Mary

This Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent, and we are calling our Advent series, Prepare Him Room, as we celebrate. What really is the fundamental belief of Christianity? It is the core belief. It is something that was argued about and really separated believers from unbelievers for thousands of years ago. And today's climate, not too long ago, in the 1970s, 1970, exactly to be precise, there was an ordination exam being given in Macon, Georgia. And it was in a time when people were stopping, had no longer believing in the truth of the Bible, and a lot of the belief in the truth of the Bible was slipping. And it was then the old denomination, the PCUS denomination. And they were examining this man that were asking about the virgin birth, and he was kind of himming and hauling and refused to kind of come down real clearly, just say what he meant. And his farmer, ruling elder, from Macon, Georgia stood up, and he said, son, that's what farmers call people, son, if you're younger than them, your son. Son, every man in this room knows what a virgin is. Was Mary a virgin when Jesus was born or not? And when he refused to answer the question and a pastor named Jim Baird stood up and said, this is no longer the church of my fathers and walked out. And really, with that decision, with that comment began what would become the PCA, the Presbyterian church in America. This belief that God himself can affect the physical world. This belief that God himself is not just in heaven, he's not just a philosophy, he's not just a tradition, he's not just an inspirational thought, he's not a bunch of allegory and inspirational story writer. He became a person, he took on human form. He was born, he was conceived in the womb of the virgin Mary. The sustainer of the universe was at the same time being sustained by the body of Mary. That belief is the cornerstone, the foundational building block of Christianity. And we celebrate that today, and we're beginning to prepare ourselves for it by looking at Mary, and by looking at all of these stories, for the next four weeks, today and the next three weeks, looking at these stories of God coming to real people in a real place and telling them I'm about to come and walk among you. And that's why I've chosen this picture as our graphic. It's a painting by an author named Henry Osowal Tanner that we have very illegally used with no permission whatsoever. But hopefully it'll make you more interested in him instead of less. And he was an African American painter. He was born in 1859 in the days when slavery was still the rule here in America. And he painted this beautiful portrait of Mary during the enunciation. And I love all that it captures. Whenever I see paintings of Mary or even close my eyes and think of her, I always think of a woman dressed in blue. I don't know why she's always wearing blue. And she has a white thing over her head and she just looks very unhuman. And I love the way Mr. Tanner painted her like a fearful yet wondering teenager. I don't encourage you to look up the painting and see the whole thing. You see the bed clothes thrown off. You see your feet sticking out from under her gown and even her toes are dirty. And you get this sense that she's a real person. That the angel appeared to a real person. And that's what we're celebrating. The reality that Jesus became a real person and walked in a real place and saves real people like us. With that as an introduction, please stand as we read the Word of God from Luke 1, beginning with verse 26. Here's the Word of the Lord. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin, be trove 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, oh, favorite 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, did 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. And 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 answer 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 of her who was called Baron. 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. You may be seated. As we begin to prepare for the celebration of Christ's birth, the first thing we are asked to do is to receive him. To receive him into our chaos, into the mess and the messiness of our lives and to receive him with all of the chaos that he brings. To receive him as our Lord. And to let him transform our chaos into something glorious and beyond anything we would have ever hoped. The first thing I want you to see is that this was a real place and a real time. Galilee, first of all, we are told the time Luke says it was in the sixth month. And he said it was in a place of Nazareth in Galilee. And if you will look in your Bibles, which I found mine, I'm very excited. Actually, Jim found it for me. In Isaiah chapter 9, the call to worship text is famous, Christmas text that we read every year. It's so beautiful for unto us a child is born. In the first verse of that chapter, we are told this. In the latter time, he has made a glorious way of the sea. The land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations, the people who walk in darkness have seen a great light. And those who dwell in a land of deep darkness on them, the light has shine. Hundreds of years before Mary was on the earth, we're told in Galilee the light would shine. In Galilee a child would be born unto us. And we're told in Luke chapter 1 that God came, sent his angel to Mary in Galilee. Now let me tell you a little bit why that's important. Galilee was a strange place. They were Jews that lived there. It was part of the nation of Israel, the traditional nation of Israel. But it was up in the north. Jerusalem and the more