Sermon: St. Mary, Mother of Our Lord, 2010
August 15, 2010
Text: Luke 1:46-55
By my count, there are 132 shopping days left until Christmas. You’ve still got plenty of time to do your shopping and your planning and baking. But don’t put it all off till the last minute. Today is August 15 and according to the Church calendar, August 15 is the date assigned to commemorate Mary, the mother of Jesus. I want to take a moment and explain why we’re doing this.
There are a lot of Roman Catholics in Elmhurst. Some of you perhaps grew up in the Roman Catholic Church or have relatives who are Roman Catholic. Whenever Lutherans and Roman Catholics get together to talk about religion, the subject of Mary eventually comes up. Many Protestants avoid talking about Mary altogether which can probably be attributed to an overreaction I call Romo-phobia.
In the Lutheran Church, we do not pray to the saints, but we do believe that we have a lot to learn from God’s people who have gone before us. Mary, up in heaven, does not have the ability to hear and answer my prayers or do me favors or put in a good word for me with the Lord. But Mary, like so many of the figures in the Bible, can teach us valuable lessons about faith and life.
First, let’s get a handle on her scenario. When Mary first encountered the angel, the Scripture says, "She was greatly troubled." It’s not hard to understand why. In that culture, a woman who found herself pregnant and unmarried ran the risk of death by stoning from her father and the other men in the village.
All she wanted was a nice, normal life. She was engaged, or betrothed. This news was going to deeply hurt the people she loved the most. Joseph, her fiancé, would have no reason to believe her story. Her parents would be disappointed and embarrassed.
Most people are afraid of the unknown. Those things we have never seen or experienced can seem overwhelming. On old maps, back before the world was understood in modern terms, cartographers would put down what they knew, but at the edges of the map, beyond which they had no knowledge or understanding, they would often write, "Beyond here, there be dragons." Mary was in dragon territory. There was nothing about the angel's news that fit into her hopes and dreams for life. So her first reaction was understandable: "She was greatly troubled."
It’s very difficult to compare ourselves to the situation Mary found herself in. Nothing can compare to becoming the virgin mother of God’s Son. No matter how weird your story might be, she’s got you beat. Nevertheless, I’m guessing that some of us here today know what its like to be greatly troubled. Your story may not involve an angel or an unplanned pregnancy, but you've experienced something you did not expect, want, or plan for, and your first reactions included shock, anger, fear, and a sense of loss.
In fact, there are very few people who experience a life that even slightly resembles the plans they made when they were young. I’m willing to bet that your plans for life did not include financial hardship; kids with special needs; grief and loss; divorce; moving away from your family and friends—the list goes on forever. There’s a joke that if you want to hear God laugh, make plans for your future.
Are you in dragon territory or do you know someone right now who might be wrestling with the fear of the unknown?
If the message of Israel and the message of Mary teach us anything, it is that God takes care of His people. And God has a way of turning situations upside down. He humbles the proud and he exalts the humbled.
If you follow baseball – and even if you don’t – you might remember a great pitcher with the strange name of Orel Hershiser. He’s still a commentator on the sports networks but the peak of his career as a major league baseball player came in 1988 when he pitched for the L.A. Dodgers and they won the World Series. Hershiser won the MVP award for the series.
I don’t recall anything about the games themselves, but I do remember seeing Hershiser appear on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. This was before Jay Leno, Conan O’Brian and Jay Leno. There was some game footage that showed Hershiser in the dugout after the Dodgers won the series standing there moving his lips.
So Johnny Carson asked him what he was saying. Hershiser was shy about it and said he wasn’t saying anything. So Carson said, “OK, well then, what were you doing.” And Hershiser said he was singing. And Johnny said, “Singing? I didn’t know you were a singer. Come on, let’s here it!" And Orel said, "Nah. I don’t want to." And the audience clapped and said, "Yeah! Let’s hear it!"
Finally Orel Hershiser started to sing: "Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below. Praise him above Ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost! Amen!"
Carson sat at his desk speechless. The whole audience was dead silent. Then one person stood up and started clapping, and soon the whole audience joined in applause.
I don’t know anything about Orel Hershiser’s personal beliefs these days, but I do know that at that moment in 1988, when the world was showering him with adulation, Orel Hershiser had the humility and the good sense to recognize that everything he had, everything he possessed, everything he was, was given to Him as a gift from God.
This is similar to what was going through Mary’s heart and mind when she sang the song we now call the Magnificat. The words of this song demonstrate that Mary knew that God was in charge. She probably didn’t understand the full impact of what that baby in her belly would achieve but she knew that Almighty God was with her.
We remember Mary today not because she was so great, but because she wasn’t. The special thing about Mary is precisely that there was nothing special about her. She was an ordinary girl AND YET God chose her to carry within her womb the Savior of mankind.
So often, that is God’s way of doing things. He uses the humble people to accomplish great things.
If Mary were worshipping here with us today, I am 100% positive that she would not want us to be talking about her but about her Son.
Look at Jesus Christ. Here is God at His best, accomplishing great things through humble people and unlikely circumstances. When Jesus hung up there on that cross, He was the most pitiful creature on earth. The Old Testament declares that it is a cursed thing to be hung on a tree. On Calvary, Jesus was cursed. But I hope you all understand that Jesus Christ was your substitute. He became cursed by the Father, so that we would be blessed. It’s an exchange. Our sinfulness for his righteousness. Our shame for His glory.
That was a dark day, the day when Jesus died. The eyewitness accounts say that the sun hid its face from noon until 3 o’clock. As dark as it was, the sun broke out again. When Jesus died, Mary’s motherly heart felt like it was pierced with a sword. But her Son rose again. I’m sure that she did not have the foggiest clue nor the slightest idea what would eventually happen when the angel Gabriel visited her that day in Nazareth some thirty-three years before. But that little girl was not afraid of dragons. She was not afraid because she knew the dragon-slayer.
Do not be anxious about what tomorrow brings. Put your cares in God’s capable hands. That doesn’t mean it’ll be easy. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for mother Mary to watch her Son get beaten and nailed to the cross. In fact, you should just plan on it NOT being easy. It might be hard. And it might hurt. But one thing Mary understood is this: if God is for you, who can stand against you? No one. And God is for you. He might not approve of everything you do or every choice you make and you might have to suffer some painful consequences for your sins and mistakes, but because you have been washed clean in the blood of Jesus Christ, I can say unequivocally that God is for you.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.