Luke 1:26-38
- If God came to you today and told you that you are going to be a parent (or have yet another child) nine months from today, how would you feel?
- Compare Mary’s response to Gabriel (verse 34) with Zechariah’s response to Gabriel (verse 18). (Zechariah’s question seems to express doubt, while Mary’s is seeking explanation.)
- What are the similarities between their responses and the way you responded to question #1?
- What stands out to you from this text? When you consider the way that God chose to come into the world, how does that strike you? What does that say about God?
- In verse 35 the term “overshadow” is used to explain how this miracle will take place. It’s likely that this term refers to the glory of God being present and giving protection. How would that help Mary to respond the way she did in verse 38?
- How does it help you say “yes” to God?
- Consider Mary’s response to this announcement. What insight does that give you about Mary?
- What do you think it might have felt like to be Mary and have this happen to you? What would you think if you heard someone else talking about this happening to them?
- When you think about the way God chose to enter the world, does it challenge the way you think about God? Explain.
- God had a special purpose for Mary. Do you think he has a special purpose for you? If so, how did you discover it? How did it affect your plans for the way you thought your life would go?
- What does it mean to you to know that God does his best kingdom work through inconspicuous people?
Keep it Simple
Mary is one of the most amazing people in the bible, not because of who she was, but because of who she wasn’t. She was not well educated, she wasn’t rich, and she wasn’t extraordinary in any way; except for her faith. Listen to a portion of her story in Luke 1:26-39:
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 the house of Jacob 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 [a] 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 it be to me according to your word." Then the angel left her.
I’d like for you to consider for just a moment the incredible fact that God chose Mary. Out of all the people throughout the history of the world, he chose her. What’s the big deal about that? Keep in mind that what’s about to happen here is the greatest event in all of history. The parting of the Red Sea is nothing compared to this. This is the crux of God’s plans for all humanity. Before the foundation of the world, God had dreamed up this dream that he would become a human being. Jesus dying on the cross was most definitely a rescue mission for our sin, but it wasn’t an afterthought. It was always God’s plan to become one of us so we could be with him eternally. This is the center of everything. It is his plan for all of creation. That’s why we call him Immanuel; he’s God with us.
There are people who acknowledge Jesus as a great teacher, or a really wise man, but that’s falling extremely short of who he was. As a matter of fact, it is an insult to him to stop there. He is God with us. Throughout his ministry he puts himself in the position of Yahweh and they accuse him of blasphemy. That’s why he ultimately got crucified. His disciples call him Lord. They called him God. They worship him as God. He was so much more than a great human being. He is fully God, robed in human flesh. The gospel message (which is the Christmas message) is that God out of his infinite love became a human being. The all-powerful God became a vulnerable little baby. The Creator became the created. That’s what Christmas is all about. It is the purpose for your existence. It is your story. It’s the providential story of how God is still driving the universe. It’s impossible to over-emphasize the importance of this reality. If this is true, it is the most important thing you could ever know. And it’s not something we should think deeply about only once each year. This story has to be the center of our lives.
With such a major event, wouldn’t you think that God would encapsulate it in a ton of fanfare? As God enters humanity, shouldn’t there be some bells & whistles? When we inaugurate a president, we do it with parades, and bands, and press, and massive crowds. Wouldn’t you think that God coming into humanity would call for a laser light show or something? With us, events like this call for military salutes, confetti, and all the muckety mucks in the world in attendance. This is not the case with God. There are a couple of shepherds out there who know about it and a few strange astrologers from the east who find out about it, but otherwise the world is oblivious to it. He goes through this little child, this insignificant, inconspicuous nobody named Mary. You couldn’t get a more humble way of entering this world.
Example: God narrows the focus
There’s nothing extraordinary about her. Even her name is common. It’s the most common name for Jewish girls in the first century. She was as plain as you get. She was engaged to Joseph (who was from the line of David) and that needed to be the case in order for prophecy to be fulfilled, but truthfully there were thousands of other people who would’ve fit that qualification. So, God chose this ordinary girl and said, ‘You know I’m going to come into the world as a human being. Would you do me the honor of offering up your womb, so that I might enter the world? Would you be my mom?’ You couldn’t pick a more humble, lowly way for God to enter the world. Earthly kings need a lot of fanfare when they are inaugurated, but God doesn’t need any wow factor.
