AM sermon preached at Central Christian Church December 9, 2012
Take the Christmas Journey sermon series Message #2 Luke 1
Mary: She took a family vacation
I may never forget it, I mean it happened about thirty years ago and still in my mind I can clearly hear the sound of his words ringing in my ears from that day. It must have been just a normal day because nothing else that happened that day stands out in my mind. I don’t recall any special plans or activities being interrupted. It wasn’t a holiday. It wasn’t my birthday. It was just a normal day that became abnormal by a single phone call. The phone rang, I answered and a man on the other end began talking with what I thought was an unusual and casual friendliness. I recognized that he had a knowledge of me and my family that I was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable about---especially since I wasn’t able to identify his voice. And when he said something about being in town and dropping by for a visit, I simply had to ask, “who is this?” My question apparently ruffled the man’s feathers somewhat because I could tell by the tone of his voice when he responded “This is Troy” he was surprised by my question. Nobody by the name of Troy came immediately to mind, so I asked “Troy who?” It was then that he responded with the answer that I recall so vividly---in what seemed to be to be a tone of voice that reflected both hurt and embarrassment he said, “I’m Troy, your grandpa Troy.”
Now if during your life you’ve always had the good fortune of being close to your grandparents, you may be wondering “how could a guy not recognize the voice of his own grandfather?” But that was just it, you see. My relationship with my grandfather from the time I was about age ten was strained at best. That was to my remembrance the one and only time my grandfather ever called me on the phone. We did welcome my grandpa into our home that day. And I’m happy to report that we had a nice visit even though things got off to a poor start that morning and my response to my grandfather’s voice over the phone probably wasn’t what he had expected.
This morning as we continue our Christmas journey, we’re going to look in on a situation where a young woman dropped in, I’m guessing, unexpectedly on one of her relatives for what became a very extended visit. We’re going to be looking in Luke 1 where we’ll find that when Mary dropped in on her relative Elizabeth, the response she received at the very sound of her voice was nothing short of miraculous.
I encourage you to open either the Bible you brought with you or one of the Bibles you’ll find under the seats to Luke 1 where we’ll read about the surprising way Elizabeth responded to the sound of Mary’s voice. While you’re looking up Luke 1 let me fill you in on some details which lead up to Mary’s paying Elizabeth a visit. Elizabeth is married to a guy named Zechariah. Zechariah’s a priest and when his turn for spending special time in the temple keeping the incense burner fueled, he was there alone on the inside doing just that---and he was praying when all of the sudden the angel Gabriel appears and stands next to the altar on which Zechariah had been burning incense. As you’d expect, it upset ole Zech---but Gabriel said to him...“Hey Zechariah, my man, calm down. You don’t need to be afraid of me. Everything’s cool, in fact it’s better than that---when you hear what I’m about to tell you, you’re going to think, oh wow, this is awesome! God’s heard your prayer! And get this, you and your wife Elizabeth are going to become parents of a bouncing baby boy who you’re to give the name of John!” Now you need to understand Zechariah and Elizabeth weren’t a couple of young newlyweds, they weren’t middle-aged either---no these two were well beyond the prime child-bearing and child-rearing years. They were old--we’re talking capital O-capital L-capital D old. I thinking Zechariah after he saw Gabriel and heard what he had to say, probably thought to himself---“ooh, man I’d better get out of here and get me some fresh air, I’ve breathed in so much incense I’m starting to hallucinate!” In spite of whatever Zechariah was or wasn’t thinking Gabriel just continued to talk about little John and how his coming would totally change things for Zechariah and Elizabeth. Zechariah wasn’t too sure if he could believe what he was hearing, after all the incense was pretty strong, and so he asked Gabriel, “How can I be sure this is going to happen? I mean, come on Gabriel---Elizabeth and I are almost ready for the nursing home and you’re telling me we’re going to become parents?” Gabriel said “Why you unbeliever, how about this for a sign? Bad-ah-boom, bad-ah-bing---you can no longer talk. That’s right, I’ve taken your voice away. You’re not going to be able to talk until your son John is born.” With that Gabriel left.
Zechariah went home in silence. Can’t you just imagine the initial interaction between Zechariah and Elizabeth when he got home, especially as he tried to tell her why he wasn’t able to talk and that he wouldn’t be able to talk again until their baby was born? (make hand motions to try to communicate idea the two of them would be parents...) In time Zechariah and Elizabeth worked through their communication difficulties---and Elizabeth became pregnant and she went into seclusion for five months. I’m guessing she didn’t want anyone to know about her pregnancy because if in her old age she lost the baby she was probably afraid people’s comments about her being cursed would get a whole lot worse and she wouldn’t after getting her hopes raised so high be able to cope with them very well if that happened.
