Mary Received Christ with Humility and Faith

Luke 1.26-38 | Ps Alex Huggett | 1.10.2024
Advent 1

© Bentley Baptist Church Inc.
www.bentleybaptist.org

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you, team.
We're going to be reading fromLuke, chapter 1.
Luke, chapter 1, verse 26.
In the sixth month, the angelGabriel was sent by God to a
town in Galilee called Nazareth,to a virgin engaged to a man
named Joseph of the house ofDavid.

(00:22):
The virgin's name was Mary, andthe angel came to her and said
greetings favoured woman.
The Lord is with you.
But she was deeply troubled bythis statement, wondering what
kind of greeting this could be.
Then the angel told her do notbe afraid, mary, for you have
found favour with God.
Now, listen, you will conceiveand give birth to a son, and you

(00:47):
will name him Jesus.
He will be great and will becalled the son of the most high
and the Lord.
God will give him the throne ofhis father, david.
He will reign over the house ofJacob forever and his kingdom
will have no end.
Mary asked the angel how canthis be, since I have not had

(01:08):
sexual relations with a man?
The angel replied to her theHoly Spirit will come upon you
and the power of the Most Highwill overshadow you.
Therefore, the Holy One to beborn will be called the Son of
God.
And consider your relative,elizabeth.
Even she has conceived a son inher old age and this is the
sixth month for her who wascalled childless.

(01:30):
For nothing will be impossiblewith God.
See, I am the Lord's servant,said Mary.
May it happen to me as you havesaid.
Then the angel left her.
Then the angel left her.
Do you ever watch award showslike the Oscars or Logies?
Or maybe you read about someoneonline who's won an award and

(01:52):
they're all like, oh, what asurprise.
This is so humbling.
And you think really, you know,if anything I've read about you
in the press is anything to goby, you don't seem like a very
humble person.
The reality is, in many partsof life you don't need a whole
lot of humility to get ahead.
In fact, it could get in theway, and humility is even

(02:15):
starting to get a bit of a badrep in some people's mind.
Some people think of humilityas meaning that I have to think
little of myself.
It's associated with negativeself-image and that's not what
humility is at all.
It's having a realisticunderstanding of ourselves.
But someone once said humilityisn't thinking less of myself,

(02:37):
it's thinking of myself less, ifyou get that distinction.
So it's a pity people'sthinking has become twisted like
that because humility may notcount very much in some parts of
life, but it's enormouslyimportant in the kingdom of God.
Numerous biblical proverbs tellus humility comes before honour,

(03:00):
which certainly seems to havebeen Mary's experience.
Here's a peasant kid.
She probably was a kid.
Girls could be betrothed asyoung as 12 years old in ancient
Israel, waiting a year beforegetting married.
Now, that was probably anexception, but it was possible.

(03:23):
Most likely, though, mary was alittle older, she was probably
still in her mid to late teens.
A peasant girl in a nowheretown, in a backward province of
an occupied country, and yet Godchose her to be his mum.

(03:46):
There's all of that, andparticularly that last statement
through your head in the angelannounced to Mary that her baby,
who she was to name Jesus,would be called the son of the
Most High.
The first time we encounterthat title Most High is actually

(04:09):
when Abram, the father of faith, was blessed by a priest.
Melchizedek, king of Salem,brought out bread and wine.
He was a priest to God MostHigh, and he blessed him and

(04:31):
said Abraham is blessed by GodMost High, creator of heaven and
earth, and blessed be God MostHigh, who has handed over your
enemies to you.
And Abraham gave him a tenth ofeverything to you.
And Abram gave him a tenth ofeverything.

(04:51):
And the very next story is Godmaking a covenant with Abram.
And then the angel proclaimedto Mary that Jesus would reign
on the throne of his father orancestor, david.
He would rule over the house ofJacob, which is Israel, forever
, and his kingdom would have noend.
And this fulfilled ancientpromises God had made to King

(05:13):
David.
When your time comes and yourest with your ancestors, I will
raise up after you yourdescendant, who will come from
your body, and I will establishhis kingdom.
He is the one who will build ahouse for my name and I will
establish the throne of hiskingdom forever.
And then we read in Isaiah.

