe collaborate with a person like like a just a just a human right there's this

10:30 description in Colossians about the person of Jesus that they're pretty sure Paul takes from an early Christian poem it starts in Colossians 1 starting at verse 15 or yeah he says he is the image of the invisible God the firstborn of all creation for by him all things were created in

11:01 heaven and on earth visible and invisible whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities all things were created through him and for him and he is before all things and in him all things hold together and he is the head of the body the church he is the beginning the firstborn from the dead that in everything he might be preeminent for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things whether on heaven or in earth making peace by the

11:32 blood of the cross they're like how could this come through the person of Mary like this this the person in whom all things hold together you remember the story where Jesus in the gospels there's a story where Jesus is walking through a town and there's a funeral procession and this

12:04 mom is walking behind they're carrying her son to the grave and her husband has already died and we've talked about before if you're a widow with no sons in first century you have no way to hold property or retain wealth so she's particularly upset and there's all these whalers around her and at the time Jesus was a rabbi which means he would want to maintain ritual cleanness which means he would not want to touch touch dead things because if you touch dead things you have to go

12:36 through a seven-day purification process Jesus in the town as he sees the woman weeping over the loss of her son walks up to the funeral buyer where they're carrying the dead body and lays his hand on the dead body right and instead of Jesus getting the defilement of death the life in Jesus reanimates the dead body he comes to life and he reunites the mother with his son and keeps going because the life in Jesus overwhelms the death in the thing it's in this way that Mary does not need

13:11 to have an amakic can be just a regular person like me and you because the life force of God has the power to like reinvigorate reanimate open up dead places and bring them to life and he does that in Mary at the will of the Father constituted by the Spirit into the womb of Mary he has the capacity to overwhelm her brokenness her selfishness her fear

13:48 her anxiety her doubt and bring together bring out Jesus the incarnated God-man so if God can constitute the Messiah in the womb of a regular person he can resolve your frailty he can handle he can he can remove your fears he can assuage your anxiety he can chart a course for your future he can animate your life

14:28 I think that's really good news it's good news for me the idea that God could put a handle my fears and anxieties but there's one other thing I was thinking about here in the story of Mary and the incarnation and that's that God picked Mary Gabriel Gabriel was in the presence of God it says and was dispatched to Mary

15:05 and he tells Mary hey Mary good news you God has found favor with you with Mary and I got a plan for Elizabeth he's like Elizabeth has her own thing going on but

15:35 but God has found favor with you Mary specifically God could have gone to any woman in any place probably would have gone to any Israelite woman right comes first to the Israelites because the covenant he made with Abraham but he could have gone to any Israelite woman but he didn't pick any random Israelite woman he picked Mary something specific about Mary I wish he would have told us he doesn't tell us probably because we'd all try and be that if he had said what he why he found favor with Mary

16:10 we'd all try and replicate and we'd all try to be Mary of Nazareth right but this is a thing I want you to remember God's life-giving power has the capacity to overwhelm your failures to cast out fear and bring love to cast out anxiety and bring provision and protection

16:45 but God does not obliterate Mary Mary does not disappear and become somehow Jesus you know sometimes we hear the phrase when God looks at us he just sees Christ I hate that seriously I hate that

17:18 when I was in college I studied world religions and one of the distinct things about Christianity is the essential reality of you you exist distinct unique and permanent and there is good for you not only are you distinct and unique but awakening inside of you is a

17:58 redeemed identity that is unique distinct and eternal off into forever all the Asian religions are the reality of the non distinctness of us that we are the same as all the other things if we exist at all the story of our people is that God makes us specifically and loves us uniquely he comes to Mary and obliterates her failure but honors her distinctiveness and raises her up

18:31 Jesus comes as a baby and grows under her tutelage and that of Joseph so that his unique personality develops over the course of all the things that he learns and you see it in the stories even in the gospels that Jesus of Nazareth grows to be a unique expression of both human and God as are you a unique expression of the creativity of God and the beauty of humanity

19:06 unbounded from your failures and like animated to life by the Spirit I think the story of Mary is compelling because just what I told the kids it reminds us that God works in the world through us

19:37 there are people that you uniquely are called to love you in all your idiosyncrasies and capabilities your quirks and your perspectives you are called to love them nobody else there are people in the world you are called to serve you uniquely and nobody else and you will fail out it over and over again and to the degree that you fail the spirit

20:08 of God will come and wash away your failures and animate again the chance to do it well but it has to be you God came into the world and he wanted to do it through Mary and so he figured out to do a way to do what only he could and got it done and he will do the same for you he wants to work in the world through you uniquely he will figure out how to get it done

20:40 let's have let's pray now that we like Mary would not stand in the way but find a path to submit hey Lord thank you for the story of Mary and your incarnation teaches how to submit to you like she did collaborate with your spirit for the unique work in the world in Jesus' name we pray amen