A Small Town Girl

by Dave Wilkinson

Luke 1:26-45

December 16, 2001

There used to be a sign along Highway 17 in Scotts Valley near Santa Cruz. It advertised the presence of Bethany Bible College. It also conveyed spiritual messages of encouragement to passing motorists. One day the special message read "Dog races."

You may ask, "What's spiritual about that?" The answer, of course, is nothing. "Dog races" was not the original message. The original message was "God cares." But in the middle of the night, someone, possibly a wild Bethany Bible College student, rearranged the letters in the original message so that it read "Dog races."

That happens in the highways of our hearts as well. The message comes to us: "God cares." But for some of us, because of the circumstances of our lives, it makes little sense. Perhaps it made sense at one point, but now it seems more like "Dog races." "God cares" makes about as much sense as "Dog races."

If that is where you are today, you need a big dose of Christmas.

This morning we are looking at one of the key characters in the Christmas drama. For on that holiest of nights, next to the baby himself, no character was more significant than the mother in whose arms the baby slept. At center stage, beneath the spotlight of eternity, sits a young thirteen to fourteen year old peasant girl named Mary.

At this point in her life, Mary is identified in two ways. She is a virgin and she is betrothed to a man named Joseph. We talked about the virgin birth and engagement process on December 2. There are copies of this sermon on the rack in the entryway.

Luke tells us that in the sixth month of Mary's cousin Elizabeth's pregnancy with John the Baptist, Gabriel is sent by God to the hill country of Galilee to a "city" called Nazareth.

It is called a city because there just isn't a word in Greek to describe a one-horse, jerkwater, podunk town like Nazareth.

From our human perspective, God's choice of the province of Galilee seems suspect. Why didn't he choose Judea, the geographical heart of Israel, the center of his dealings with mankind down through the centuries? Judeans took great pride in their identity and place. Galilee, by contrast, had long been disdained. Here is what the prophet Isaiah said about it back when the Galilee of the New Testament period encompassed the tribal territories of Zebulun and Naphtali: "In the former time God brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali." (Isaiah 9:1b). Even in Old Testament times, Galilee had been overrun by pagan religion. At the time of Jesus' minsitry, Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, was tetrarch of Galilee. He had followed in his father's footsteps, introducing Roman idolatry and barbarism into the life of this province. Yet, God chose Galilee over Judea.

God's choice of cities also seems illogical from our human point of view. He did not choose Jerusalem, the city of David, the heart of religious influence and life in the nation. Jesus called it the "city of the Great King." Jerusalem was the religious, political and social seat of power and authority in the life of Israel. But, God chose Nazareth.

Nazareth had a population of about 15000. The city had many hotels to serve the needs of the travelers -- Roman soldiers, pilgrims and merchants who journeyed back and forth on the nearby caravan route through the Jezreel Valley. Under these influences, immorality and corruption had become commonplace in the life of the city. No wonder Nathaniel said, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" when he learned that Jesus came from that city. Yet, God chose Nazareth, not Jerusalem, "the city of the Great King."

Nazareth was a pretty rough place. But in the midst of the darkness God saw something good. He saw the heart of Mary and the heart of Joseph, her betrothed. In Nazareth, Gabriel greets young Mary with the words: "Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you."

You may remember from last week that when John the Baptist's father, Zacharias, saw this same angel, his knees knocked together with fear. But Mary is made of sterner stuff. She apparently isn't bothered by seeing an angel. She takes it in stride. But she is bothered by the angel's message. "Why should I be greeted in such exalted words? What does this favor look like?"

Gabriel tells Mary not to be afraid. She has found favor with God. God's on her side. She will conceive and bear a son who will be named Jesus a form of the Hebrew "Joshua" which means "God is Salvation." Her son will be great and will be called the son of the most high; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father, David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end."

Now Mary remembers her science lessons and health ed at Nazareth Junior High. And she is a peasant girl. Unlike Prissy in "Gone With the Wind", she knows about birthin' babies. She raises a good question. Verse 34: "How can this be since I am a virgin?"

Gabriel gives her the answer: "The power of the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the Holy Offspring will be called the Son of God."

Mary raises the question: "How can this be?" "Well in terms of academic explanation, Mary, the Holy Spirit is going to overshadow you. The seed of God will link with the human egg and you are gong to have a child. If you still don't understand, Mary, go take a four day trip and visit your cousin Elizabeth, because you know about Elizabeth. Elizabeth is an old, old lady. Right? Guess what. Elizabeth is six months pregnant. That's no more impossible than what's going to happen to you. Go check-out Elizabeth."

That's the program. Now Mary has a choice. God never forces His love or His will on anyone. Gabriel announces God's plan and purpose, but the implication is that it will not be carried out without Mary's consent.

There needs to be a great long pause between verses 37 and 38. Frederick Buechner, in his wonderful biographical dictionary of biblical characters entitled Peculiar Treasures, describes that moment between verse 37 and verse 38 as the angel Gabriel waits for the answer of Mary.

"She struck the angel Gabriel as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child, but he'd been entrusted with a message to give her, and he gave it. He told her what the child was to be named, and who he was to be, and something about the mystery that was to come upon her. "You mustn't be afraid, Mary," he said. And as he said it, he only hoped she wouldn't notice that beneath the great, golden wings he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of creation hung now on the answer of a girl."

Mary ends the suspense. She says, "Behold, the handmaiden of the Lord; let it be done to me according to Your word."

It is not the experience of the angelic appearance that grips Mary. There is no spiritual rush, no emotional ecstasy because she is in the presence of an angel. No, hers is a thoughtful, obedient response to God's revelation through Gabriel. Mary believed God, in single-minded, unwavering commitment. That is the response God wants from all of his daughters and sons. Mary holds nothing back. She belongs to God. She trusts him. She allows His wise and loving plan to be accomplished in her life.