(05:34):
You might be familiar at thistime of year, for a child will
be born for us, a son will begiven to us and the government
will be on his shoulders.
He will be named WonderfulCounselor, mighty God, eternal
Father, prince of Peace.
The dominion will be vast andits prosperity will never end.
He will reign on the throne ofDavid and over his kingdom to

(05:57):
establish and sustain it withjustice and righteousness, from
now on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord of armieswill accomplish this.
And these are twin poles ofcovenant and kingship run
throughout the Bible.
So covenant is aboutrelationship.

(06:18):
It was expressed throughagreements that God made with
his people, first with Abrahamand then with the whole nation
of Israel on Mount Sinai.
And the covenant on Sinai isparticularly.
We often associate it with lawand legalism and so on, and we
often think of it as somethingthat's quite burdensome.

(06:40):
But really it was about shapinga culture and an identity for
the people of God, and byfollowing God's righteous
instruction, israel would becomea distinct people and a light
to the other nations.
That was God's intention anyway.
And in Jesus the covenant goesto the next level.

(07:02):
And the writer of Hebrews saysthe Lord has sworn and will not
change his mind.
You are a priest forever.
And because of this oath, jesushas also become the guarantee
of a better covenant.
That's covenant.
What about kingdom?
Well, kingdom is aboutresponsibility.

(07:23):
It's about authority that gotogether.
Kings are meant to protecttheir citizens and uphold
justice.
Now, we have a whole lot ofother expectations on government
nowadays, but they're kind ofthe minimum, aren't they?
Law and order and security.

(07:45):
God gave the kingdom to Davidand his descendants as an
eternal covenant, and when theDavidic kings ruled in
accordance with God's covenant,the nation prospered.
Most of them did that verypoorly, of course, and none
perfectly.
And so the Davidic kingdom cameto an end when Israel was

(08:07):
occupied by the Babylonianempire and most of the
population was deported.
But that leaves us with aproblem.
Didn't God make a promise toDavid?
How is that going to befulfilled?
Well, the kingdom in that formended, but the promise didn't,
and Jesus would re-establish thekingdom and not simply a

(08:28):
kingdom in perpetuity to hisdescendants, but he was to reign
over it forever.
And so in the book ofRevelation we see a vision of
Jesus in the heavenly throneroom with the multitude singing
you are worthy to take thescroll and open its seals
because you were slaughtered andyou purchased people for God by

(08:49):
your blood from every tribe andlanguage and people and kingdom
.
And so this child, the promisedMessiah, was the fulfillment of
scripture and the hope of theangels scripture and the hope of

(09:14):
the angels.
When the angel announced thatMary would fall pregnant
unsurprisingly, she was curiousto know what that meant.
How is this going to work Now?
She was engaged, so you'd kindof expect the child to emerge
through the natural processes ofevents.

(09:34):
She seems to have intuited thatthat wasn't the plan, but
that's what you'd have expected.
But on the other hand, she andher fiancé were no one special.
I mean, how could she possiblybear the Messiah?
But of course, no, it wouldn'tbe through natural processes.
This would be a miracle of God.

(09:56):
The power of the Most High willovershadow you.
This is actually a hyperlink, areference to other times.
The presence of Godovershadowed people and places
and, not least of all, thetabernacle.
If you remember back into thedesert wanderings of Israel, if
you're familiar with that story,one of the things that happened
is we see the presence of Godovershadowing the tabernacle.

(10:20):
Many ancient theologiansconsidered Mary a kind of
tabernacle bearing the dwellingplace of God.
And because Jesus will bemiraculously conceived by the
Holy Spirit, the angel says hewill be called the Son of God.

(10:41):
Now, the title Son of Goddoesn't always refer to Jesus'
divinity.
It often, probably most oftenis a messianic title, a title to
Jesus as Messiah, the anointedone, the promised one.
And Jews did expect Messiah tohave a unique relationship with
God.
In fact, in chapter 3, verse 38, luke finishes Jesus' genealogy

(11:05):
with Adam, the son of God.
Adam was uniquely created whenGod formed his body from clay
and breathed into him the breathor the spirit of life.
But no one thinks Adam wasdivine.
And so, given all of this, thatthe Jewish expectation of

(11:29):
Messiah and that he'd be calledthe Son of God, that Adam is the
Son of God, not divine, in Luke, a lot of scholars think that
Luke didn't intend here tosignal Jesus' divinity, that he
is God, when he told this story,but rather to signal that he is
Messiah.
You know, it seems to me thatif Luke didn't intend this

(11:53):
connection explicitly, it's notvery far away.
And in fact, john was also amiracle baby, but he was a
normal human being, born throughthe normal process of events.
Now, his conception wasmiraculous in terms of his

(12:13):
parents were very old andshouldn't have been able to have
a baby, but the miracle was hisparents' age, nothing more than
that.
This child to be born of Maryis not going to have a human
father, but be of the HolySpirit.
And the angel says that's whyhe'll be called the son of God.

