Luke 1&2
My daughter Caitlin gave birth nine months ago today (so Sam has been out of the womb for just as long as he was in the womb) and my other daughter, Elizabeth, will give birth at the end of January. And I have to tell you that it is a very strange feeling for a father to see his daughters pregnant. They are adults and I have adjusted to that reality, but there is still a part of me that sees them as little girls. I am delighted that they are giving birth but I am also aware of how incredible it is that my little girls walk around with a new life growing in them. They are in their twenties when they are giving birth. How much more strange would it have been if it was in their early teenage years that they were pregnant and giving birth?
I am so used to hearing that Mary was a virgin when the angel appeared to her and informed her she would bear a child that I don’t stop to think about what it must have been like for her. Mary was not a mature young woman when the angel Gabriel visited her. She was not even in her late teens. She was barely a teenager when these events took place. She was probably between 12 and 14 years old, at most she was sixteen years old.
At the time the angel appeared to her, she was betrothed to Joseph. What did this mean? Joseph’s parents had spoken with her parents and made the arrangement that it would be good for their children to marry, although she and Joseph had to agree with the choice.
Betrothal was much more than the ancient equivalent of being engaged. It was celebrated in a feast when presents were given to the bride and often to the bride’s parents. This was a formal commitment that was made and lasted one year until the actual marriage took place. During this time the couple were known as husband and wife but they did not live together. They did not have the right to be united sexually. And to break this betrothal required that the husband give his wife a divorce.
So think of Mary as a young teenage girl. She and her girlfriends would meet and speculate about the available men in the village they could possibly marry. They were young girls with the bodies of young women. When her friends had noticed Joseph looking at Mary as he passed by or when he came into the synagogue, they giggled and talked about what kind of a husband he would be. When Joseph’s parents made a visit to her home, it was probably not much of a surprise.
Did Mary like him? Did she have a crush on him? Did she blush a bit when he looked at her? He was older, a carpenter. He had seen her when she was younger and then as she developed into a young woman he had looked at her with new eyes.
This was all very exciting for Mary. She was poised on the edge of adulthood, on the edge of new experience. When she became betrothed to Joseph, she was now separated from the other girls who giggled about who they might marry. She was now a married woman.
Older women in the village looked at her with new eyes. She was now included in their conversations, not all conversations, some would have to wait until she consummated her marriage with Joseph, but she was now welcomed into the adult community.
She was betrothed to a young man with a good job who liked her. She had the approval and respect of the community. She had the anticipation of her upcoming marriage. She had many reasons to be happy.
All of this was thrown into jeopardy when she was visited by the angel Gabriel.
Gabriel appeared to her one morning and told her, “Mary, I have good news, bad news and worse news. The good news is that you will bear a son. The bad news is that this will happen before you get married at the end of this year and the worse news is that Joseph, your betrothed, will not be the father of this baby boy.”
This is not an exact translation of the Greek in the text, but it shows the problems with this announcement.
The account in Luke is familiar to us and we love Mary’s response
I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.
But what went on in Mary’s mind after Gabriel left? Should she tell Joseph about this visitation by Gabriel? What would he think? Would he believe her? Would he think she had lost her mind?
What would happen if she did not tell him? It would be fine for a few months but sooner rather than later it would become obvious she was pregnant. What if she began to be sick in the mornings? Other women watching her would notice and begin to ask questions. Mary could wear loose, flowing clothing but it would be harder and harder to keep it a secret.
She could try to seduce Joseph so he would think it was his child. But would Joseph be seduced? And if he was, how would their future relationship be affected? And was Mary the kind of young girl who could seduce? What kind of marriage would they have if she did not tell him about this?
What if she had imagined all of this and she was not pregnant? What should she do?
The angel Gabriel had told her that her cousin Elizabeth was six months pregnant in her old age. So she went to Joseph and asked him if she could visit her cousin. He agreed and she made the three day trip up to the hill country of Judea.
What was she thinking during those three days? If it was true that she was pregnant, what did it mean that she would bear the son of the Most High? How would she ever convince Joseph that she had not slept with another man? But most of all, was this really true? Was she pregnant?
