Each year we send out a family newsletter to many friends at home and abroad. It should have been out a week ago! And - what will we do on Christmas Day this year? Last year, Alison and the girls had Christmas together in London. Well, Ruth will be in Switzerland for Christmas this year - what about the rest of us? There are the two services at Buderim first, of course - 7am and 8.15am. Then, with Paul married and living in Wynnum and Alison's parents planning to move in January into Immanuel Gardens, it seems logical to drive down to Brisbane this year. Fortunately, Christmas Day itself - mid-morning - tends to be not too crowded on the roads.
But, to tell the truth, we haven't got it all planned out in detail yet - have you?
But today, we're thinking about Mary - the virgin Mary - and what we have called the Annunciation. The name, of course, gives a dignity to this act of announcing. I was intrigued that one Bible commentary heads vv.8-23 "The Announcement to Zachariah" and today's reading "The Annunciation". The Thesaurus suggests a few parallel words - announcement, broadcast, declaration, proclamation, promulgation, pronouncement, publication... Which word would you prefer?
The fact is that the whole thing put Mary in a very difficult situation. She knew the strange matter of her cousin Elizabeth's pregnancy. Elizabeth was well past child-bearing age. It seemed impossible for one who had for so long been childless. But the rumour was confirmed now. About a month ago Mary had word from Elizabeth - she was five months pregnant. "Now at last the Lord has helped me," she said. "He has taken away my public disgrace!"
Then suddenly - "right out of the blue", as we would say - an angel stood before her. Have you seen an angel? Mary hadn't, either! She was, I believe, a very matter-of-fact and practical young woman - not the "angel-seeing" kind! The encounter was real and - initially - quite disturbing. Hence the angel's reassuring words, "Peace be with you! The Lord is with you and has greatly blessed you!"
Now - run your mind over that! It has become a practice in most churches world-wide to "pass the peace" at some point in worship. "The Lord be with you" or "the peace of the Lord be with you" has become a familiar Christian greeting. Even those of us who are not strong on liturgy know to respond "And also with you" or "And with your spirit". What do we mean by that? It is an assurance of the fact of God's gracious and loving presence, which we extend to one another - even though we don't always know the particular joys or trials which others are facing. It is a blessing - a prayer that the other person may know the presence and peace of God, no matter what their circumstances.
How would you react if, in the middle of the passing of the peace, a person came up to you and, with that special emphasis of someone who is "in the know", said, "Peace be with you! The Lord is with you and has greatly blessed you!"? What would you say to that? "And also with you"? Or would you be like Mary - deeply troubled, wondering what these words meant?
Then the reassuring words, "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 for ever; his kingdom will never end!"
Reassuring? Remember - though engaged to Joseph, Mary was not married. She was a virgin. She had never had a relationship with any man. And the expectation - and her commitment in betrothal to Joseph - was that she would still be a virgin at the time of their marriage. Her cousin, Elizabeth, had been childless for many years and now was six months pregnant. That was wonderful - extraordinary - but Elizabeth was married to Zechariah. Elizabeth had felt a sense of "public disapproval" for being childless - no child, no heir - God must be displeased with you. But what would Mary face - pregnant and unmarried? Deuteronomy 22 spells out quite clearly the expectation in Israel that a woman would enter marriage as a virgin. "The interval between betrothal and marriage was commonly a year, during which the bride lived with her friends. But her property was vested in her future husband, and unfaithfulness on her part was punished, like adultery, with death" (Plummer).
Add to this all these statements about what the Child is to be - not just Israel's hopes for the Messiah, but this talk of a Kingdom at a time when the Romans were in charge! Who wants to mother that Child? And to say that he will be called "the Son of the Most High God" - it is really all too much to take! Better by far simply to become Mrs Joseph, wife of the carpenter in drowsy little Nazareth - in the backwoods of Galilee.
"I am a virgin. How, then, can this be?" By these words Mary makes it clear that she understands that this is to happen forthwith. It is not, as some writers have suggested, a promise of a child to be born after her marriage to Joseph is consummated. Both this passage, which gives Mary's account, and the end of Matthew 1, which gives Joseph's, make it quite clear that Mary was a virgin at the time of conception. And while he grew up under the legal protection of Joseph as father, there was this underlying uniqueness in his conception. So the genealogy in Matthew 1 ends with "Joseph, who married Mary, the mother of Jesus..." And Luke's genealogy in chapter 3 begins "He was the son, so people thought, of Joseph..."
It has been stated, quite correctly, that the record only leaves us with two options - Jesus was "born of the Virgin Mary", as the creed puts it, or he was the illegitimate son of a faithless woman - a suggestion which, in fact, some of the early opponents of Christianity alleged.
For Mary, as for us, virgin births just don't happen. Conception requires both male and female. The real issue, of course, is whether it happened on this occasion. There is no suggestion that this is other than a unique occurrence. Is this in harmony with the birth of the one who was truly "the Son of the Most High God" - God the Son? It is the same question that surrounds the resurrection. Is it consistent with who he was and is? It is striking that there was something exceptional about his entry into our human history and about his departure from it.
"The Holy Spirit will rest upon you... There is nothing that God cannot do." The Jewish people believed that conception occurred through the activity of a man, a woman and the Holy Spirit. But this was to be the direct work of God, the direct activity of the Spirit - without a man. "For this reason the holy Child will be called the Son of God."
When we reflect on the implications of being mother of Jesus, we cannot take her response to the angel's announcement lightly. There could be no simple, "That's OK!" We sense in her reply a considered and definite commitment - "I am the Lord's servant; may it happen to me as you have said."
First-time parents are never prepared really. The sight of that new-born baby - so totally dependent and totally unique - can be overwhelming. But in the long term... Ruth, our eldest, was sixteen when Naomi was born. We had a different perspective, a longer view of what our commitment needed to be. In a sense it was more difficult just to live for the present moment of babyhood because of our concept of what might lie ahead.
And we do wonder about our children, don't we? about their schooling, their job prospects, their friendships, their marriages, their parenthood... and about their commitments, their faith, their emotional health... about their future...
Mary was only given a little glimpse - a picture of whoher Son was to be, but not many clues beyond that. And, with that understanding, she committed herself. She was willing to be the Lord's servant.
What does all this say to us? It is all very fine to have a doctrine of the Virgin Birth. It is strongly taught in the Creeds and a clear part of the record. But so what? What does it teach us? What are we meant to learn from it? How does it affect my life?
The whole point is that Jesus was not just another great Teacher - take him or leave him. God himself came into our human history - "My Lord and my God!" Is that how we respond to him? The prevailing view is that we live our own lives, do our own things, set our own values - a guru or two might help! But, if God himself has come into our history, how then shall we live?
Mary was responding to a particular and unique action of God - "I am the Lord's servant; may it happen to me as you have said." No one else has been asked to bear and mother the Christ. But all of us are asked to receive him, to welcome him, to believe in him, to listen to him, to follow him...
Lord, make us your servants. May your will be done in us. Amen!
Back to Christmas Sermons
Back to Sermons