“In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!’ But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’
“And Mary said to the angel, ‘How will this be, since I am a virgin?’
“And the angel answered her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.’ And Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.’ And the angel departed from her.” [1]
Astonishment! Bewilderment! Confusion! These are the reactions that are recorded when an angel appeared to a teenage girl to announce that she would soon be pregnant. And the pregnancy the young girl would experience wouldn’t be just another disappointing situation arising out of promiscuity as we might imagine in this day. This young girl would be divinely inseminated as the very God of heaven and earth had chosen that she was to be the vessel who would bear God’s Son into this life. The announcement scene presented in the Word can only be described as emotionally chaotic for the young girl, a child perhaps as young as twelve or thirteen years of age.
The situation must surely have qualified as confusing for this young girl. While she was betrothed—engaged would be the modern equivalent—she was chaste; it would have been outrageous to suggest that she had slept with the young man to whom she was to be wed. To have been so gauche as to suggest that she had slept with another man would expose her to swift execution by the extreme punishment of death by stoning.
Recall how confused Joseph, her intended husband was, according to Matthew. We are told, “The birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel’
(which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus’” [MATTHEW 1:18-25].
Perhaps Mary had told Joseph of what the angel had said to her, or perhaps he was an observant individual who could see what was happening. However it came to be, he knew that Mary was expecting a child—and he was certain that the child wasn’t his! Joseph knew the consequences that had to attend illicit sexual activity, and the evidence said that Mary was sexually immoral. The evidence would become increasingly apparent with each passing day. The sentence for her infidelity was unquestionably death; but the young carpenter wasn’t malicious or malevolent; he had no desire to see her killed because of what he thought was unrestrained passions the young woman may have had. He was determined to reject her, leaving her to her own consequences, and he would have done so had it not been for the angel of the Lord intervening. I don’t know about you, but I’m reasonably certain that the appearance of an angel would grab my attention! And I would pay careful attention to whatever message that angel delivered to me.
What I want you to focus on in light of the Word is the obedience Joseph demonstrated and the quiet confidence he exhibited when he had received divine instruction. The young man completed his sleep that night, and then he did as the angel commanded—he took Mary to be his wife. Let me step aside for just a moment to point out that not only was Mary humiliated by God’s work, but Joseph willingly humiliated himself by accepting that people would assume that he was guilty of surrendering to his own lusts rather than submitting to the expected standards of the community.
Mary would bear the stigma of having a child that was conceived before the wedding ceremony had taken place. And Joseph, having married the young woman before the intended time, would be presumed to be guilty of immorality before marriage. It made no difference what reality was, the thought would be implanted in the mind of those inclined to think ill of them. Years after the fact, the religious leaders used this presumption of illicit sexual activity in an attempt to demean Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus was arguing with the Jews, which was apparently a rather common occurrence after His ministry had begun. Jesus had just made the great declaration that encourages so many to this day, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” [JOHN 8:31-32].
Despite being identified as Jews who had believed Him [see JOHN 8:31], these Jews responded, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’” [JOHN 8:33]?
One should never ask the Master a question unless he or she wants an answer. And Jesus did answer the question posed to Him. We are told that Jesus responded, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father” [JOHN 8:34-38].
Jesus’ answer stung these pious Jews—He claimed that God was His Father. They responded to His assertion with choler, their emotion taking control of their minds, “Abraham is our father” [JOHN 8:39a].
The Master patiently and calmly confronted His interlocutors, stating, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did” [JOHN 8:39b-41a]. Heritage tells in the ream of the Spirit. If you are a child of God, the God Who Lives Forever will be revealed through your actions.
These Jews who sought conflict with Jesus had just lost the contest. Well, there had never actually been a contest except in their own minds. They had nothing left with which to reply to Jesus. So, they fell back on the slander that was quietly bruited about when He was not in earshot. They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality” [JOHN 8:41b]. When there is no answer to the facts, people inevitably resort to slander and calumny. The reasonable person is a fascist, a Nazi, a tyrant, a … well, pick any slander that floats your boat. Emotion takes over and reason flees whenever the argument is lost.
Memories can last a long time in a tiny village. Youthful indiscretions are not quickly allowed to be forgotten. The years passed and it was now at least thirty years since the birth of the Son of God. Throughout those long years, Mary had quietly borne the humiliation that attended people thinking of her as a young girl who was unable to rule over her passions before she was married. You may be assured that there were many, if not most of those within the village, who would have heard the story of how she had conceived a child when she was not yet married.
And Joseph, whether he was still living at this time or whether, as I am inclined to believe, he had died, had likewise shared in the humiliation the family had surely known as the people of the village secretly glanced in his direction. Joseph would have known the cruel sting of the snide remarks, as people treated him as the caricature of a young man incapable of restraining his youthful passions. How could he have missed seeing the mocking glances cast toward Mary or the sly shaking of the head after Yeshua had walked past. Though he may have missed the glances behind his back, he had to have seen the looks toward others in his family.
It will prove valuable for us to look back to the beginning of this story. We need to learn how Mary, or how Joseph, for that matter, was able to endure what must have been a tremendous burden in the birth of Jesus, Mary’s firstborn. It is impossible not to recognise that Mary’s firstborn was also God’s firstborn. Jesus was the unique God man, very God and born of a virgin.
Writing a letter to Jewish followers of the Christ who were scattered throughout the world by vicious persecution, an unknown writer spoke of the Son of God, writing, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
“For to which of the angels did God ever say,
‘You are my Son,
today I have begotten you?’
Or again,
‘I will be to him a father,
and he shall be to me a son?’
And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says,
‘Let all God’s angels worship him.’”
[HEBREWS 1:1-6]
Though we are quite certain that we would not begin a story as this story begins, the story before us is not a fairy tale—it is real life! And because the account is real, it is related to us with all the challenges that life can present in such a case. Mary is confused, but chooses obedience to the will of the Lord. Joseph, though uncertain about what has happened, is nevertheless compassionate toward the young woman to whom he was betrothed. When confronted by the angel, he chooses obedience to the will of God.
From this distant perspective, we are awed by the courage and the determination of these young people. Remember, Joseph was a man of no more than sixteen years of age, or younger. Mary could have been as young as twelve years of age. Unlike the modern situation when thirty-five year old “children” are still living in their parents’ basements, these two were acting responsibly and thus receiving God’s blessings.
WHEN GOD’S ANGEL SPEAKS — “In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!’ But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be” [LUKE 1:26-29].
The text makes it evident that Mary was disturbed by the angel’s appearance. That may be too mild a term to describe her reaction. Perhaps Mary didn’t immediately recognise Gabriel as God’s messenger, but as the moments passed, she certainly seems to have recognised that she had been visited by an angel. My reason for suggesting that she didn’t recognise Gabriel as an angel at first is because the usual response whenever an angel revealed his presence was that those to whom the angel appeared were awestruck.
While it is true that “some have entertained angels unawares” [HEBREWS 13:2b], those who became aware that they were in the presence of an angel had one universal response—they were awestruck. Often, those receiving a visit by an angel are recorded as falling to the ground, powerless to move because their terror was so great. What is apparent is that the presence of an angel is startling, sapping the strength from those to whom the heavenly messenger appears. Mary was no different in that she was “greatly troubled,” indicating that she definitely suspected something different about this “person” who was standing before her. We read that Mary was perplexed, startled, disturbed, and naturally she would question what the meaning of this greeting might be.
The other feature that seems to be characteristic of a visit by one of God’s divine messengers is that whenever God’s angel has delivered a message, the person receiving the message will be obedient to what the angel has commanded. Whether the person responds out of fear or whether they are heartened, he or she will be obedient to the message that is delivered by angels. This shouldn’t be surprising if we think about the matter. If we knew that we were directly addressed by God’s messenger, we would undoubtedly be extremely careful to do precisely what we had been commanded to do.
An important point that should not be forgotten is that because God Himself has sent the message, the Spirit of God will verify with our soul that the message is valid. We will have confidence born of the testimony of the Spirit of God that what we have been told is truly from God. We are not left to our own imagination; the Spirit of the Lord verifies what has been communicated. Surely this becomes obvious when we are informed, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” [ROMANS 8:16]. The promise is iterated when the Apostle of Love writes in his first letter, “Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us” [1 JOHN 3:24].
Any deceitful message that is communicated by a demonic being might terrify the one receiving such a message, but there would be no testimony of validity. Without the verification of the Spirit of God, there would be only disquiet, terror, but there would be no confidence. We would inevitably have a sense of foreboding, a feeling of uneasiness because the message we had received is errant and delivered through one that is ungodly. Let that thought sink in. If we knew that God had spoken, whether thundering his message through the atmosphere, or speaking through the voice of an angel, we would be hesitant to ignore what was commanded. At least that would be our inclination at the first. We would not want to be guilty of blatant disobedience to the command of God.
The point I am making is that it is obvious that we are commanded in the Word to do many things, and yet most people will ignore what is written. The issue lying behind our disobedience is that we don’t accept the Bible as God’s Word! Or perhaps we are prepared to dismiss what is written because we were intending to obey His Word some day. When we see what is written, it is easy to dismiss the revealed will of God because there seems to be no particular urgency attached to what is written. Therefore, we put off obeying God’s Word, saying that we will do what He has commanded some day. However, you may have noticed that “some day” seems never to come.
Think about this. We are told to believe on the Lord Jesus in order to be saved. And yet the vast majority of people don’t obey God’s call. We who have believed are commanded to be baptised, to picture our faith through being dipped beneath the water and raised from that watery grave. Again, the vast majority of those who say they believe God either put off baptism as though it was an unnecessary intrusion into their carefree life, or they choose what they imagine to be a more convenient mode, calling that act baptism. We are commanded to love one another deeply from the heart; but we pick and choose whom we will love. God does speak, and we ignore what He commands.
However, I suspect that if we actually heard an audible command from the Lord, and knew that the particular command was what He expected of us, we would hasten to obey. We might obey grudgingly, grumbling at our situation, but we would obey. That we don’t obey with greater eagerness is evidence of our fallen condition. Nevertheless, were we to be commanded by an angel, if Scripture is a reliable guide, we would obey!
Mary was immediately disquieted when the angel suddenly appeared. To be sure, the abrupt appearance of someone when you imagine you are alone is startling. And we are told that when the angel appeared, he greeted the young girl with these words, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you” [LUKE 1:28]. It is one thing for a stranger to greet you with a cheery “Hello,” it is quite another thing when the stranger speaks in such a manner that the greeting betrays a personal aspect. A stranger speaking as though they know all about us would be disturbing. And Gabriel greeted Mary in such a way that he implied God’s blessing was resting on the young girl.
Mary seems to have discerned that this was no mere person who spoke in some stilted, pious language, but this was one who carried a message from the Lord God Himself. Thus, she heeded what was being said. Any of us, if we understood that the one speaking to us carried a message from the Living God would be attentive to what was said. We would not want to miss what was to be communicated, and we assuredly would not want to dishonour the One Who sent the message. If we even suspected that the message we were about to receive was from the Lord, we would listen with the greatest care to ensure that we didn’t fail to know what the Lord expected of us. Mary did pay attention, and she would be prepared to act on what the angel communicated to her.
THE CHALLENGE OF GOD’S MESSAGE — “The angel said to [Mary], ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end’” [LUKE 1:30-33].
Friend, can you accept God’s will for you? You see, what we often neglect is that obedience to the will of God will set us at variance with the world. James informs us, “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” [JAMES 4:4]. If you serve this dying world, it is impossible to please the Living God.
The flip side of what James says to us is that friendship with God positions one as an enemy of this world. We must never allow ourselves to forget that our Lord has warned, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other” [MATTHEW 6:24].
If you are willing to accept the will of God, you must know that your life will be turned upside down, but you really can’t know all that means at this point. Jesus said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish’” [LUKE 14:26-28]. The Master continued, saying, “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” [LUKE 14:33]. I could wish that everyone who hears my voice this day would choose to follow Jesus as Master over life. However, I would do you a grave disservice if I failed to warn you that following Jesus, truly following Him, is a costly affair.
Among Gnostic writings is one that could have captured an authentic saying of the Master. At least, it sounds true in light of the Gospels which we have in our Bibles. The saying in questions states, “Jesus said, ‘He who is near me is near the fire, and he who is far from me is far from the kingdom.’” [2]
The angel had spoken to Mary, and what he said was difficult to believe. This young woman, we would see her as a mere child, has just been told that she will miraculously conceive a child through the intermediacy of the Spirit of the Living God. And the child that will be conceived in her womb will be because God Himself has chosen her as one with whom he is pleased. The child Mary will bear into the world is to be the Son of the Most High; He will be destined to reign on David’s Throne, establishing a kingdom that shall be unending.
Mary, can you accept the will of God as communicated to you by this heavenly messenger. If you accept His will in this instance, it is immediately apparent that you will become an outcast from society, unwelcome when the women go each morning to the village well to draw water. Can you accept the burden of being ridiculed as a woman unable to rule her passions? The prophets of God spoke of the burden of the Lord, meaning that the message they bore weighed upon them.
Something like that applies for you as well. Can you accept God’s will? Are you willing to accept God’s oversight of your life, even though it could mean hardship and extreme challenges. Shortly after receiving Christ as Master over my life, a man named Ben showed up at our door one evening. I was a busy student enrolled in medical school and I didn’t have much time of my own. However, that particular evening, there was Ben at the door. He was demanding that I go with him. There was no time to waste.
“C’mon, get yourself ready,” Ben bellowed, “we have work to do!” Ben was brash, bombastic. He definitely had a heart to serve God, but he wasn’t tolerant of anyone who wasn’t eager to be about the Master’s business.
“What’s up?” I asked, not knowing what he had in mind.
“Did you mean it when you called Jesus ‘Lord?’” he challenged.
I agreed that I was serious about this business of receiving Jesus as Lord. “Well,” Ben continued, “does that mean you will obey Him?”
Again, I agreed that I took His commands seriously.
“Then, you need to know that the Lord commands us to tell others how to be saved.” And with that, I was yanked out of my heretofore life of study and research so that I could be thrust out into the harvest fields of life. With Ben I would be visiting in homes to tell others of the love of God revealed in Jesus the Son of God.
Ben would often say to those who prayed during our visits to receive Jesus as Master over life, “Is Jesus Lord?” When he received a positive response, he would say, “Then, that means that you will obey Him when He gives a command, doesn’t it?” Of course, those to whom he was speaking would agree that this was the case. “If God told you to go to Africa, would you go?” Almost always that query caused the person being question to give some thought before answering. Again, the common response was along the lines, “Yes, if I believed Jesus was commanding me, I would go to Africa.”
“Well,” Ben would say, “He’s not commanding you to go to Africa, but He is commanding you to openly identify with Him.”
The questioning look on the face of those to whom Ben was speaking would be answered by reading to them the words that were recorded as Jesus’ final words given in Matthew’s Gospel. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” [MATTHEW 28:19-20]. And at that point, Ben would point out that we observed the ordinance of baptism each Sunday evening. He anticipated that the new convert would join him in church the following Sunday, presenting herself or himself as a candidate for baptism at the conclusion of the service. Ben was seldom disappointed. Step-by-step, Ben led the one with whom he was speaking to see from the Bible the command of God, carefully pointing out to the individual that the Lord’s command was to be obeyed. God issues commands, not suggestions.
The Lord’s message is not a suggestion for action; it is a demand that we heed His command, acting so we do what He has said. The popular thought is that we can put off obedience to God’s command because there is always time to take care of such matters. How foolish this is! James, the half-brother of our Lord, confronts such thinking when he writes, “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town, stay there a year, conduct business, and make money.’ You do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you should say, ‘If the Lord wants us to, we will live—and do this or that.’ But you boast about your proud intentions. All such boasting is evil.
“Therefore, anyone who knows what is right but fails to do it is guilty of sin” [JAMES 4:13-17 ISV].
It was commonly said in years past among the cognoscenti, “Man proposes; God disposes.” It is almost as if James had read the words of the Wise Man, who informs us,
“The plans of the heart belong to man,
but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD.”
[PROVERBS 16:1]
Elsewhere, we witness Solomon cautioning us,
“Do not boast about tomorrow,
for you do not know what a day may bring.”
[PROVERBS 27:1]
Though James was opposed to his elder brother during the years of Jesus’ ministry on earth, it is possible that he heard Jesus tell this parable. “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘ What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be’” [LUKE 12:16-20]. And he just may have heard the application of that parable. “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God” [LUKE 12:21].
We are far more dependent upon God—the Living God Who is always watching over us—than we could ever imagine. Each of us who claim to follow the Lord Jesus would do well to learn that powerful lesson that is revealed when the Psalmist reveals our utter dependence on God Who gives us our being. You will no doubt recall how the Psalmist has testified,
“My times are in your hand;
rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors!
Make your face shine on your servant;
save me in your steadfast love!
O LORD, let me not be put to shame,
for I call upon you;
let the wicked be put to shame;
let them go silently to Sheol.”
