Mary, Now You Know Series

Mary, Now You Know

(Edited from a sermon preached December 8, 2024 at New Hope Baptist Church, Fulton, MO. This is not an exact transcription).

Introduction: Mark Lowry’s Christmas song, “Mary, Did You Know?” has been a blessing for several years now. It’s a song which, I think, captures the whole of the Christmas spirit from the perspective of a Jewish virgin whom God chose to be the mother of His Son.

Having said that, I for one (and maybe others) don’t really know how much Mary really understood once she said “Yes” to be the mother of the Messiah. We do have a record, in Luke’s gospel, how she received news that would change the world! Mary, now you know.

Here’s the text, taken from the King James Version of the Bible:

Text: Luke 1:26-38, KJV: 26 And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, 27 To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. 28 And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. 29 And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. 30 And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. 31 And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. 32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: 33 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. 34 Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? 35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. 36 And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. 37 For with God nothing shall be impossible. 38 And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

1 The People Who Mary Knew

Verses 26 and 27 tell us three of the main characters in this first Christmas story. First, of course, was Mary herself. We don’t know much about her except she was Jewish, born of the tribe of Judah and a great-great-whole lot of greats-granddaughter of King David (her genealogy is in Luke chapter 3); she lived in Nazareth, a city of Galilee in north Israel, which was a long way (maybe a week’s journey traveling on foot) from the original land given to Judah in Joshua’s days; and as we’ll see in verse 34, she was a virgin. This means she was a pure girl who had never taken part in the act of marriage.

Virginity was very important for Jewish girls and the Law—still in effect at the time—had some very severe penalties for girls who willingly had relations with men before she was married. No problem for Mary, though; she was willing to wait until she was married.

2 The Promise Mary Had Made

And speaking of marriage: she was “espoused (verse 27)” to Joseph, also living in Nazareth and a direct descendant of David through Solomon. Reading Matthew’s genealogy of Joseph, I believe Matthew showed that Joseph was the crown prince to the throne of Israel but because of an ancestor, Jeconiah, none of that king’s line would ever be king again (Jeremiah 22:24-30).

To add to what “espoused” means, think of it like this: Joseph had asked Mary to be his wife and she had accepted. That was step 1. There may have been other things taking place—I haven’t found all of what may have been necessary in terms of paperwork. Most American states require only a marriage license, good for a certain amount of time from the date the license was issued (where I live, it’s 30 days from date of issue).

Now, in these days, an engagement can be broken by either party, but in those days, an “espousal” required a divorce (according to Clarke’s commentary, found online at https://biblehub.com/commentaries/clarke/matthew/1.htm). Matthew Henry even observed that Joseph had thought about divorcing Mary (“put her away privily”, Matt. 1:19, KJV) by giving her a bill of divorcement in the presence of two witnesses (this was also found online at https://biblehub.com/kjv/matthew/1.htm).