devout Jews, I don't know lack of a better word, the more pure Jews, they all live in the south. And between Galilee and Jerusalem, you had this big area in the New Testament we call Samaria. It's where the Samaritans lived. They were not Jews, they were people who had been brought in by conquering nations over the centuries. And then Galilee was this little area that was trying to stay pure. It was trying to stay true to the truth faith, the true religion, but it was hard. And the reason why it was hard is because they were oppressed by everybody. They were politically oppressed. The Romans ruled over them and they were desperate and in despair. They were culturally oppressed. People in Jerusalem thought they were unintelligent. They weren't educated, they didn't study under the true rabbis. They had an accent. I just can't imagine what it would be like to be ridiculed for your accent. I'm glad I'll never know that. They were some of you left. They weren't considered to be religiously persecuted because they lived so far away from the temple. They didn't come to the temple all the time as they were supposed to. And so they were just kind of outcast from everybody. And they felt so much despair that it was a regular occurrence in Galilee to try to overthrow the government. In Luke 9, people come to Jesus and say, what about those Galilee is that had their blood mingled with their sacrifices. They were slaughtered right in the middle of worship. And their blood went into their sacrifices. That's what their oppression looked like. Judas of Galilee would lead a rebellion right around the time of Jesus's birth. His children would lead a rebellion about 20 years later. And his grandchild would lead a rebellion in Galilee 60 years later. All of them would be put down violently by wrong. Now ask yourself the question, why would you pick a fight with wrong? You're not going to win. There was so much despair there that the attitude was it would be better to die in a blaze of glory than to live this life of hopelessness, oppression, and despair. It would be better just to fight. And Jesus came into that world. Jesus came into Galilee. And I think that's important for us to think about and to receive as true because those kinds of places still exist. Those places where young people feel so much anger and so much despair and so much hopelessness that they would rather fight and die fighting than live this life. Those places exist in America where people would rather fight policemen knowing they may get killed doing it, then just living what they feel like is a life of oppression. I don't know how the story of Ferguson this week has affected you. It affected me very deeply. For different reasons, I've got an 18-year-old son and I can feel, I can imagine what the parents of Michael Brown feel. And racism is something that I've experienced and the Lord has saved me out of. It just makes me sad. You know, you want to think that you live in a place where things like that don't happen and the riots have made me sad and they really are weighing heavily on me. And I found this was written by an NFL football player named Benjamin Watson and I think it really explains perfectly what a lot of us are feeling. I want to read it with you. It's a little long but it's really wonderful and I think you asked all the right questions and I think he answers wonderfully. And so this is what he says. He says, at some point while I was preparing to play Monday Night Football, the news broke about the Ferguson decision. And after trying to figure out how I felt, I decided to write it down. Here are my thoughts. I'm angry. Because the stories of injustice that have been passed down for generations seem to be continuing before our very eyes. I'm frustrated because pop culture and music and movies glorify these types of police versus citizen altercations and promote an invincible attitude that continues to get young men killed in real life. I'm fearful because in the back of my mind I know that although I am a law abiding citizen, I still could be looked upon as a threat to those who don't know me. I'm embarrassed because the looting and the violent protests and the law breaking only confirm in the minds of many and validate the stereotypes and thus the inferior treatment of blacks. I'm sad because another young life was lost from his family. The racial divide is widened. A community is in shambles, accusations, insensitivity, hurt and hatred are boiling over. And we may never know the truth about what happened that day. I'm sympathetic because I wasn't there so I don't know what happened. Maybe Darren Wilson acted within his rights and duties as an officer of the law. Maybe he killed Michael Brown himself defense like any of us would have in that circumstance. But now he has to fear the backlash and against him and his loved ones when he was only doing his job. What a horrible thing to endure. I'm offended because of the insulting comments I've seen that are not only insensitive but dismissive to the painful experiences of others. I'm confused because I don't know why it's so hard to obey a policeman and I don't know why some policeman abused their power. Power is a responsibility not a weapon. I'm introspective because sometimes I want to take our side without looking at the facts and situations like these. Sometimes I feel like it's us against them. Sometimes I'm just as prejudice against people I point fingers at and that's not right. How can I look at white skin and make assumptions but not one assumptions made about me? That's not right. I'm hopeless because I've lived long enough to expect things like this to not