Meanwhile, in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy---God sent the angel Gabriel to a young virgin girl named Mary with the message that she would give birth to a son who she’s to give the name Jesus. The angel told Mary that Jesus would have an amazing future---he would become a king and remain a king forever. Mary asked Gabriel “How will this happen since I’m a virgin?” Gabriel answered, “God will make it happen. Why, at this very moment your relative Elizabeth, you know the old woman everybody’s assumed would never have a child, well, she’s about to enter her third trimester because nothing is impossible for God!” Mary then said something to the effect, “I am the Lord’s servant and am willing to do whatever He asks of me.”
Gabriel left and Mary began packing her bags. She was going to pay Elizabeth a visit. We’re not told if Gabriel told Mary to go and check things out for herself or she just decided to do it on her own but where verse 38 of Luke chapter one ends, “Then the angel left her.” verse 39 opens with “At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea...” Tradition holds that the town where Zechariah and Elizabeth lived was this little village not far from Bethlehem named Ein Karem. Mary was in her hometown of Nazareth when Gabriel visited her--so what we’re talking about is her making a trip of about 80 miles....now she lived in a time before planes, trains and automobiles. She wasn’t wealthy so it doubtful she had a donkey, horse, mule or camel to ride on. Simply put she most likely had to walk from Nazareth to Ein Karem. The journey would have taken her across some pretty rough terrain; and it was a trip that would probably have taken her about 9 or 10 days to make. Of course, they didn’t have smart phones or email or post offices or even telegraphs back then so she probably didn’t let Elizabeth know ahead of time to look for her coming; I’m thinking she just showed up at the front door. Now let’s check out what the scripture says happened---Luke 1:40-45...
“...she (Mary) entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. (who knows? Maybe she looked at Elizabeth and shouted “It’s true, YOU ARE expecting a baby! Wait til you hear how I found out!” maybe she walked in the door and yelled “surprise!” or maybe she spoke very softly and said something like “hey, cuz, but you’re wondering why I’m here.” We’re not told what it was that she said to Elizabeth only that she greeted her and the Bible says in verse 41...) 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”
Three things jumped out at me when I read Elizabeth’s response to Mary’s voice---first was that she was immediately aware that Mary was carrying a baby. The second was that she knew that the baby Mary was carrying wasn’t an ordinary baby. Elizabeth identified Mary’s baby, Jesus, as “the Lord.” And third was that Elizabeth said the baby inside her own womb leaped for joy at the sound of Mary’s greeting. Apparently even unborn children have and express emotions. In any case I’m thinking that the response Mary got from Elizabeth was much more encouraging than she had expected to receive. Mary, I think, was thinking, I’ll go and visit Elizabeth and it’ll make me all the more certain that I didn’t just dream up the whole angel visit thing. But I don’t think Mary was expecting anything like what she received on the moment of her arrival. Without even telling her, Elizabeth knew about her baby. Mary was so overjoyed she erupted with praise. She praised God for His choosing her to give birth to His Son. She praised God for the great things He’s done in years past. She praised Him for what he was about to do. And she praised Him for keeping the promises He’d made to Abraham. Verse 56 says Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then she returned home.
I’d never really thought about it before but when I did the math in my head I began to wonder if Mary hung around until just after John was born. Think about it---when Gabriel told Mary she was going to become a mother, Gabriel also told Mary that at that moment Elizabeth was already in her sixth month. Add to those 6 months the 9 or 10 days of travel and then add to that that Mary stayed about three more months and well it certainly makes it look like Mary may have been there when John was born. Oh yeah and by the way, if you were feeling bad for old Zechariah and his being unable to talk, it might make you feel better to know he got his voice back. Eight days after John was born, on the day he was to be officially given a name, family and friends who had gathered for the occasion were thinking they should name the boy Zechariah after his dad---but Elizabeth piped in and said, “No! He’s to be called John!” “But why?” everyone asked, “there’s no on in your family named John.” So they looked to Zechariah for his input and he signaled for them to get him something to write on. He wrote “His name is John.” And in that instant as quickly as he had lost his ability to speak, he got his voice back. The Bible doesn’t say so, but I kind of wonder if Mary wasn’t there to see that happen too.
