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Learning from Mary

Luke 1: 26 – 38

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 08 May, 2005

IT’S NOT easy for a Protestant to talk about Mary. We get all shy because sometimes the Orthodox and Catholics have talked about her too much. It’s time for us all to get some balance!

 I think it’s a great time for us all to think again about Mary. She teaches us a lot, both as a model for Christian women and as a model for all Christians. If we look carefully at her we see how she demonstrates that the gospel is far less troubled by differences between men and women than most Christians are!

WILLING OBEDIENCE

  The first thing I want us to see is her willing obedience.

  In Luke 1, we meet Mary in her own right. It’s interesting that Matthew mainly talks about her in relation to Joseph or Jesus, Mark doesn’t really talk about her at all — she’s there, but you could easily miss her. But in Luke, she is one of the main actors.

 You don’t need me to tell you that she faced a pretty hard task when the angel told her she was going to be mother to the Lord Jesus. Stoning wasn’t an unknown fate for young women who were pregnant before marriage.

 Like everything about faith, it’s easy until you have to do it. It’s easy to preach until someone expects you to; it’s easy to be a witness in a prayer group, it’s easy to stand up for Jesus as long as no one is asking you to get off your seat.

 I think of the girls who have been teenagers in this church, and imagine what it would have been like for one of them to be pregnant at 13 or 14. They’d have been devastated! When we read that Mary went to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, I wonder what was really going on in her head. I wonder was she coming to terms with what was happening to her?

 When God’s call comes, it is rarely all joy and excitement. It usually is when we first come to Jesus and say we will follow him wherever he goes. It’s when he speaks to us in response to our decision that we face the reality. He says, ”I don’t enjoy the privileges of the foxes and birds. I have no warm den in the fields or safe nest in a tree. I don‘t even own a pillow. Come along with me!” That’s when we have to decide if we are truly willing to come.

 It was not when she was saying her prayers in the women’s section at the Nazareth synagogue that Mary showed herself a true believer; it was when she told the angel,

LK 1:38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.”

  The news came out yesterday that the majority of Protestants say that the major influence on their own faith was a believing mother.

 For those whose family life was closely involved in a supportive and loving church, both parents were influential. But a believing father is much less likely to have believing children than a believing mother is.

 They say that a Rabbi was shocked one day when his eldest son came home and announced that his son had become a Christian.

 The Rabbi was heart–broken and didn‘t know what to do. He talked to his Rabbi friends, who commiserated with him, but had no answers. Then he turned to God. “Oi, Vay, Lord God!” he cried, “Have you heard about my son? He‘s become a Christian!”

 He finished his complaints to God, and demanded an answer to the problem. There’s no reply, only silence. Then, into the silence comes a mighty sigh, and a voice comes from heaven, “Did I tell you about my son?”

  Well, on the latest statistics, it’s the mother who will count, anyway!

 If you have or had a believing mother, she’s probably a good part of the reason you are here today. And that is because somewhere along the line, she said to God,

“I am the Lord’s servant,”

and she meant it.

PROTECTIVE

  Other than a passing reference to Mary in Matthew‘s gospel, when Jesus was probably 18 months old, we don‘t hear anything about Mary until Jesus was about 12.

  You remember the incident, when they went to Jerusalem for Passover, and Jesus got lost when they were coming back home.

  Jesus was with the teachers in the Temple, asking probing questions, so much so that the Jewish leaders were amazed at his perceptiveness.

 But Mary wasn’t at all impressed.

His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”

  It‘s the good old Mother’s Guilt Trip thing, isn’t it? “You have treated us badly!”

 They all do it, don‘t they? — present company excepted...

  You might be “My son, the Rabbi, my daughter the lawyer” from the moment you first quote a Bible verse of first tell a classmate, “That’s not fair!” But you are just a naughty boy or girl if you give them a fright — even if they left without looking for you!

 But it’s protectiveness, and we would all have died without it.

  As you know, our little grandson hasn’t been at all well during the past week. He had breathing problems on Sunday morning, and they are still getting that sorted out, though he has been out of intensive care since Wednesday morning.

 It’s been devastating for Joshua and Helen, and they are both coping in their own ways. Joshua is looking at the future, and how they might have to change their lifestyles if they have to monitor little Daniel perhaps for a few months yet. Helen is looking at the here–and–now, asking, “What do we need to do right now for the best outcomes for Daniel?” And I wouldn’t like to stand in her way if she is doing something for his benefit!

 They say, “Never try to rob a mother bear of her cubs.” The same goes for mothers from among those hairless primates, homo sapiens.

  All of us are here, I‘m sure, because some mother fought for us. It might be our health, it might be our career, it might be a conflict with a bullying teacher, or with a difficult child at school.

 St Augustine had a fighting mother. One pagan writer who met her said, ”What women these Christians have!”

