Luke 1:26-38
26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” 29 But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.
30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
35 And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. 36 And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38 And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.
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How many of you
have ever watched someone try and do something that you were certain
they were unqualified for? Have you ever sat back and known how it
was all going to end, because you just knew they couldn't cut it?
(How many of you are thinking that right now?) I grew up as a
Cincinnati Bengals fan, and if you know anything about professional
football, you know that the Cincinnati Bengals are in the middle of a
20 year rough patch. No franchise in football has gone longer
without winning a playoff game. It's not been their millennium so
far, but things are looking up, in their defense.
Well, growing up as
a Bengals fan, they always got very good draft picks, because of how
bad they were. And they would draft players that you could tell,
from the very start, were simply over their head. They never had a
chance. I felt sorry for a few of them—they just got swallowed up
by the enormity of the task before them. This happened to coaches,
too. The franchise just tended to chew up people and spit them out.
Even from afar, you could tell they were in over their head.
Have you ever felt
that way? Have you ever felt like you were in over your head? Have
you ever signed up for something, or perhaps had someone else sign
you up for something, and you immediately felt like you were way, way
out of your league?
When I played
soccer as a kid, one year our coach decided it would be great to
challenge us, so he signed us up to play a year over our current age
bracket. He apparently felt we needed a challenge. Well, somewhere
around the first game, in which we were losing by double digits, we
realized that it was going to be a long season. We were in way over
our heads.
Well, what if I
told you that you had an integral part to play in the restoration and
redemption of the entire universe? What if I told you that you were
called to be a part of God's ongoing project of renewing the whole
world? How would you feel? A bit under-qualified, perhaps?
If you answered
yes, you're not alone. Throughout the Bible, we have instances where
individuals chosen by God feel vastly inadequate to perform the tasks
to which they are called. Moses argued with God when God revealed
that he had chosen Moses to lead God's people out of slavery.
Several people basically laughed at God when they found out they were
going to have children at advanced ages. When God revealed himself
to Isaiah, Isaiah assumed that he would die because of his
unworthiness. Peter told Jesus to get away from him, because Peter
felt unworthy to even be near Jesus. Paul considered himself the
chief of all sinners and the least of the apostles. It's a long list
of Biblical characters who considered themselves unworthy. They felt
inadequate for the calling.
So it's somewhat
surprising when Mary, a 13 year old girl, a virgin engaged to Joseph,
reacts with simple trust when she is given the news that she will
carry, within her womb, the son of the living God. She simply trusts
God, and she accepts the role that she was given to play. She does
her part within the plan of God's salvation.
Now, Mary had every
possible reason to say no. Here she was, a young girl with her life
in front of her, engaged to Joseph, and suddenly she is asked to put
everything on the line. A young, single girl getting pregnant in
these days is not a good thing. Back in Mary's day, it was a matter
of life and death. Back in Mary's day, this could have cost her
everything. She could have been stoned to death for this. At the
very least, Joseph would have cut off the engagement, which he was
prepared to do had God not intervened with an angelic visit. Mary
would have been disgraced, cut off and alone, and that was in the
best of circumstances.
And yet, she had
such trust in God that she said yes. She accepted God's call upon
her life, and the world, the entire history of the world, is better
because of it.
Now, I believe that
if Mary had said No, God wouldn't have just given up. God would have
found another way to bring salvation into the world. It all didn't
depend on Mary. But, because of her willingness to serve God in the
manner in which she was invited, human history is different.
Now, we all would
like to serve as faithfully as Mary, right? We'd all like to be able
to completely trust God with our hearts and lives. We'd all love to
be able to turn to God and follow his call into whatever he has in
store for us.
The first thing I
want to say is this: We all don't have to serve exactly like Mary
did. We get the idea into our heads that each and every one of our
walks of discipleship should look the same. We watch how one person
serves the Lord and we convince ourselves that we need to do the same
thing. We feel like we don't measure up because our life looks
different than someone else's. Let me be very clear: we are all
called in different ways to serve with different gifts. It's all for
the same purpose, but we don't have to compare our lives. We can
compare our attitudes or our willingness to serve, but our tasks are
different.
I, for example, am
not called to give birth to the Savior of the world. Mary was, and
she did it very, very well. I'm not even called to give birth to
anything. Rachel has done that twice, and she's done it much, much
better than I could have. She's told me that since she has carried
the first two babies, I am supposed to carry the next two, but we all
can admit that I'm way, way too much of a wimp for that.
So since I can't
give birth, am I less of a disciple than Mary? No. I have my own
gifts and callings. But the pattern of discipleship is the same, and
often, so is our response. I want to wander through this passage and
talk about the rhythm and pattern of call and resistance.
First of all, God
loves you. God believes that you are special. He has affection in
his eyes for you. This is so, so important for us all to hear, but
we struggle against this. When the angel shows up and tells Mary
that God has found favor with her, she is troubled by this and tries
to figure it out. She gets wrapped up trying to hear what it means
rather than just accepting it.
We tend to do this,
too. God loves you. God died on the cross for you, and if you had
been the only person in the entire world, God still would have done
so. God didn't die for someone really special and get you thrown
into the mix, like a player-to-be-named later in a trade. No—you
are special and treasured by God.
Often, we think of
all the reasons God shouldn't love us. We think of how unworthy we
are. We wonder why God loves us.
Stop. Stop with
all the obstacles, with all the excuses, with all the hesitations.
God loves you. If we can learn to accept that for what it is, it
will radically change our hearts. I promise you that.
Next, the angel
moves on to the details. God is calling Mary to a very special
role—she is going to give birth to a Savior.
Mary's first
question is to ask how this can be, since she is still a virgin.
It's a fair
question. In her heart, she knows how the world works. She doesn't
see how God will overcome such an obstacle. She forgets all the
amazing things God has done in the past.
Often, when we're
called into a certain mode of discipleship, we spend time figuring
out all the reasons why we can't do it. We wonder how God will use
us, and if we're really prepared for the job. We start to believe
that we are not good enough, not equipped, and generally unworthy for
the task. We wonder why God doesn't send someone else. We question
our self-worth.
Friends, throughout
human history, God has been using unworthy people to do amazing
things. God chose Moses to free his people, God chose David to be
king, God chose Peter to lead the church. None of them were
qualified. None of them were ready. All of them were used for
amazing things. God wants to use you, too, but if you're too busy
looking at yourself and not busy enough looking at God, all you'll
come up with are reasons why God's plan will never work. God exists
outside of time and space, and God created time and space, so when
God calls you into something, trust in him to be able to bring it to
completion. God didn't call you into a life of discipleship to see
you get overwhelmed and killed because you don't have the gifts—God
will give you what you need, often miraculously. Stop worrying about
yourself and focus on God.
Finally, when God
assures Mary that things will be handled supernaturally, Mary
assents. She tells God that she is a servant and will submit to his
will. It's the same prayer Jesus prayed in the Garden, and it's the
same prayer we each need to pray today. To trust fully in God's
will, to let our own questions and hesitations get lost in the
background noise so that our hearts will worship and our lives will
submit to Christ, no matter what Christ wants us to do. Friends,
believe the Good News—Christ wants to use you to change the world,
and while you may not feel worthy of that, you don't have to worry
about yourself—you have been called by name, bought with a price,
redeemed by the blood of Christ and prepared for eternal life. God
can and will use you for miraculous purposes if you trust him enough
to submit to his Lordship in all of life.
Let us pray