The things we’ve looked at this morning really challenge us in three areas of our lives. They challenge us first in the area of our faith. Gabriel’s visits with Zechariah and Mary especially beg the questions “do we take God at His word?” and “do we believe He has the power to keep His promises?” When it comes to taking God at his word and believing God has the power to keep His promises, a lot of people are like old Zechariah. They believe God exists. They even put in some time for God. But when it comes to believing things God has said that goes against their personal life experiences or seems to buck common wisdom, they just don’t do it. Gabriel told Zechariah that he and Elizabeth were going to have a son and Zechariah didn’t believe it. I’m guessing that Zechariah didn’t believe because he was an old man and Elizabeth was an old woman who’d went through menopause years ago. And in all of Zechariah’s many years he’d never seen an old woman turn up pregnant. What the angel told Zechariah didn’t make sense to him so his first reaction was to disbelieve Gabriel and to write off his words as nonsense. And Zechariah was a priest serving in the temple.
Zechariah disbelief should make us question our own readiness to accept God’s word. Are we like him even a little when it comes to God’s word and God’s promises? Do we take God’s word at face value or do we sort through the scripture and pick and chose what things we will believe and what things we won’t believe? Do we believe the part that says God loves us and at the same time disbelieve the Genesis creation account which clearly says God created the universe in six 24 hour days? Do we believe Jesus walked the earth and at the same time do we write off the miracles we read in the Bible that He performed? What about judgment and the way the Bible says things will turn out in the end---do we honestly believe that if our neighbors never accept Jesus that in the end God will send them off with the majority of humanity to a place of eternal punishment?---or does that seem much, much too harsh to us, so that we have in our minds personally adopted our own feel good version of what will happen in the end, you know something that makes it easier for us to justify our remaining uninvolved and disconnected from our neighbors and co-workers and family? Do we really believe that getting God’s truth into our homes and out into the world is more important than our living comfortable lives, more important than our careers, our entertainment or accumulating wealth? In this matter of believing God are we in even the least bit a little like Zechariah? I think if we’re honest with ourselves we have to admit that most of us are.
I know at times when it comes to matters of my personal faith, I can relate to the guy whose story is found in Mark 9----in a single response he said to Jesus, “I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief!” On the matter of taking God at his word, we all could take a lesson from Mary. Elizabeth compelled by the Holy Spirit said that Mary was blessed because she believed that what the Lord had said to her would be accomplished. Mary didn’t understand how she, a virgin, would conceive and in time give birth to a son---but God had said it would happen. She knew that God had a proven track record of keeping His promises, so she accepted what was told her as truth. Simply put, Mary believed God.
In Mary’s visit to Elizabeth we find another challenge this one being in the area of our relationships. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this one---I just want to quickly share a few thoughts that you can take and run with in your mind. Think about this---I’m convinced Mary found a special friend in Elizabeth. I mean those two women undeniably had a special bond seeing as how both of them experienced miraculous conceptions. Don’t you wish we had a written record of some of the conversations they must have had over the course of the three months Mary stayed with Elizabeth? Sure they probably exchanged plenty of small talk. They probably talked about their respective lives and their families. But I can’t imagine under the circumstances that the two of them failed to talk about God. No, I think they talked about God a lot. I think they talked about God’s goodness and God’s power. I imagine they discussed their wonder over what God was up to---and they probably shared thoughts about what God was going to do in and through their sons. We know that Mary believed the message Gabriel gave her, but surely she received encouragement and surely her faith was strengthened during her visit with Elizabeth. Think of what the two of them would have missed out on, if Mary hadn’t made an effort to see Elizabeth or if Elizabeth had instead of welcoming Mary into her heart and into her home had said to Mary, “Listen honey, I realize you’re on your way towards being an unwed single mom. Look, Zechariah and I are old and we’re going to be doing good just to take care of a little one on our own. We really don’t have time to help you deal with your problems so we want you to turn around and go back home.”
The way Mary sought out Elizabeth....the way Elizabeth welcomed Mary....the ensuing bond of friendship and love that developed---all that ought to make us think about how we interact and build relationships with others. Are we intentional about making friends and showing love? Do we welcome and make room for others and do we constantly find our own lives being made all the richer because of it? Or have we closed our hearts and solidified our circles? Have we let some past hurts build a callousness around our hearts so that we’re no longer open to letting others in and in doing so have we robbed ourselves of the joy and love God wanted to send to us through them? A lot more could be said about the way the things we’ve looked at today challenges us in the area of relationships, but I want to move on to what I see as being the hardest hitting challenge of all that comes at us from the things we’ve looked at...this final challenge speaks to us in the area of commitment. You see, there is in what we’ve looked at this morning, a real call for us to look at the level of our willingness to make sacrifices for Christ.
