The story of Gabriel's visit to Mary teaches us a lot about the faithfulness of God in keeping His promises and the grace of God in using ordinary people to do extraordinary things. ; We take some time to explore some of the lesser-known details surrounding the birth of Christ to gain a fresh appreciation of the virgin birth and a fresh vision for our own part in the story of bringing God into the world.
Jesus’ Birth Foretold to Mary
Luke 1:26-38
5/12/2010
Introduction:
· How would you feel if someone you had never seen before said to you: “Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.” ? [1]
· What if this person went on to tell you that God had chosen you for a task that would change the course of history?
· People say all kinds of things all the time – I’ve certainly heard all kinds of prophecies made about people that I haven’t necessarily taken too seriously, but this was coming from the angel Gabriel!
· What would it have been like for Mary to have received such a life-changing message from such a powerful angelic messenger?
· What can we learn from this story about how God speaks to us and reveals His calling for our lives?
Getting to Know the Story:
26 In the sixth month,
- Not June! The sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy.
God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee,
· Gabriel is a very senior angel – in fact he is one of only two angels named in the Bible. The other is Michael. Michael is described as a warrior who leads the angelic host, Gabriel is described as bearing messages from God to people on Earth. He did this for the prophet Daniel, for Zechariah and now for Mary.
· Look at what happened to Zechariah when he didn’t believe Gabriel’s message (1:18-20)
· Gabriel’s first mission was to Zechariah, a priest serving in the Temple in Jerusalem. There was no more fitting place on Earth for Gabriel to visit. This mighty angel who stands in the presence of God in Heaven is sent to the one place on Earth where God’s presence is said to dwell.
· Now he is being sent to the backwoods village of Nazareth. Nazareth is a little town in the region of Galilee, which the Jews in Jerusalem consider to be more of a Gentile region than a Jewish region. Many of the pious Jews in Judea consider the Jews of Galilee to be ceremonially unclean because they are in constant contact with non-Jewish people. It’s an unlikely place for the angel Gabriel to appear.
· However not only did he go to an unlikely place, he went to an unlikely person – not a priest this time or a prophet, but….
27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary .
- Mary is a young lady who is nearly married. The contracts are signed, the dowry has been paid and Joseph is building their house, getting ready to come and take her home to be his wife.
- We are told that Joseph, the man she is to marry, is a descendant of David. That’s really important, because God had promised that a great king who would rule over an eternal kingdom would come from King David’s family tree.
Jeremiah 23:5-6
5 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “When I will raise up for David a righteous Branch; and He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land.
6 In His days Judah will be saved, And Israel will dwell securely; And this is His name by which He will be called, ‘The Lord our righteousness.’[2]
- Don’t you love O.T. prophecy? Here we have Jeremiah, around 600 years before the birth of Jesus, prophesying that a descendant of David will reign as a righteous king, the saviour of His people. Not only that but he will be called:
Yâhovah, tsidqenuw /ye·ho·vaw tsid·kay·noo/ - The Lord Our Righteousness. What a great summary of who Jesus is: He is God, and He is our Righteousness. - There is an issue that threatened to mess all this up, however. Many of the kings that followed in David’s royal line were ratbags! One of these was named Jehoiachin, also known as Coniah or Jeconiah.
Jeremiah chapter 22:28-30 (just a few sentences before the prophecy we just read)
28 Is this man Jehoiachin a despised, broken pot, an object no one wants?
Why will he and his children be hurled out, cast into a land they do not know?
29 O land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord!
30 This is what the Lord says:
“Record this man as if childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime,
for none of his offspring will prosper, none will sit on the throne of David
or rule anymore in Judah.”
· We know from Matthew’s gospel that Joseph was a descendant of Jeconiah. Neither Joseph nor any of his sons could ever be the king promised in Jeremiah 23. This is another reason why the virgin birth of Jesus is so important. Legally, Jesus needed to be a descendant of King David through the line of his son Solomon to fulfil a prophecy made to David (2 Chron. 17:10-14). Biologically, the line of succession from David and Solomon was cursed from the time of Jehoiachin so that no king could come from it. Jesus inherited the legal status through Joseph, but was not tainted by the curse on the physical descendants that Joseph carried.
· This is a really exciting point. It shows that God will fulfil His promises no matter what we do to mess things up! It looked like David’s descendants had blown any chance of God’s promises being fulfilled through their family line. But God knew about what they would do before He made those promises to David, and God knew all that we would do when He made His promises to us. Never let go of the promises of God to you! What He promises, He will do. He may discipline us, just as He disciplined Jehoiachin and his descendants, but He will always do as He has promised.
Let’s get back to the story of Mary!
