an excerpt from my sermon yesterday on the Virgin Birth and the model of Mary...
Unfortunately many of us who are Protestant have long neglected the model for faith that we have in Mary. Since I was raised Catholic, I have a great appreciation for Mary. My grandmother’s name is Mary. My mother in law’s name was Mary. My daughter’s middle name is Mary.
While I don’t believe that we are to pray to Mary or worship Mary…
While I don’t believe that Mary was born without sin, or stayed a virgin after Jesus was born…
While I don’t believe that Mary was anything than an ordinary girl of her time and age…
I do believe that Mary is offered to us as the first true disciple of the New Testament, the model for belief, trust and obedience.
In Luke 1 we hear the angel come to Mary and tell her that she has been chosen by God for a great task. To be chosen by God for any task is grace indeed. ("Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with you.")
To be chosen by God to be part of his plan, to be part of his ministry to the wolrd is grace and favor that is beyond anything we can imagine or hope for. Ministry is grace. Ministry is a privilege. God doesn’t need us. Only by his grace does he choose to use us.
And Mary is our model for responding: Luke 1:38 reads, “Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
Mary says yes to God bringing salvation through her to the world.
My friends, what does it mean for you to believe that God wants to use you to bring salvation to the world? Don’t get me wrong, God, in Jesus Christ, saves. We are not the savior, but we are the ones who bring the offer of salvation to a world in need.
In the medieval world, Mary was called the Christ-bearer. The one who carries, who brings, Christ into the world. And that is your job and mine. The same Holy Spirit that conceived Jesus in the womb of Mary is given to all who believe in Jesus.
It is our job to bring the Spirit of Jesus into every opportunity in our lives—
• To every person, place or thing.
• To every boardroom, hospital room, class room, conference room or court room.
• To every dinner table and legal bench, squad car, or military exercise.
• In every political decision, management decision, parental decision, financial decision, career decision.
• To the shopkeepers stressed by Christmas, to the freeways filled with honking horns,
• In every place that you go this week, with every person with whom you interact, with every opportunity put before you, bring the savior. Show with your and tell with your lips the good news of the real reason for the season.
Where in your life do you need to say with Mary, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word”?
For some of us this is harder to believe than the Virgin Birth itself. You are already thinking: I am not good enough for God to use. I am full of fear. I am full of doubt. I am wracked by sin. I am hampered by my brokenness. I am too young, too old, too busy, too stressed, too frazzled. God use me? No way, Pastor. You better tell the Angel to find some one else.
Sorry. He’s already chosen you. If you sit here with even the smallest faith in the truth of the words of the Angel to Joseph in Matthew 1:18-25, if you believe that God has come into the world himself to be with us and save us, then you are also meant to believe and follow Mary's example: God wants to bring salvation to the world through you.
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