Consider Mary’s response to Gabriel’s announcement. Mary didn’t say, “I’ll do it but only if you go with me to talk to Joseph and my parents and explain all of this to them too.” And she didn’t hesitantly say “O-o--okay. I’m in, but hey, not fully. I mean come on a girl’s got to have some fun. And I certainly hope you don’t expect me to drag the kid to worship every weekend because some Saturdays I like to sleep in and hey I’ve got season tickets so when there’s a home game, well, you know.... oh yeah, and then there will no doubt be those times I’ll have company and when he gets older he’ll have practices and ballgames, and vacations, hey let’s not forget those, huh, Gabriel?” No, in her response Mary didn’t attempt to tell God how it was. She didn’t ask God to make exceptions in her case---nor did she seek some type of watered down arrangement. Mary simply plunged right in to making a total “I’m in for all I’m worth” commitment. “I am the Lord’s servant.” she said. “May it be to me as you have said.” Even before the words left her lips, Mary knew that her acceptance of God’s will might require a huge amount of sacrifice. Mary knew that saying “yes” to carrying Jesus might mean scandal and being shunned by family and friends. She knew it might cost her- her career, her inheritance, her fiancée. I mean Mary had to know that knew her saying “yes” to God in this virgin birth thing might mean Joseph’s saying “no” to marrying her. And yet Mary agreed, such was the depth of her commitment, such was her willingness to make sacrifices for God.
During a usual week I do three different types of reading. I read for the purpose of sermon preparation. I read for personal growth. And I read for entertainment. Occasionally in the midst of my personal growth or entertainment reading I’ll stumble onto something that the moment I read it, I think---this goes right along with my sermon. That happened this week---as I was thinking about Mary and the way she willingly put everything on the line I came across a brief telling of the story of Esther Ann Kim. And wow---what a story. What little bit of it that I read this week humbled me and challenged me. Esther Kim was a women who during World War II and the Japanese occupation of Korea displayed an incredible amount of commitment to God. Her refusal to bow down at the shrines set up at every corner of her country lead to her being imprisoned for six years from 1939 to 1945. But get this---prior to her being arrested and incarcerated---knowing it was inevitable that she would be put in prison for refusing to bow to idols, she spent time preparing herself both physically and spiritually. Every day, day after day, she would find and eat food that was decaying, because she knew she’d be served rotten food in prison. While preparing for prison, she memorized more than one hundred chapters from the Bible as well as lots of hymns. She spent countless hours in prayer and fasting. As a result she came to a greater understanding of scripture and she was able to let go of her fear of being tortured. She found also as a result that she was able to distinguish the voice of the Holy Spirit more clearly and came to love others more intensely. When the time came and she was taken to prison, God used her in countless ways. She lead other prisoners to Christ. She ministered to swindlers and murderers and as a result many of them experienced a radical change of heart ---enjoying for the first time in their lives the healing and hope that only Christ can bring. Even the jailers and government came to recognize how Esther’s light was shining in that dark place. Now you know Esther could have went to prison and just endured her suffering for her faith in silence and still we would have probably marveled at her tenacity and applauded her. But Esther Ann Kim wasn’t content just to merely put in her time and endure whatever was dished out to her. No, she wanted to be ready every moment, every day to answer God’s call with a Mary-like response. She wanted to shine the light of God’s love in that dreary place so in her heart she was constantly praying, “I am your servant, Lord. ‘Who do You want me to love for You today?’ Work your will through me.”
I agree with Francis Chan who commented that when he read Esther Kim’s story, it left him wanting more---more intimacy with Christ---more love for people---more of God in his life.
As we approach our time of decision this morning, I want to encourage you to commit yourself to taking these three areas of your life to God in your prayers this coming week. And I want to encourage you to sit down with this morning’s insert and work your way through the series of next steps listed on it. Most of all I want to encourage you to be open to hearing the voice of God’s Holy Spirit. And when you hear it with Mary like humility simply respond “Yes, Lord. I’ll do it. I am your servant.”
Let’s stand and let’s sing. And if you wish to make some type of public decision, please come forward...
NOTE TO THOSE WHO READ AND OR CHOOSE TO MAKE USE OF ANY OR ALL OF THIS SERMON: I am sharing this sermon with the hopes it will be an encouragement to others. I apologize for any blatant typing errors! If you find any I’d appreciate hearing from you so I can correct them. I try to give credit where credit is due, noting writers and or sources to the best of my ability. I have for years been drawing from a wealth of sources including this website. I recognize that my mind and writing processes are fallible. I may occasionally fail to properly identify a source. Please do not take offense if you see anything of this nature. I never intend to plagiarize. Having said that I want you to feel free to draw from my message. When appropriate I hope you will give credit as I do. But most of all I hope Christ will be lifted up and God will receive the glory in all things.
