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Advent 3 – Mary, Did You Know?
A Sermon Preached by Dr. James Flamming
First Baptist Church, Richmond, Va.
December 12, 2004
Scripture: Galatians 4:4-6 1813)
“Born of a woman. . . .”
For many, maybe most Americans, the weeks preceding
Christmas are packed with a lot more than packages. Someone has called it
Christmas “overtime” – overspend, overeat, over drink, over-party, overwork!
The words from the church signs say, “Remember the reason
for the season.” But it is even more basic than that. For it all begins with a
virgin and a child. Look in Isaiah 7:14 (1070) “Therefore the Lord himself will
give you a sign; the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and
will call him Immanuel.” Immanuel. It means God with us. But how will it happen?
Will it begin with gods rising full-grown out of the sea as in the ancient Greek
and Roman myths? Or will it have its point of origin from the depths of the
earth, as the Navajo myths portray in American Indian lore?
It all begins when God lays at the doorstep of the world a
mother and a child. It is the Creator embracing his creation. It is God entering
human life in a way God had never done before. Isaiah says it again in 9:6,
(1072) “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. . . . And he will be
called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
So in the fullness of time, at just the right time, Mary
brought forth her first-born son. The angel was the first to bring the good
news. Angels are messengers. Unlike some of the talking heads on television, and
some of us preachers who talk too much, angels never waste words. Check it out
in Luke 1:30-32 (1588). The angel said to Mary: “You will be with child and give
birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and
will be called the Son of the Most High.” Four earth-shaking, heaven-visioning
statements in so few words: Redemption begins with a baby. His name will be
Jesus. He will be the Son of the Most High God. Like Father-God like Son.
But some things the angel couldn’t tell Mary because they
hadn’t happened yet. As a song says, “Angels never felt the joy that our
salvation brings.” A song at Christmas has become a favorite: Mary, did you
know?
Just think about all of the things that we know, 2000 years
later, that Mary didn’t know.
Mary, did you
know?
Did you know how many people, from all over the world, will
find hope and salvation in him? I think of all the birth places of our members
here at First Baptist Church: China, Korea, Portugal, Brazil, Kenya, Germany,
Austria, Holland, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, and I am sure I have left out
some. I think of all of our missionaries this Christmas. Don’t forget them.
Out of the Appalachian Mountains comes a folk tune about
Christmas, a celebration of hope from those who live in the “hollers” there.
I wonder as I wonder out under the sky
How Jesus our Savior did come for to die
For poor, ord’n’ry people like you and like I,
I wonder as I wonder out under the sky.
When Mary birthed Jesus ‘twas in a cow’s stall
With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all
But high from the heavens a star’s light did
fall
And the promise of ages it then did recall.
Which one of us who has followed him has not taken to him
our sins, our dreads, our fears, our worries, our angers, our failures. Like the
folk tune puts it, “For poor, ord’n’ry people, like you and like I.” Mary did
you know?
Mary did
you know?
Did you know that your Son and our Savior would honor
workers everywhere by working with his hands in a carpenter shop?
He, who could have been born anywhere, could have been
brought up doing anything, or nothing, chose, he chose, to be born into a
working family, a craftsman, a carpenter’s son. Perhaps fitting boards together
and making something useful out of them, is a picture of what he does for all of
us. He embraces the many parts of us. Then he begins fitting them together. In
then end he makes us useful to ourselves, to others and to God.
Jesus, Mary’s son and our Savior, becomes the craftsman of
wholeness, putting us together little by little, piece by piece, each part
building on the other.
Who is the spiritual craftsman of your life?
Mary, did
you know?
Did you know that your Son and our Savior would live
forever in the hearts of his followers? Paul says it profoundly and simply: “God
sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts.”
