Advent is over, Christmas is here! This year we’ve
joined the people around a manger in a stable in the small town of Bethlehem a
little over 2,000 years ago to get to know the child in the manger. Jesus is
born into a world not all that different from ours. Here are some of the
headlines that could have been in the Jerusalem Gazette at that time:
Grain Ships Dock, Rome Riots End; Supply
Chains Stabilizing;
Olympic Wrestler Still in Coma;
Report of Angel Sightings in Judea.
There were wars going on, sickness,
poverty, injustice, people struggling to just get by, often with no real sense
of purpose or meaning in life. It was a world just like ours, filled with
people just like us, but God’s about to burst onto the scene of humanity. Jesus
is born and the world has never been the same since. There are still wars,
poverty, injustice and more; however, there’s the hope of God with us,
Immanuel. Through Jesus, God brings new life and hope to the world.
Luke writes the story of Jesus' birth from Mary's
perspective. Mary is introduced to us as a young maiden, a virgin pledged in
marriage to a man called Joseph. There's no mention of Mary's family however;
she seems to come from a family with little status. This is the young girl God
has chosen to move his plan to redeem the world forward. Luke gives us a deeper
glimpse into who Mary is.
The angel Gabriel comes to the town of
Nazareth to bring Mary a message from God. As Gabriel greets Mary, he uses the
Greek word charis in 3 different ways to give us a glimpse into why God
chooses Mary. Charis means grace, to rejoice, and favour. This word has
the notion of sweetness, charm, loveliness, and delight. Another way to
translate the first words of the angel is, "Rejoice,
you who are full of grace! The Lord is with you... Do not be afraid, Mary; you
have found grace and favour with God." Mary is called to give
praise to God! Why? Gabriel recognizes that she’s a grace-filled woman, a woman
whose natural response is gratitude. We’re given a glimpse here into Mary's
character; there’s a delight and loveliness in who she is as a young woman. Mary
has been taught to trust God because he’s faithful and trustworthy. God now
fills her even more with grace and favour.
People who are grace filled and grateful
always seem be happy and filled with joy, and the people around them get filled
with the same joy they have. Wherever they are, no matter who they’re with,
they bring light and life into the people and situations around them. Most
grace filled people I know are regular people who live simply and yet are
generous and loving. They express their gratitude to God in their relationships
with others. In the Bible, God often seems to use people who are grace filled
because they trust God more and are open to God working in them and through
them. God gives his favour to this young grace filled woman, raising Mary up to
a central role in salvation history.
What’s
God doing here,
choosing Mary to have this child? He’s calling Mary to be the mother of Jesus,
but if Jesus is the Son of God, then Mary will be the mother of God, in Greek, theotokos.
In seminary, we had a discussion in our classes about who Jesus is, and some
students had a difficult time with this thought, and yet it’s important because
it addresses both Jesus' divinity and his humanity. Mary’s the mother of God in the
sense that she carries in her womb a divine person, Jesus Christ, God "in the flesh," contributing her human DNA to
Jesus. John writes, "The Word
became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory
of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."
Jesus comes to be God with us as one of us!
Jesus is born of Mary; affirming Jesus
as a real flesh and blood person set into history. The Church Father Ignatius writes,
Jesus was "truly
born, truly lived, truly died," all important if Jesus is who
he says he is. Jesus' humanity is important in order to fulfill God's promise
to Satan in Genesis 3:14–15 "So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because
you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and
hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
This is a lot to place on a young
woman. Here we see how our relationship with God affects our response to the
Holy Spirit’s work in our lives; Mary responds, "I
am the Lord's servant, may your word to me be fulfilled." Mary
chooses to trust. Life is about to become harder. She knows that people will
talk about an unmarried girl being pregnant. She knows it will be hard to tell
Joseph and he may doubt her. Yet Mary also knows who God is, raised on the
stories of God's faithfulness. Mary knows that when God works, things often
become much more difficult before they become better, life gets messier as God
uses his people to bring hope; injustice and hurt often come before freedom and
redemption. Mary knows God never promises easy, but he has promised to be with us.
Mary asks, “How will this be since I’m a virgin;” kind of a practical
question. Mary doesn’t blindly accept this astonishing news; the Greek word
here means “to make an audit” to think about this rationally. Our faith
is not blind, it’s a reasonable faith. Tim Keller writes about what healthy
doubt looks like, “Some doubt seeks answers…. There are people like Mary who
are open to the truth and are willing to relinquish sovereignty over their
lives if they can be shown that the truth is other than what they thought.”
The angel responds, "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." We hear echoes from
the Old Testament of when God came down in a visible way so that Israel would
know that he was there. In Exodus 40 we read about the finishing of the
tabernacle and when it was done, we read, "Then
the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the
tabernacle."
In 1 Kings 8, when the temple
was built and the ark brought into the new temple, "the cloud filled
the temple of the Lord. And the priests
could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord
filled his temple."
Mary hears that this child will be created in her through an act of God and
will be God’s son, even though she’s still a virgin. It’s Luke, a doctor, who gives
us the how-to of Mary getting pregnant.
Trust is a big part of our faith
in God. Do you trust God? Is there something preventing you from completely
trusting God and recognizing his blessings in your life? Trust and faith are
not always easy to give because life's circumstances bring so many experiences
that we find hard to explain or process. Trust comes when we learn to place our
work, our success, our family, and relationships in God's hands, learning what Jesus
calls success. Trust comes as you begin to recognize how the Holy Spirit is
blessing you right now in your present circumstances. Jesus loves you and is working out everything for your good; this is why
the manger and the cross are so important, they’re signs of his love and
trustworthiness.
Trust comes as you learn forgiveness and grace; experiencing Jesus' forgiveness and grace in your
own life. The bes4062t place to start is in God's word, in the stories of his
relationship with humanity. Mary learned
trust and faith from her parents and her synagogue; practicing her faith
in daily life. Mary teaches Jesus the stories of God and his relationship with
his people, teaching Jesus to have faith in his heavenly father. Mary teaches
Jesus the ways of the Lord while looking after his needs, nursing him,
nurturing him, and teaching him the things mothers teach their sons; like trust
and grace. We see Jesus' trust in God played out in the Garden of Gethsemane
when he tells God, "Your will be done,"
and then walking the path to the cross on our behalf. We see Jesus’ grace play
out in his relationships with the people. Trust and faith in Jesus, God with us;
may you hold on tightly to both as you come to the manger to see the son of
Mary, the Son of God this Christmas.
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