Mary risks trusting God with her life. How can she know the consequences of her decision? But she knew enough of God's love for her and God desiring the very best for her that she says: "Here I am. I give you myself. Fulfill Your word in me." Mary learned to forget the world's oldest prayer: "Your will be changed." She learned instead to pray the world's greatest prayer: "Your will be done."

When this teen peasant girl chose to serve God, it was not as Joan of Arc, marching out clad in her armor to lead armies. A figure like Joan of Arc is glamorous -- even though in the end she suffered death. Mary's role is not so glamorous. Hers is the role of an unmarried, pregnant girl in a small town full of gossips. She faced the misunderstanding of Joseph and even the possibility of death by stoning. Think of Mary's faith in God. Think of her faith in her own sanity to believe that she was seeing angels, to hear from the messenger, to dare to believe that God was going to be able to make it plain enough to Joseph so that he wouldn't hate her, wouldn't be suspicious, and would actually rejoice with her in the birth of a son he had not fathered.

No wonder it says in Chapter 2 that "Mary kept all these things in her heart and pondered them." I like the way J.B. Phillips translates that: "She kept them in her heart and turned them over and over in her mind." Over and over. "Why me? Why us? How is this possible?"

Four observations:

The first observation is the kind of person Mary is. All she knows is that she is to keep herself pure. Her parents didn't tell her: "Keep yourself pure because you're going to be the Mother of the Messiah." All they say, all they know to say is, "Honor the Lord and the Lord will honor you." She is living clean simply because this is what God requires.

Now from a sovereign perspective God knew who was going to be the Mother of our Lord. The genealogical line is created very carefully. But from a human standpoint, we can say that God has gotten out His binoculars and is looking over the nation of Israel because He wants to do a big thing. The coming of the Messiah is the whole show. All of history is pointing toward this. The Lord of Heaven started looking in the words of a gospel song: "Looking for somebody He could use." He looked in Jerusalem: "No, I can't use her." He looked in Capernaum: "Well I could have used her, but I know what's going to happen next year. I can't use her." But over here in Nazareth

Gabriel says to Mary: "You have found favor in the sight of the Lord." Now the Lord knew all the time whom He was going to use, from a sovereign perspective. But from a human perspective, we can say that God wanted someone He could depend on.

The second observation is about relationships.

Mary has just had the most earth-shaking experience in history. Nothing will ever surpass it. And what does she do? She immediately goes to tell someone. You can just imagine Elizabeth and Mary talking. "Tell me all about it. Then what did Gabriel say? And what did you say?" I'm sure they covered everything during those three months angels and babies and God and Israel and the world. They shared life.

We badly need other human beings at watershed moments. God knows this. Notice how Gabriel sends Mary to Elizabeth. God never calls us to go it alone. He gives us each other.

The third observation is about God. It's not my observation. It's Luke's. Luke says: "A masterful plan was orchestrated at the birth of Jesus Christ." He doesn't want us to miss this.

Luke tells us that God created a situation that not only gave birth to John, whom the Old Testament predicted, but made sure that Zacharias and Elizabeth are related to Mary because Mary is going to need Elizabeth to validate what is happening to her. The birth of Jesus Christ the fact that a virgin got pregnant is a miracle in itself. But it is surrounded by an orchestration of the will of God.

The fourth observation is about how God speaks to us -- how He communicates.

A plumber wrote the National Bureau of Standards. He said he found that hydrochloric acid opens plugged drains quickly, and asked if it was a good thing for plumbers to use.

A scientist at the Bureau replied as follows: "The uncertain reactive properties of hydrochloric acid place pipe in jeopardy when alkalinity is involved. The efficacy of the solution is indisputable. But the corrosive residue is incompatible with metallic permanence."

The plumber wrote back thanking the Bureau for telling him that the method was all right. The scientist was disturbed about the misunderstanding. He showed the correspondence to his boss, another scientist, who immediately wrote the plumber: "Hydrochloric acid generates a toxic and noxious residue which will produce submuriate invalidating reactions."

The plumber wrote back and said he agreed with the Bureau. Hydrochloric acid works just fine.

Greatly disturbed, the scientists took their problem to the top boss. The next day, the plumber received a telegram: "Don't use hydrochloric acid. It eats the pipes."

Samuel Johnson said: "Words were invented to confuse thought." Perhaps that is why God uses few words to describe what is going on. He gives us pictures. Gabriel says to Mary: "Here's Elizabeth. Look at her." And God says to us as we seek to know what He is like: "Here's Jesus. Look at him."

There's a beautiful story from the life of the poet Robert Browning.

One morning after breakfast, Elizabeth, Robert Browning's wife, tiptoed away from the breakfast table and left her husband to write at the table. She quietly went up the stairs and in a few minutes came back down tiptoeing very softly. She came up behind her husband, put her hand over his eyes and slipped a manuscript into his pocket. "Please read this" she whispered into his ear. "If you don't like it, just tear it up and throw it away." Then, very embarrassedly, she ran back up the stairs.

Robert Browning sat and read some of the most beautiful and noblest lines of love poetry ever written by a woman to a man that she loved those marvelous sonnets written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. And buried in the heart of those sonnets are these two beautiful lines that are so fitting for this morning. They go like this:

"The face of all the world is changed for me, since first I heard thy footsteps in my soul."

This is exactly what Christmas ought to mean to you and me, and that is exactly what we ought to see in Christmas a great love story. For God does care.

God loved the world so much that He gave -- Emmanuel. God with us. God's footsteps coming down to walk in our footsteps.

In all of the music and the anthems, let us see and hear the one who changed, all the world for us when we first heard His footsteps in our souls.