continue to happen. I'm not surprised and at some point my little children are going to inherit the weight of me and a minority and all that that entails. But I'm also hopeful because I know that while we still have race issues in America we enjoy a much different normal than those of our parents and our grandparents. And I see it in my personal relationships and my friends and my mentors and that's a beautiful thing. I'm encouraged because ultimately the problem is not a skin problem. It is a sin problem. Sin is the reason we were bail against authority. Sin is the reason we abuse our power. Sin is the reason we are racist, prejudiced and lied to cover for our sin. Sin is the reason that we riot and loot and burn. And I'm encouraged because God has provided a solution for sin through his son Jesus and with him a transformed heart and mind. One that's capable of looking past the outward and seeing what's truly important in every human being. The cure for Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice and Eric Garner tragedies is not education or exposure. It's the gospel. So finally I'm encouraged because the gospel gives mankind hope. Galilee needed Jesus and America needs Jesus. And we don't need a Jesus that God that stands far off and says just act right and everything will be better. When he got to come and live in our dirt and live in our pain and heal us and touch us where we are. And that's what he did. God came and experienced life in Galilee and he came into Galilee through a girl named Mary. He came to her through a virgin and he gave her this funny almost completely unexpected welcome. He says greenings you who are highly favored by the Lord. Now what do you think of when you think of a highly favored? I have a friend who a few years ago on Christmas, the weeks before Christmas, his grandmother gave him some money and he said he wanted to use it for Christmas shopping. She said no, you can't use it for Christmas shopping. She said I'm too sick to go to the casino and so you have to go to the casino for me and you have to gamble that money. That's just kind of way he grew up and we're not going there today. But so he took this money from his grandmother and he went to the casino because she asked him to. And so he went in and he just wanted to basically get out as soon as possible. So he put it all on a number on the roulette wheel. He's walked over the roulette wheel, popped all his chips down on one number, the gas spun the wheel and his number hit, which is extremely unlikely. And so he was giving his chips and what he forgot was that after the number hits your original bet stays on the number. And so the guy spun the wheel again and his number hit again. And the guy spinning the wheel said how did you do that? And he said well I was standing here praying for Christmas money and the guy said you can't pray in here, get out. And he kicked him out of the casino and I was telling a friend of mine that a pastor here in town. And he said that guy's highly favored of the Lord. That's what we think of somebody being highly favored. I mean things just work out for them. Is that what it means for Mary? Just think about this for a second. What did it mean that Mary was highly favored of the Lord? What did she want? She's a teenage girl engaged. What did she want? She wants her husband to be nice to her. Her husband to get a good job. She's young, you know, the family was extremely important so she probably wanted to live close to her mom where her mom could help. She wanted children, wanted her children to be healthy, wanted her children to not take drugs, make good grades in school, get into Harvard. And you know, live near her, have grandchildren. Did Mary get any of those things? What Mary got, being highly favored of the Lord for her meant, conceiving as a virgin. Her husband, her fiancee wanting to divorce her, wanting her to put her away. Her parents wouldn't believe that. Being forced to go far away and give birth in a town far away, being forced to run away from King Herod and going into Egypt to escape his wrath. It meant growing up with a weirdo for a son that nobody liked, that nobody trusted her other children, her other sons would cast him out and would laugh at him and ridicule Jesus. It meant watching her oldest son be kicked out of the synagogues, be arrested, be humiliated. As a parent, can you imagine anything worse than having to watch your son get tortured and killed right in front of your eyes? That's what it meant to be highly favored of the Lord for her. That's not what she would have expected. That's not what she wanted. When Jesus came into her life, when God came into her life, he brought chaos. He brought disorder. He brought an end to everything that she wanted or would have expected. But what else did he bring? He brought a king whose reign would no no end. A king who would reign for at least 2,000 years, we know that already. A king whose reign would have no political or geographic boundaries, who would have billions ready to serve him, ready to die for him for thousands of years and every nation and every continent on the planet. He brought her the ability to hold God incarnate in her arms and to know him on a level of intimacy that you and I will never know. She had the opportunity to hold the son of God. She had the opportunity to see him and to know him. She had the opportunity not only to see him on the cross, but to hear his loving words to her from the cross. And she thousands of years later may not have the grandchildren that she was hoping for. But she has billions who love her and venerate her even too much. That's what God brings. He