As she approached the town where Elizabeth and Zechariah lived, people she met asked her where she was going and when she told them they said, “Did you hear that Elizabeth is pregnant? In her old age God has blessed her with a child!” Everyone was talking about Elizabeth and Mary thought about how soon, if she was in fact pregnant, everyone would be talking about her – not about the miracle of her pregnancy but the scandal of her pregnancy.
So this young teenage woman, full of questions and confused wonder came to Elizabeth.
When these cousins met, it was the Holy Spirit who made the introduction and gave Mary the confirmation she needed to hear.
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!”
This introduction was a gift to Mary who heard confirmation from the Holy Spirt through her cousin that what she had experienced was true and Mary responded with her own song of praise.
My soul glorifies the Lord
47and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
49for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
For three months, Mary stayed with Elizabeth, talking, praying, thinking through what options Mary had. It was a gift for Mary to be able to confide in Elizabeth and to receive her counsel. But time was running out.
A woman begins to show she is pregnant in the middle of her fourth month and as Elizabeth neared the time of her birth, Mary was three months pregnant. Mary could not afford to wait any longer and it was time for her to make the trip home and face Joseph.
She had three days to think about what she would say when she returned to Nazareth.
How could she convince Joseph that the unbelievable story, that an angel appeared to her and that is why she was pregnant, was the true story?
Maybe Mary was a very innocent and trusting young woman and so she went to Joseph and told him exactly what she had experienced without expecting a negative reaction.
Regardless of what Mary was thinking and regardless of how she told him, Joseph reacted negatively.
His betrothed had betrayed him. She had slept with another man and was pregnant. How this had happened, he had no idea. Was it a stranger who passed through town? Someone she met on her trip? He was confused. He knew Mary and she was not the kind of girl who would have sex with someone else but the reality was she said she was pregnant and he knew he could not be the father. However it had happened and whoever the father was, he could no longer be married to this woman. He had to get a divorce.
Joseph must have felt like he had been hit by a truck (or a fast moving team of oxen). He was hurt and angry – there are a lot of emotions he must have felt. But his maturity showed in that he did not run out and tell people about what Mary had told him. If he had done this, the town leaders would have waited to see if this accusation was true and when it became clear she was pregnant, she would be condemned as an adulteress and stoned to death – or at least she would become a disgraced outcast, reduced to begging on the streets.
Joseph thought about it and decided he had to divorce her. But because he was a righteous man, he did not want her to be publically exposed to disgrace and shame so he decided to divorce her quietly.
People would wonder why he had divorced her. She would still have to deal with the pregnancy but he would not be the one to expose her.
So now we come back to Mary. She had an overwhelming experience with the angel Gabriel which turned her world upside down. Joseph had not believed her and she was going to be thrown out on her own. She could not stay in Nazareth. She had to leave. Where could she go?
Could she go back to Elizabeth? Elizabeth and Zechariah believed her and would take her in, but even in their community she would be an unmarried woman with a child. She would be a disgrace even in their community and people might turn against Elizabeth and Zechariah for taking her in. She was in a terrible situation with no apparent solution.
But God had not abandoned her. An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said:
“Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
Joseph came to Mary the morning after the dream. Mary saw him coming and was nervous about what he would have to say. Was she going to be exposed? Was she going to be thrown out into the streets?
But then he told her an angel had appeared to him in a dream that night and now he understood and believed. Did she cry? Tears of joy? Tears of relief?
She was not alone. She would not be left alone.
Mary and Joseph talked through the options. She was pregnant. In a very bizarre, most unusual circumstance, she was pregnant and how were they going to deal with it?
The first thing they did is decide to ignore the one year waiting period and Joseph took her to his home as his wife.
This set tongues wagging. Why did Joseph all of a sudden take Mary to his home? It must be that they had been having sex and she was pregnant and he was trying to cover it up.
