You may like to read Luke 1:26-38
This passage from the Bible is a familiar one from childhood, it can seem almost like fairy tale to us and yet it has much to teach us as Christian believers.
There are many things that we can draw from this seemingly simple story, but in good Methodist tradition I will concentrate on three:
1. Mary’s initial reaction to angelic visitor.
2. The Good News the angel brought.
3. Mary’s reaction to that Good News.
Think for moment about Mary. She lived in an obscure Galilean village in the hills. Mary was almost certainly a teenager, maybe only 13 or 14 years old; they married young in those days. She would have been poor if not poverty stricken background and would have had no real education. She would have known the traditions of the Jewish people and would have had a simple faith in a God who would one day save his people from Roman rule.
The account starts with God sending the angel Gabriel with a message for this simple Jewish teenager. We don’t know what Mary was doing when the angel visited. She was almost certainly alone. In various paintings, films and TV portrayals of the story she is sometimes sewing, sometimes praying, sometimes looking out of a window, but always alone.
Her initial reaction was one of fear and this is not really surprising. How would we feel if angel suddenly appeared to us? If an angel appeared to us now I think that it’s fair to say we’d be reasonably surprised if not a little afraid. Imagine if you were in your place of work, in your office or in your kitchen at home or where ever; and an angel suddenly popped into view. How would you feel? Poor Mary was certainly afraid.
If we look into the passage further it wasn’t just the angel Mary was afraid of, it was the message he brought that really troubled her. The angel told her she was highly favoured and that the Lord was with her. I think that on hearing these words Mary realised God had chosen her for something special.
Can be frightening being called by God. I remember feeling afraid when I realised that God was calling me to offer myself for ordained ministry in the Methodist Church; afraid for all different kinds of reasons. I was afraid I wouldn’t be accepted, afraid that I would be accepted and afraid of the changes training for ordained ministry and the exercise of that ministry would bring to my life.
So Mary was afraid, just as I was afraid. Then the angel brought her the good news. She was to have a son and her son would be the Son of God. He would be a king and his kingdom would last forever. Most importantly Mary was to give her son a specific name; she was to call him Jesus.
In the Jewish culture of the time names were important. People were given names because of who they were or what they might achieve. This isn’t the case today. There are some very strange names given to children today and they are often named after celebrities.
I have been to some church meetings with very odd names. There was a Men’s Fireside Chat where there was no roaring log fire, where there was no chat as such and where half the people present were women. I went to a Young Wives Meeting where the youngest member was in her seventies. I sometimes think its time some church groups changed their names.
In the Bible names meant something. Abraham means ‘father of many’. Esau means ‘hairy’ and Jacob means ‘heal grasper’ or ‘deceiver’.
Jesus means Saviour. Jesus came into the world to save us. That is the good news of Christianity – Christ died for our sins. Jesus in Hebrew is Joshua or Yeshua. The first Joshua saved the Jews by leading them into the Promised Land. Jesus, the second Joshua, saved the world by dying on the cross.
We now turn to Mary’s reaction to this news that the angel brought; Mary’s response to God’s call on her life. “I am the Lord’s servant.” That was Mary’s response to God’s call on her life, a response of complete obedience.
Let’s just consider for a moment what God was asking Mary to do. First of all God was asking Mary to take on the awesome responsibility of carrying his Son in her own body, of taking care of herself and her baby during her pregnancy.
Second, God was asking Mary to run the risk of dying. Mary was betrothed to Joseph, which meant that she was more than just engaged but not quite yet married. At the very least a pregnancy Joseph knew he was not responsible for could have lead to him divorcing her. At worst, she could have been stoned to death. The death penalty for adultery was not often carried out in the first century, but it did occasionally happen. Additionally, death in childbirth was not uncommon in that time. By accepting God’s call on her life Mary was literally risking that life. Despite this she was completely obedient to God’s call and said, “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.”
There was an American Baptist Missionary called Adoniram Judson who went to the people of Burma in the nineteenth century. A few months before he left for Burma he wrote to the father of Nancy Heseltine, asking for her hand in marriage. He wrote:
“I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to the departure and her subjection to the hardship and suffering of a missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress, to degradation, insult, persecution and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him who left his heavenly home and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and for the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in the hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteousness, brightened with the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Saviour from the heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?”
Nancy’s father gave her the freedom to make up her own mind and they were married. They both went willingly to Burma to spread the gospel of Christ in the full knowledge of the pain and suffering that awaited them because they believed that it was God’s call on their lives. In fact, Nancy and her two children both died in Burma. She literally gave her life for the gospel.
How do we respond when God makes a call on our lives? First and foremost God calls us to follow Jesus. Beyond that, God may call any and all of us to do something for him. No matter what age we are, no matter how much experience we may or may not have of Christian ministry, God may call on us to do something else for him, to do something that is new, something that is exciting and something we might be at least a little hesitant to take up. When God calls how will we respond? I hope we will respond like Adoniram and Nancy Judson and like Mary and say, ““I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.”
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