Mary - The Dilemma Of Mystery Series

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

ENGAGE

A dilemma is defined as “a difficult situation or problem”. And most of us encounter a number of dilemmas almost every day. Some of those dilemmas are rather inconsequential, like whether to choose paper or plastic bags when we go to the grocery store or the one our family faces every week when we have to decide where to go to lunch after church.

Others are much more serious, like the one that some of my relatives were faced with this week when the doctor told them that there is nothing they can do to prevent ongoing infections in a family member because of scarring from previous cancer treatments.

TENSION

In your life the dilemmas you face might include things like choosing which school to attend or what job to take or whether to fix your car or buy a new one. For me as a pastor one of the dilemmas I face each year about this time is how to take the familiar accounts of the birth of Jesus and create a series of messages that bring some new perspective to the stories that we all know so well.

As I was thinking about that this year, one of the thoughts that came to mind is that our familiarity with those accounts threatens to undermine our sense of awe and wonder at the miraculous birth of Jesus. And I think it also causes us to lose sight of the fact that most of the people who are part of those stories are just common people like us who experience the same kind of emotions that we do – things like wonder, joy, confusion, doubt and fear.

And those emotions certainly contributed to the dilemmas that each of those people faced as a result of their connection to the birth of Jesus. So over the next several weeks leading up to Christmas, I’m going to try and help us all understand those dilemmas, which by the way are some of the same ones we face as disciples of Jesus, and also see what we can learn about how to handle those dilemmas in our own lives.

TRUTH

We find the accounts of the birth of Jesus primarily in the gospel accounts written by Matthew and Luke. John approaches the birth of Jesus more from a spiritual perspective rather than giving us details about the physical birth itself and Mark begins his gospel account with Jesus as an adult man.

Matthew and Luke’s accounts are quite different because they approach the birth of Jesus from different perspectives.

Matthew, who is writing primarily to Jews, approaches the birth of Jesus primarily from Joseph’s perspective and, as we would expect, incudes a number of references to the Old Testament Scriptures that predicted the coming of the Messiah, who would come from the line of David. So he includes the genealogy of Jesus on Joseph’s side of the family because it was through Joseph that Jesus had a legal right to the throne of David. Even though Joseph was not Jesus’ biological father, once he married Mary he became his father for legal purposes.

Luke, who is writing primarily to Gentiles, approaches the birth of Jesus primarily through Mary’s perspective. So in chapter 3, he includes the genealogy of Jesus on Mary’s side to show that Jesus also was entitled to the throne of David because he could physically trace his lineage back to David and that he therefore had David’s blood in him. This morning, we’ll begin our series with that account.

[Read Luke 1:26-38]

In order for us to fully appreciate what Mary was facing here, we need to take a few minutes to discuss the Jewish wedding customs in the first century.

Typically, marriages were arranged by the families of the bride and groom, often while the children were still very young. When the girls reached puberty, usually around the age of 12 or 13, they were betrothed to the prospective groom, who was typically several years older, during a formal ceremony. Either before or during that ceremony the father of the bride received the bride price from the father of the groom. This is almost exactly the opposite of what occurs to day when the parents of the bride traditionally pay for the wedding. At that point, the couple was considered to be legally bound even though they did not live together or consummate the marriage.