It did not take long and now both Joseph and Mary faced the criticism of the town. They saw her belly and did the math and discovered she had been three months pregnant when Joseph took her to his home. They speculated about what Mary had been doing for the three months she was away. There was a lot of material for the gossips in town to work with.
When Joseph discovered he had to go to Bethlehem for the Roman census, he did not want to leave Mary behind to give birth without him being there to protect her from all the gossip. So he took her with him on a 160 kilometer trip that took them about a week.
She gave birth in a cave where the animals were kept because the inns were full of all the people traveling for the census.
So picture Mary, still only about 14 years old, about to give birth. She has gone from stability and happiness to having her world turned upside down, fearing she would be pushed out into the savage world of shame and criticism but then rescued when the angel spoke to Joseph and he took her as his wife. She endured the scandal of her being prematurely pregnant in Nazareth and set out with Joseph on a difficult journey to make when she was in the last weeks of pregnancy.
And now she is alone, without the help of the women of the village who normally helped young women give birth. She is alone with Joseph and gives birth to Jesus.
After an emotionally charged, roller coaster nine months, she sits in the cave with her husband by her side and her baby boy in her arms. A miraculous conception. A miraculous affirmation of her pregnancy from the lips of Elizabeth. A miraculous intervention by the angel to keep Joseph as her husband.
And then the shepherds arrived with further miraculous news. A multitude of angels had appeared to them telling them to come to this stable to see their savior.
Joseph and Mary took Jesus to the temple for his dedication and there again was evidence that their son was the Son of the Most High and the savior of Israel. Anna and Simeon came up to them in the temple courts and spoke to them.
Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:
29“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you now dismiss your servant in peace.
30For my eyes have seen your salvation,
31which you have prepared in the sight of all people,
32a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.”
33 The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35 so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. What did all this mean? What did Simeon mean when he prophesied that a sword will pierce your own soul too?
We don’t know much about the next number of years. After an absence of two or three years they returned to Nazareth. Mary and Joseph had other children who were half-brothers and half-sisters to Jesus. The scandal of her pregnancy receded and they slipped into some form of normalcy.
At the age of twelve Joseph and Mary were reminded that there was something special about Jesus when he stayed behind in Jerusalem talking with the teachers in the temple and he told them:
Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”
Sometime in the next twenty years, Joseph died and Mary was now a widow.
Her other children married and she had grandchildren, but Jesus was still single. He worked at the family carpentry shop and Mary tried to persuade him to take an interest in the younger women of Nazareth but Jesus was not a normal son.
Then he made his move and set off on three years of ministry. Reports of what he was doing came back to Nazareth. He preached in Nazareth and was rejected. And the gossips revived their stories. They talked again about the scandal surrounding his birth and the family was embarrassed. When the stories became too much for them, they set out to try to bring Jesus back to Nazareth and help him throw off this public ministry.
But Jesus delivered a stinging rebuke that must have hurt Mary’s heart:
Mark 3
A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”
33 “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.
34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
A couple years after that Mary was standing by the cross, watching her son being crucified.
And a sword will pierce your own soul too.
The Pieta by Michelangelo that is on the cover of the bulletin, is my favorite sculpture. I saw it first at the New York World’s Fair when I was 13. The guards had to come and tell me to move on because I was standing too long looking at it.
I saw it again the summer of 2006 in Rome where it sits behind bulletproof glass in St. Peters at the Vatican.
Made from one piece of marble, it is stone that breathes. Mary has a youthful face and it is as if she is a teenager hearing the words of Simeon, And a sword will pierce your own soul too. This statue is a picture of the fulfillment of that prophecy. Holding her dead son on her lap, Mary’s heart is broken.
The Bible says Jesus made a resurrection appearance to his brother James. It says nothing about Jesus making a resurrection appearance to Mary.
But I wonder if some things are too personal, even for Jesus, to have recorded in Scripture. I would guess that Jesus also made a resurrection appearance to Mary, the woman who had given birth to him, whose breasts had nursed him. Mary, the mother of Jesus who had watched her son die a painful death, now met him as the King of kings and Lord of lords, as her Lord and Savior.