- As we read the stories with Mary and Joseph in the Bible we can see that they are people of great character; and I think we can assume that they are looking forward to starting a life together. They probably have got a reasonable idea of what they are expecting their life to be like once they are married. That’s all about to change for Mary.
28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
- I love those words: “Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you”. We are going to come back and talk about this phrase a bit later, because it is a lot more important than many people realise. But let’s get on with the story!
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. 31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”
- So Mary is told that God’s favour is upon her and she has been chosen for a special task – a tremendous honour. She will have a son who she must name Jesus – meaning “the Lord saves”.
- Jesus will be the fulfilment of the O.T. prophecies, some of which we have seen already:
- He will be great
- He will be called “Son of the Most High” – He will be acknowledged as God’s Son.
- He will be a king of David’s line
- He will reign forever
- His kingdom will never end
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon 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. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. 37 For nothing is impossible with God.”
- There are many people who mock the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus. We don’t have time today to examine every argument that is raised against it, as interesting and important as that is.
- When it comes down to it, this passage makes it very clear that Jesus was conceived through the power of God put into effect by the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t come down to different interpretations of one or two ancient Greek words, it’s a clear and important aspect of the story which is consistently affirmed throughout both the Old and New Testaments.
- The Messiah had to be born of a virgin in order to fulfil prophecy and in order to fulfil all of the functions that He performed for us. He needed to be both human and divine. Without His humanity, He could not be our substitute or identify with our struggles. Without His divinity, He could not remain sinless nor be the revelation of God to us. Jesus is the One who brings God and humanity together. There has never been nor will ever be anyone like Him.
- Given the daunting task of bringing this Jesus into the world notice Mary’s response:
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her.
- Understand what a huge issue this was for Mary. To be found to be pregnant while betrothed to a man was to risk the death penalty. At the very least it meant that she would forfeit her chance to marry, which was pretty much the only thing that a young lady could hope for. Who would provide for her and her child? Her husband-to-be would surely divorce her or demand her death. Her parents would disown her. Where could she go?
- Keeping all of the disastrous consequences of this pregnancy in mind, let’s read on in Luke 1:39-56
- Mary has no idea of what the road ahead looks like, but she trusts that God will fulfil His promises and that her child will be the Messiah. She believes that future generations will call her blessed because of the privilege that she – a humble girl from the backblocks of Galilee – has had in being the mother of the Christ. It’s very likely going to be a tough road – it would turn out to be tougher in many ways than she could yet suspect – yet she was willing to take it because her confidence was in the Lord.
- What an inspiring example Mary is to us of trust in God and willingness to obey despite the cost involved. We might think that these characteristics could be among the reasons that God considered her to be worthy of His favour. I mentioned that we would return to that idea, because it’s a very important issue that we need to understand. Gabriel told Mary that she was “highly favoured” and that she had “found favour with God”.
- We often think that these words mean that Mary was someone who had somehow earned great favour with God. It really just means that she was someone God had chosen to be the recipient of great grace. This idea is made very clear in the only other place this particular Greek word is used in the New Testament:
Ephesians 1:3-6
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
- I love the fact that the free gift of grace that Gabriel tells Mary she has received from God is just like the free gift of grace that we have all received through her obedience.
- Just as God chose Mary to be the mother of Christ, He has chosen us to be His children. He chose us before the creation of the world, not on the basis of what we have done or will do, but on the basis of faith in Christ. That alone is what qualifies us. If grace could be earned it would be cheapened. God’s grace is far richer and more glorious than any of us could deserve on our own merits. Rather the Bible teaches us that our adoption into God’s family says nothing about us and everything about God.
- Mary is a wonderful, noble character who should be appreciated and seen as a great role model for us. However she did not deserve to be the mother of Jesus any more than you or I deserve to be saved by Him. The favour that God bestowed upon her to bear Jesus was a gift given by grace alone.
- God’s gift to Mary could not be earned, but it did come at a price. Mary’s life would be forever changed. It would be greatly blessed – a fact that she rejoiced in – but there would be a price to pay. There was the risk of being cast out and rejected. There was the pain of seeing her son rejected and killed.
- In the same way God’s gift of grace to us is full of blessing, and comes at a price. We risk rejection. We risk suffering. We must die to our own ambitions and desires. If you claim to have accepted God’s gift but have not counted the cost, you need to think about that today.
- Don’t cheapen the grace of God by thinking you can earn it.
- Don’t cheapen the grace of God by thinking that there is no price to pay in receiving it.
- But in the midst of the acknowledging the cost, be like Mary and praise God as the Mighty One who has done great things for us, the One who will bring us through, the One who will always keep His promises no matter how much we mess up, no matter how insignificant we think we must be.
