THE GLORY OF THE VIRGIN BIRTH
Luke 1, 26-35
26] And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,
[27] To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.
[28] And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
[29] And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.
[30] And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.
[31] And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.
[32] He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:
[33] And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
[34] Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
[35] And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
This is one of the most exciting Advent texts in the Bible, for here, the promise ends, and the fulfillment begins. The pious few in Israel who still believed in the coming Messiah now could see their hopes take shape. When God first promised to send His Son as our Redeemer from sin, all that Adam and Eve knew about Him was that He would be the seed of the woman, a human being sent from God. As time went on, God revealed more and more about Him. He told Abraham that Jesus would be a Jew. He told Jacob that He would be born in the province of Judea. Through the prophet Micah, the Old Testament believer learned that Jesus would be born in the little town of Bethlehem. Finally, it was the prophet, Isaiah, who foretold that He would be born of a virgin. But when? Where? By whom? How? Today’s text answers all these questions for us. Just as God chooses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and the weak things of the world to confound the mighty; so here the Lord chose a poor, humble believing young woman from the insignificant Galilean town of Nazareth in preference to all the prominent women of Palestine to bring us a Savior.
If you were to tell any God-fearing young woman that she was going to have a baby without knowing a man, do you think that she would believe you? It is easy to understand why God had to send an angel to bring this message, and not just any angel, but Gabriel, the chief of angels. When we think of angels, we ought to think of them as more than God’s messengers, but also as holy beings that wish with all their hearts that men everywhere would repent and come to trust Jesus as their Redeemer. They remind us of spectators in a stadium that watch every move of the people on the field. They watch the lives of all of us and are overjoyed when a single soul comes to faith. We can hardly imagine the excitement that Gabriel must have felt in being chosen above all the angels to bring the exciting news about Jesus’ birth to Mary.
Who was Mary? She was virtually a “nobody” from Nazareth. While her descent can be traced to the Old Testament family of King David, she was a young woman no different from anyone else, more than likely a teen-ager who had fallen in love with a man, named Joseph. They eventually became engaged, and were looking forward to their coming marriage and, no doubt, to raising a family like any other young people. The text tells us twice in the same verse that she was a virgin, emphasizing that she had never had sexual relations with anyone.
A Jewish engagement was, in a sense, a marriage in which the betrothed could be called a wife, and yet the marriage was not consummated until an appointed time when the bridegroom would take his wife and live with her. The idea of young people living together, contrary to God’s word, or looking at engagement as permission to live together is nothing new. The first century Jews must have had the same problem as Americans do. The text makes it abundantly clear Mary was a virgin and that she and Joseph were not living together. The other point that the text makes about Mary is that she was completely in the dark about what was going to happen to her. She had no idea of the events that would change her life forever.
Think of her surprise when the angel greeted her, “Greetings, Mary! You are highly favored of God. The Lord is with you” This greeting is both beautiful and powerful. Mary had found grace in God’s sight, but she is never described as being “full of grace.” Only the Son of God is described that way in Scripture as St. John wrote, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” John 1:14. Mary needed the grace of God as much as you and I do, for without God’s grace she would have been lost in sin. His grace led her to recognize her sins and to find in the Messiah the hope of forgiveness. We must clearly remember that Mary has no place in our redemption. It is only by the shed blood of Jesus that you and I have forgiveness of sin and open access to God the Father. Mary is not a co-redemptorist or a mediatrix. She needed to have her sins forgiven, just as we do. To give to Mary that which belongs only to Jesus is a form of idolatry.
The fact that Mary was a sinner as we are is brought out in verse 29 where we read: “Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.” She did not think of herself as someone “highly-favored.” She, more than anyone, knew her weaknesses and shortcomings. That is why the angel said, “Don’t be afraid, