Mary's God Moment Series

Scripture: Luke 1:26 – 38

Theme: Be Ready …

Title: Mary’s God Moment

INTRO:

Grace and peace this morning!

For the next few weeks we are going to continue looking at some God encounters that different people experienced that are associated with the Advent/Christmas Season. It does not mean that the encounter had to occur during the months of December or January but simply that what happened during these encounters is usually looked at during this time of the year.

Last week we looked….. at Zachariah’s encounter with the angel Gabriel. According to the best traditions that scholars have examined that encounter took place during the month of Sivan or sometime during the months of either May or June according to our Gregorian calendar.

The event we are looking at this morning takes place around the Jewish month of Keslev or around our months of November/December. It involves the encounter that young Mary experienced with Gabriel, God’s Warrior Angel and Messenger.

It is a simple story. It involves the life of a young lady who is living at the time in the country village called Nazareth. Let’s look at the story and see what God has to say to Mary and to us this morning.

I. Be Ready … For God to Do Something Unexpected with Unexpected People

As we learned last week with Zachariah the LORD loves to do unexpected things with unexpected people.

That should not surprise us. For as you read through the Old Testament you find story after story of how God reached out to people that no one would have given much time for or thought of very much. For example:

+Abraham is just a man of some means who lives in the city of Ur of the Chaldeans, not far from the country of Kuwait. We don’t know very much about Abarahm until he accepts God’s call. There is nothing spectacular about his character or his position. We don’t really know what he did for a living in the city of Ur. Everything special we know about Abraham happens after his God encounter.

+ In Exodus chapter 1 we discover a woman named Jochebed. There is nothing special about her. She is just another Hebrew slave among millions of Hebrew slaves. There is nothing special about her giving birth to a little boy she had to hide away from the Egyptians. Her boy, later called Moses of course becomes a mighty man of God. But only as he grows up and follows God. There is no great resume or heritage behind either Moses or Jochebed.

The same could be said about so many great people we find in the Old Testament. Ruth is just a simple Moabite widow. We don’t find anything amazing about Ruth’s back story. It is only a story of joy that lead to a story of grief and sorrow. But she is chosen by God to be the great-grand mother of King David.

When we come to Mary we find the same thing. There is nothing about this young lady that stands out. She brings nothing on her resume other than her availability and willingness to serve.

While there have been all kinds of attempts to shore up her heritage trying to make her father and mother into some time of saints the reality is they were merely two people trying to make a living in a town called Nazareth.

We don’t exactly know how large Nazareth was at time of Jesus. Estimates range from a scant 200 folks to as many as 10 – 20,000 people. It really doesn’t matter. However, there is better evidence for Nazareth being a decent size city rather than a small backwater village.

What we do know is the city of Nazareth was located near the main road that traveled to Jerusalem in one direction and to Rome the other direction. What we do know is that Nazareth had a wonderful supply of water and if you took the time to travel up on the hillsides of Nazareth you could see all kinds of wonderful things:

-To the North you can see the mountains of Lebanon

-To the West you can see the coast of Tyre

-To the South lie the plains of Megiddo

-To the East are the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan Valley

-And you can see Mt. Carmel – the place where Elijah brought down fire and had his famous battle with the false prophets of Baal and Ashtoreth.

What we do know is Nazareth happened to be the place where one of the most central figures in Christianity and in the plan of salvation happened to be living – Mary. But for the most part she was just a young lady waiting for the day of her upcoming wedding.