[PSALM 31:15-17]
Every breath I take is dependent upon the mercy of the God Who gives me breath. Every step I take is dependent upon the God Who fashioned my legs and gives me strength to stand. Every thought I form is dependent upon God Who has given me the ability to reason. Thus, when the world appears to have been turned upside down, it is God Who ensures that I can stand with confidence in the midst of the turmoil. Truly, the song writer has captured this glorious, comforting truth, when he wrote,
My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
On Christ the Solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. [3]
ACCEPTING GOD’S MESSAGE — “Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” [LUKE 1:38a]. Unlike some who imagine that Mary was some greater than life being who is equal to Christ Himself, Mary was not some demigod. Mary was a peasant girl, indistinguishable from any other peasant girl living in the villages of the Judean countryside. Nevertheless, we witness that this young woman was a peasant girl who willingly accepted that the Lord knew what was best for her. She sought God’s glory and not her own promotion; and thus, she could serve as an instrument of grace in the hand of the Living God. In her response to the message from the Lord God that Gabriel delivered, Mary has provided us with a gracious model for how we are to receive the message of the Lord when it is delivered to us.
I do not want anyone to leave the message this day thinking that this young woman was herself sinless, or even near perfect in her trust of God’s work. Mary did suffer death, according to contemporary historians. She was tainted with the same brokenness that mars our lives. We are told in Scripture, “The wages of sin is death” [ROMANS 6:23]. Because she bore the sin of her first father, Adam, just as we bear that stain, so Mary needed a Redeemer, a Saviour. And the Saviour for Mary was the same Saviour the Lord has provided for us, Jesus the Son of God.
As evidence that Mary was not a sinless person, you will perhaps remember how she was driven by something other than faith in God’s grace and mercy to act in concert with her other children in an attempt to seize Jesus to stop Him from serving His Father. Jesus had just appointed the Twelve to be with Him, when He went to His home. However, a crowd gathered, pushing and attempting to get near to Him until He wasn’t even able to eat. Then, we learn, “When his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, ‘He is out of his mind’” [MARK 3:21]. Imagine that! Jesus’ human family concluded that He was insane, at least overwrought and unable to think clearly!
Certainly, there is no indication that Mary made any attempt to deter her other children from attempting to seize Jesus. Indeed, we learn that soon after this that Mark took pains to note that Mary is specifically named as joining her sons when the family came to take Jesus away. Here is the account as given by Mark. “Jesus’ mother and his brothers arrived. Milling around outside, they sent for him, continually summoning him. A crowd was sitting around him. They told him, ‘Look! Your mother and your brothers are outside asking for you.’
“He answered them, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ Then looking at the people sitting around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother’” [MARK 3:31-35 ISV].
The purpose of his siblings when they stood outside, together with their mother, clearly was to interfere with the ministry Jesus was then providing, stopping Him from doing what He had been doing. Mary, despite having received the message from God’s divine messenger, despite hearing the prophecies that were spoken when she and Joseph had taken the child Jesus to the Temple, despite receiving the shepherds and the Magi when they came to worship Jesus, was now questioning whether she could trust her firstborn to be the One He was prophesied to be. Mary’s faith was not perfect, her faith proved to be weak, just as our faith is too often weak. She needed the strength that can be supplied only by the Spirit of the Living God, just as you and I desperately require the strength of the Spirit of God if we are to stand firm.
This knowledge takes nothing away from Mary for accepting the message of the angel, or for accepting the assignment given by the Lord God. Just so, when God appoints you to His divine task, I pray you will receive the assignment graciously and in full dependence on His grace. I know, however, that you will not perfectly fulfil the ministry God has given you. Your failure will not obviate the work of God through you.
Though Mary will be revealed to be a woman, a mere mortal, at the moment the angel spoke she responded as we could wish that each of us will respond when the Lord speaks to us. And is He not speaking to us now? God is calling some of us to accept the ministry he assigns. God is calling others among us to speak to lost friends or lost family members. The Lord is pleading with others who are with us this day to enter into prevailing prayer for those who are lost. You cannot say how you will fulfil the call of God at some point in the future, and you cannot say that your faith will never waver. However, you can respond positively to the Lord’s call at this time.
Like Mary when God appointed her to be the vessel that would bear His Son into the world, you can respond to His call. And when you accept His appointment, you will discover the peace of God in the midst of the chaos of the world. Receiving His appointment, you will know “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” [PHILIPPIANS 4:7a]. His peace will fill your soul.
I do not say that you will never again struggle with confidence toward God and toward His goodness, but at this moment you will know His power and the peace He alone can give. And each time He speaks to your heart, as you submit to Him embracing His will, you will again know the power of God in a fresh and powerful way. Amen.
[1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2] Helmut Koester, The Gospel of Thomas (II, 2), in The Nag Hammadi Library in English, James M. Robinson (ed.), Thomas O. Lambdin (trans.), 4th rev. ed. (E. J. Brill, New York, Leiden 1996) 135
[3] Edward Mote, “The Solid Rock,” 1834