What an incredible life this woman lived!
How do we make application of her experience to our own lives?
If you, like me, are a man, it is unlikely you will be giving birth anytime soon. And even if you are a woman, it is unlikely you will be giving birth to a second son of the Most High. So how do we make application of Mary’s experience?
Here is the first of two lessons. When God offers you a gift, even if it is unexpected or unwelcome, it is always, always best for you to accept it in submission.
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.”
I’ve talked about this before, but in terms of spiritual gifts, if you close yourself off to certain gifts, what are called the charismatic gifts, you are shutting off God’s work in your life. If God wants to give you the gift of tongues or prophecy and you reject his offer, in what way is that wise? You may be embarrassed by these gifts but if they are offered to you by God, they are, whether you know it or not, what you deep down need in your life.
If God wants to give you the gift of evangelism but you are reluctant to receive a gift that will have you talking about your faith to strangers, push away your reluctance and submit.
I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.
One of the Moroccan believers, we will call her Miriam, was praying with her husband when she received a vision that she should visit two women she knew but who did not know she and her husband were Christians. In her vision, she was told she should go to them and tell them she and her husband were Christians and that Jesus loved them.
She asked her husband what she should do and he told her she should obey the call of God. This was not an easy call. What would happen if she told these women she and her husband were Christians? Would they get into trouble with the police or the neighbors?
But she obeyed and went to the first woman. When she told them she and her husband were Christians and that Jesus loved her, the woman began to weep. For a week she had been having visions that Miriam was going to come to her with good news and now she knew what that good news was.
Miriam went to the second woman and delivered her message and the woman responded, “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” and another new sister entered the kingdom.
When God calls you to go somewhere, go. When God calls you to do something, do it. No matter how inconvenient it is for you; no matter how ill-timed it is; no matter how embarrassing it will be for you; no matter the obstacles, Go! Do what God asks you to do!
God will never offer you a gift or an opportunity that will be harmful for you. It may make you uncomfortable. It may make you unpopular. You may even suffer because of it, but it will be a blessing, not a curse.
Mary did not have an easy life. Her submission came with a price and she suffered for her submission. But in the end, when she met the resurrected Jesus, don’t you think she thought it had all been worth it?
The second lesson is that when God gives us a gift, we need to give it back to him.
Mary was not able to hold on to Jesus. She had to release him to accomplish the purposes for which he was born.
The obvious lesson for parents is that you need to release your child to God. We are not given children so we can control them and shape them into what we want them to be. Some parents try to do that and the result is broken relationships and warped children. We need to view children as buried treasure and we need to discover what this treasure is. We need to find out who our children are, in what way they are gifted and then encourage them to develop their talents.
This is also true organizationally. I have shared this before, but in March 2004 when we were granted the association to which RIC belongs, we met to pray and Uchenna prayed giving back to God this association. We prayed and continue to pray that we will use this gift as God intends rather than use it for our own purposes.
Children, ministries, all the gifts of God are given to us to bless us and God expects us to be good stewards of the gifts he gives. But we cannot be good stewards if we hold on and try to possess the gifts God offers us. We cannot be good stewards of God’s gifts if we try to use them for our own selfish purposes.
This has been a wonderful year with our daughter Caitlin and her husband John and son Sam living close to us. I would prefer that this continue. But Caitlin and John are heading to do humanitarian work in the Republic of Congo this coming April. I wish it were otherwise. I wish they felt called to do humanitarian work here in Morocco. But our children and their families are not ours to control.
We release them to pursue what God is calling them to do and we know that in doing so, they will be blessed and when they are blessed, so are we blessed.
Whatever God is calling you to do, wherever God is calling you to go, obey in submission to God who loves you and wants to bless, not curse you.
Don’t make up what you want to do and then put a God cover over it and fool yourself into thinking that it is God who has called you. Make sure it really is God who is leading and directing you. But then when you are sure it is God who is leading you, obey.
Life is a glorious adventure and when you move out in obedience to God who loves you, life in all its abundance will be your experience.