I sat in a circle with others who were attending a
leadership seminar. The one leading asked us to share the one most influential
person in our lives. And so as we went around the circle each one shared the
most influential person in their lives. Mothers and fathers were mentioned
often. I honor my parents. But the truth is I have tried to be unlike them as
much as I have tried to be like them. Coaches and teachers and friends have all
made wonderful contributions to my life at important times.
But as each one spoke I knew that if I were to be honest I
would have to answer, “Jesus” But if I did that I would come off as some kind of
super-Christian, holier-than-thou, holy-Joe. But if I didn’t answer that, I
would lie. When it came around to me I took a deep breath and said, “Jesus.
Jesus has been far and away the most influential person in my life.” The place
got so quiet. Finally the leader said that he was sure that was an appropriate
thing to say, and went onto the next person. I should have said, “No, that was
not appropriate, that was honest.”
Mary, did you know the incredible influence your son and
our Savior has had upon our lives?
Mary, did you
know?
Mary, did you know how challenging the man you are
birthing will be?
Jesus said to his generation, (Luke 6:46f, 1602) “Why do
you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? I will show you what he is
like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like
a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. .
.But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a
man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent
struck, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”
A thoughtful questioning man told me he had decided Jesus
was just a man, a good man, but just a man. Said my young visitor, “All of us
could become like Jesus if we tried hard enough.” I asked if he thought he could
be as good as Jesus. He replied, “I guess so, if I tried hard enough.” I asked,
“Are you willing to die on a cross, because goodness doesn’t get treated well in
our kind of world.” Well that brought him up short. After an awkward silence I
paraphrased some lines about Jesus by Samuel Miller of Harvard. Wrote Miller,
Jesus was righteous and laughed at respectability. We are
respectable, and laugh at righteousness.
He was a servant and scoffed at security. We love security
and scoff at being a servant to anybody.
He was obedient to his Father in heaven and trusted him
completely. We trust ourselves and submit to no one.
He was continually in touch with the Father in heaven. We
pray when we need something.
He talked about losing our lives for His sake and the
Gospels. We fear losing what we’ve earned and fight to keep it.
He said we were to pick up our cross and follow him. We
neither pick up the cross or lay it down. We put it on steeples and make jewelry
out of it.
Mary, your Son and our Savior, will be a challenge for us
all of the days of our lives. But as he challenges us, he changes us.
Mary, did you
know?
Mary, did you know how much your life journey portrays
ours. For the spiritual life is a journey. And the spiritual life begins with a
birth.
Our journeys, Mary, like yours, almost always happen at the
wrong time, the wrong place, and for the wrong reason. We say to ourselves,
“This is not a good thing.” We misplace Romans 8:28, “God works in all things
for good to the ones who love God and are called according to his purpose.”
Wendy Wright will never forget a Christmas past. Her
husband was in graduate school in Boston with all of the pressures that attend
that journey. They had two children and were expecting a third. Going to the
store with two little children, with the clear evidence that another was on the
way, was one of the things she most dreaded. One day there was no choice. So she
bundled the children up and made the dreaded outing. As she parked in the
exhaust-blackened snow she remembered how she had, in years past, always
rejoiced in Christmas: the services, the singing, the celebration. But not this
year. Inside she took the coats off of the children, loaded them into the
grocery cart, and began the journey up and down the aisles. She had the urge to
cry, but her toddler beat her to it, having stuffed some paper into her mouth.
It was the grocery list, of course.
She had just entered the canned vegetable section and was
trying to make out her handwriting on the wet shredded paper when someone
switched on the supermarket Muzak and the carol came over the speakers: “Joy to
the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her king.” She stood their
transfixed with the can of vegetables in her hands. “Let every heart prepare him
room. . . Let heaven and nature sing, let heaven and nature sing.” It was an
unforgettable moment in her journey. She wrote later, “I started to cry, not out
of frustration or fatigue, but out of a sense of the vividness of the promise,
out of a sense of the magnificence of God’s mercy and God’s desire for us.
Looking at her own children she said to herself, “God’s children, we are, God’s
children.” Mary, did you know?
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