That tells us a lot about who God is. He prefers the humble, weak, and ordinary. 1 Corinthians 1:27 says, “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” It’s such a great plan if you think about it. If God chose really competent people they would get the credit. Instead, he uses plain old folks like you and me to accomplish great things. Do you realize that we’re all just a bunch of Mary’s? That’s how God accomplishes his will on earth. We always think it’s the competent people, the super people, the super smart people, eloquent talkers, deep thinkers, organizers, the CEOs’ who are the important people in the kingdom of God. But what this story teaches us is that God prefers to use the small, insignificant, inconspicuous, unknown, and humble. These are the Mary’s of the world. He establishes his kingdom through people like that and he continues to this day to grow his kingdom through people just like you and me.
Mary had a unique role to play. She stands as a great example for all of us. You see, you’re not more ordinary or more uneducated than Mary. You’re not poorer, you don’t have more struggles, and you don’t have a more difficult past to get over than Mary did. Being a pregnant teenage Jew (out of wedlock) was not the kind of past that people smiled upon. That means you’re going to have a label you carry for the rest of your life. Not only was that no problem to God, he created that obstacle and it qualified her for ministry! One of the greatest things about how God’s kingdom works is that ministry is most effectively done by a bunch of regular old folks like you and me who are just willing to let God work through them. It’s so cool to see the kingdom work even when we don’t know that God’s doing his deal.
Example: God’s kingdom at work
This is something that confounds us, but it’s so true. You can’t measure kingdom work by the ooh and aah factor. Don’t measure your ministry that way. Don’t compare your ministry with some other ministry that fills stadiums full of people. God treats you as an individual. Your ministry is the most important ministry in the world. It may seem insignificant to you, but seemingly insignificant is what God loves!
Another really important fact of the Christmas story is this. Mary said “yes”. In verse 38 she replied, “I am your servant.” What that literally means is ‘I am your slave’. Servants had options. They could pick and choose when they wanted to serve. Slaves had no options. They were bought and became the possession of their master. Let that sink in for just a minute. Put yourself in Mary’s sandals and absorb that. “I am your slave.” That means Mary just forfeited all of her wants and wishes. She’s a 13 year old girl. She had a lot of dreams. Every Jewish girl dreamed of being married to a decent man and having her own family. The moment she said “yes” she threw all of that out. Who will believe her when she tells them she’s pregnant, but she’s never had sex. Joseph didn’t. He secretly planned to divorce her. She will now have a stigma. She’ll have to wear the scarlet letter all the days of her life. A divorced Jewish girl was treated like used goods. How would she be supported now? How will she raise the Son of God alone?
Example: 1st time parent
She has no idea how to raise a son, much less the Son of God. He’s supposed to be a king. She’s a peasant. This is going to mess up her script for how she wants her life to go. She has plenty of reasons to say ‘no’ to God. She has one reason to say ‘yes’ and that’s simply that this is what God is asking her to do. She surrenders all of her rights, all of her plans and says, “I am your slave. May it be to me as you have said.” This is going to be crazy. Throw the script out the window.
The angel told her she was “highly favored”. It doesn’t look right now like she is highly favored. As a matter of fact whenever the bible says you are going to be highly favored or blessed, it doesn’t necessarily mean right here; right now. If you look at the list of highly favored people in Hebrews 11, not many of them had their best life in the present tense. Mary’s life got significantly messed up. How favored do you suppose she felt when she was in labor in a barn? How favored do you think she felt running to Egypt, so Herod wouldn’t kill her baby? How favored did she feel in John 5 when Jesus said, ‘I want you people to call me God’ and everybody wanted to kill him? I wonder how highly favored she felt when she watched her son be crucified. I have to think that as she watched her son publicly humiliated, tortured, and killed those words “highly favored” must have seemed a little remote.
Three days later when he arose, or 40 days later when he ascended, or shortly after that when the Holy Spirit was poured out and the church was born, perhaps now she began to feel favored. Mary’s “yes” was a yes that shattered many of her dreams, but it wasn’t void of meaning. You may be one of those planners that kind of has life all mapped out the way you want it to go. You can do life that way if you choose, but you won’t ever find true significance in the pursuit of your own will. The joy of having significance that comes from serving God and doing his will is what gives you true joy.
So, how are you at being a Mary? How well do you do with throwing out the script and letting God control everything? It would be nice if an angel would appear to each of us and tell us, ‘This is what I want you to do.’ Unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen. However if you seek God’s will, he will make it clear to you. This Christmas, keep your heart and your mind open to what God wants to do in you and through you. Will you say to God, “May it be to me as you have said”? Will you say “yes”?