(12:35):
And so by the time we get toJohn's gospel, we read the word
was God and the word becameflesh, in John 1 and 14.
And in Mary's womb, god put onhuman flesh and became one of us

(12:56):
.
And so we say Jesus is not onlydivine in some sort of sense,
but that actually he is God,because there is only one
divinity, only one God.
He is the God of Israel and theGod of all creation in human

(13:17):
form.
And, as theologians reflectedon this, because that's a big
how can this be?
How, as theologians reflectedon this through the centuries,
they came to believe that JesusChrist was one person with two
natures, both truly human andtruly divine, but only one
personality.

(13:37):
They came to understand thatGod is one God or one being who
exists in a community of persons, a trinity.
And if you've been around thechurch long enough, you've
probably heard many analogies totry to explain this.
Some are downright heretical,actually, and some just fall

(14:02):
short, because no explanation,really, no analogy, no picture
can really be adequate, becauseGod is utterly unique.
How do we think we can possiblyexplain a being who's infinite?
And yet we can't understand God, because the scripture says no

(14:25):
one has ever seen God, the oneand only son, jesus, who is
himself God and is at theFather's side.
He has revealed him.
I can't imagine how overwhelmingthis must have been for Mary In
a culturally conservativesociety.

(14:45):
She has to break the news tofamily and friends that she's
pregnant out of wedlock,something that in previous days
could have got you stoned todeath Not in a good way.
Can you imagine Miraclepregnancy, huh, and the Messiah,

(15:07):
no less.
King of Israel.
Sure, mary, we believe you.
When the angel announced toZechariah he was going to be a
father, if you read back thestory just before the one we're
looking at, he was skeptical andhe wanted to know how he could.
Be sure, this was seriously.

(15:28):
Like angel, you know how old Iam.
And the angel says sure, here'sa sign for you, zechariah, I
promise that this is going tohappen.
You're not going to be able tospeak until this baby is born in
nine months' time.
Mary also wanted to know, butshe wanted to know not because

(15:48):
she didn't believe, but becauseshe did.
How is this going to happen?
It was simple faith.
And then, when the angel toldher some more details Mary, it's
going to be a miracle, god atwork in your body she consented
just with humble submission.

(16:11):
It may have been a terrifyingtime for Mary, but you know
she's become revered to agreater or lesser extent
throughout history.
She certainly stands as anexample for us.
Evidently, we can presume shewas a pious woman, but no one's

(16:36):
perfect.
I mean who is righteous enoughto bear the Son of God.
Catholic theology, particularlyhas tried to build a whole
edifice of myth around Mary toanswer this.
But that misses the point,because the point is none of us
are good enough to bear the Sonof God, not Mary as his mother

(17:00):
and not us as his disciples whocarry his spirit in our hearts.
Jesus is pure gift.
Mary didn't earn this privilege.
She received it with humble,obedient faith and friends.
If we want to bear the spiritof Christ in our hearts, that's

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how we need to approach God aswell, with humble, obedient
faith.
If we want to be part of thecovenant people of God under the
rule of God.
It's not something we can earn.
We can only receive it.
And yet, having believed, westart going about the work of

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the life of faith, the work ofthe kingdom, the work of the
covenant people of God.
But that's because we'vereceived it as a gift, not so we
can try to earn it.
For you have been saved bygrace through faith, and this is
not from yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not fromworks, so that no one can boast
, for we are his workmanship,created in Christ Jesus for good

(18:09):
works which God prepared aheadof time for us to do.
This is the great gift ofChristmas and this Advent season
, as we celebrate the coming ofJesus, may we receive this gift
with humble, believing hearts,as Mary did.
Let's pray with humble,believing hearts, as Mary did.

(18:29):
Let's pray, father.
We thank you that your gift tous is just that a gift, father.
I pray that you will give usthe faith to receive it and,
having received it, let itchange us, lord.
Let us go about the work offaith, but, lord, help us to

(18:51):
understand what an act of graceit is.
In Jesus' name, amen.