doesn't bring what we want, but he brings glory. What we would have never asked for. What we would have never hoped for. And she receives Jesus into that. She receives him into that chaos. What does she say? She says, Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me. Let everything that you've said happen to me. Let it happen. She says, I don't know where you're going, but I want to follow after you. And that's what Jesus is still expecting from us today. Will you receive him with all the chaos that he brings? And receive him into your chaos. Receive him into the messiness of your life. And trust him there for a long time. For Mary, it was a lifetime. Jesus wasn't the only one of her sons that would die. Her other two sons, Jesus's younger brothers would call him Lord and would die for him as well. And receiving him into receiving Jesus into her chaos was transformed into glory and beauty. That's where Advent begins for us. It begins with this act of submission. It begins with this act of receiving Jesus in. What does that mean for you? I think for most of us, we spend our lives thinking that if we just pray right, if we believe strongly enough, if God isn't used to us whatsoever, he's going to come and take all the pain away. He's going to come and settle all the chaos. He's going to make everything right for us. And what he's asking is for us to receive him in. And sometimes you know what that's going to bring, and sometimes you don't. A few years ago, speaking out of retreats, and you never know why the Lord has you different retreats. It's interesting. For me, I know that God had me there for a reason, but it wasn't clear. The reason didn't occur with anything that I preached because the sermons weren't that good. But what it involved was my luggage didn't come. Which is not that big a deal to me. My clothes aren't that valuable. So I've got a few free t-shirts out of it and a pair of shorts. And you know, just a couple of other kind of weird things happen that weekend. That honestly just weren't that big a deal. In this late, this girl, young woman. That's what I've been told to call a 30 year old woman, a young woman. I didn't know she was watching me the whole time. And the Lord made a deep impression on her. And on the way back to the airport, she said, What do you think God would say to me? She said, I've been trying to have a baby for over 10 years. And it's not going to happen ever. What do you think God would say to me about my infertility? And I told her, I said, I think God wants you to know that he likes you better with it. That infertility that you want so badly to be delivered from. That is how he's getting to you. That is how he is communicating to your heart. And he's better. And he likes you better with it. What is it that God is saying? I like you better with it. What is the chaos that he is entering? Is it unemployment? Is it under employment? Is it a personality disorder that makes you prickly? And you don't have the kind of friends you just don't really like who you are. Is it being single? And you desperately want to be married. Is it not being able to have children? Is it watching your children struggle? Is it a divorce? Is it being married to somebody who's just not what you thought they were and their personality, they struggle. And you're going to love them through that. Is it an addiction that you just don't seem to be able to shake? What chaos is God speaking into? Is this sickness? Chronic pain? Is it impending death? We want him to take these things away. And oftentimes he says to us, that's for me. That's for me. Receive me with it. Receive me into it. One of these days I am going to do this. I want to preach a whole series. I want to preach a four week series on the alcoholics anonymous serenity prayer. I just think it's the wisest thing we have in our modern culture today. And I love the first sentence. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. What is it that you can't change? What do you need to receive Jesus into and let him transform and make glorious? Several years ago we had a lady that wanted to join this church. And I was glad for her to do that. I'll take anybody. As you know, I'll take anybody. And so I went to meet with her and hear her testimony. And she had grown up in the church and believed upon Jesus at a pre-early place in life. But the church that she was in treated her terribly. And she left it. And she had spent decades outside of the church. Now she was at a place where she was getting sick. And she was having seizures. And she believed that she was about to die. And that made her want to be back in the church. And so I interviewed her and asked her questions. And I was satisfied that she understood the gospel. And we were ready to receive her. And I said, so do you have any questions for me? And I'm a young pastor at this point. I think I still am, but I definitely was then. And I'm expecting a question like, do you have any Bible studies? You know, that kind of question. And her question was, what are you going to do for me while I die? And I was quiet, which is rare. And I said, are you dying? She says, yes, I am. I said, are you afraid? She said, I'm terrified. I said, well, what I can do is this. I can take you to Jesus so you don't have to be afraid. And I can surround you with community. So you don't have to be alone. Those are the two things I can promise. And she received Jesus into that very warmly and found a home here where she is is loved, loved. And he's transforming her. Transforming her pain into something that has brought glory. Will you let him do that to you this Christmas? Please pray with me.