 She was one of those Christian mothers who had the devil scared. Her son had joined a cult, the Manichaeans. He’d taken a mistress, and they had a son, Adeodatus. And Augustine’s mother, Monica, just pestered God until her son was converted. And Augustine became one of the most famous Christians since the first century.

 Mary was a protective mother. And we all need to be protective of others. I was reading in yesterday’s paper about that little girl who was born in detention and has never seen any world but the detention centre where she and her mother are. This three–year–old bangs her head on walls when she gets upset, or knows her mother is unhappy.

 That our country could do something like that to a child is worse than criminal: it is evil. We all have a responsibility of care for people like that. Mary points us in that direction, and so do mothers down the years.

 It reflects what Jesus said,

Inasmuch as you did it for one of these, the least of my brothers, you did it for me.

NOT ALWAYS RIGHT

  Of course Mary wasn’t always right. I’m glad of that, because it demonstrates her humanity.

 In the early centuries, part of the reason for the growing cult of Mary was that heretics were undermining genuine Christianity, and to declare Mary “Mother of God” was an assertion that the heretics were wrong. When heretics said that Mary was the mother of the man, Jesus, but that his divine nature came upon him later, maybe at his baptism, the church said, “No, he was both God and man even in the womb.”

 But that didn’t mean that she wasn’t an ordinary but obedient human mother.

  When Jesus‘ preaching began to attract a lot of attention, and when he was doing a lot ot things that might make the authorities frown on him, we read,

LK 8:19 Now Jesus’ mother and brothers came to see him, but they were not able to get near him because of the crowd. 20 Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.”

8:21 He replied, “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.”

  They thought he had gone mad, and they wanted to bring him quietly back home. It was a mark of care, certainly; but they had misinterpreted the situation.

 Our mothers won’t always be right. Sometimes they will be horribly wrong, but try to look at what they are really reacting to. How often it ’s right motives and wrong interpretation. Be understanding, won’t you!

THERE AT THE END

  One thing we can say for certain about Mary is that she was there at the end.

  Luke writes in Acts,

ACTS 1:10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

1:12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city. 13 When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. 14 They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

  We are familiar with the image of Mary at the foot of the cross, watching her son die; but the story doesn’t end there.

 Some people would have decided Jesus was irresponsible, giving up his day job and becoming a travelling preacher. They’d have given up on him.

 Some people would have decided Jesus was mad, making such a fuss, getting the authorities upset. They’d have give up on him.

 And some people would have decided that the Jesus movement was a lost cause and that he had fought for an idea and lost. They, too, would have given up on him.

 But Mary was there to the end, and beyond, when the Holy Spirit came on the whole church and the days of vindication began.

 She never gave up on Jesus, and he never gave up on her!

LESSONS FOR US

  I’m sure there are many lessons we could learn from Mary, but I just want to be very simple this morning. After all, it’s Mothers’ Day, and many of us will be wanting to get away for Mothers’ Day celebrations. So I’ll be to the point.

  I want to emphasise that Mary, like many mothers, points us to Jesus. She demonstrates how we should respond to him.

 First, choose to be obedient to God. Receive Christ willingly. Just as she didn’t know what this Christ would be like, but still took him into her life, we mightn’t know all the answers, either, but we can still take him into our lives in simple trust that he will carry us through to the end.

 Second, do what good you can for others. Be like a mother or a father to those who have no one to look after them. The Bible says that God “...sets the solitary in families.” If people are going to find families, we have to be families to them.

 Over the five years I have been at Roy Morgan Research, three or four younger people have “adopted” me in a way. They never say, “I have taken you on board as my father while I am at work,” but they act that way. It’s fun! We can all do it. Learn it from Mary and from your own mother, who probably made sandwiches for the neighbourhood kids when they came around to play, and sat them at table as though you were all the one family. It’s not just common courtesy; it’s also a reflection of Christ’s model of care.

 Third, don’t be fazed by failure.

  I have a friend who once told me that the most formative thing in her life was when she failed in her studies. She had always done well and had always been expected to pass, and it was such a shock that she didn’t know how to handle it for a while, but, gradually, she came to accept that she could fail — and it was not the end of life as we know it.

  We can get it wrong and come through that episode. We can fail and get up. We can be sinners yet saved by grace. That’s what the gospel is about.

 Finally, trust that you’ll be there in the end.

  The devil will whisper that you will not make it. Don’t believe him. Just as Mary made it to the end, so can we.

On that bright and glorious morning

When the dead in Christ shall rise,

And the glory of his resurrection share;

When the saved of earth shall gather

Over on the other shore,

And the roll is called up yonder,

I’ll be there!

  From Mary, learn to value your parents for what they gave you; from Mary, learn to live life fully and fittingly; from Mary, learn how to be there in the end.

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2005. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)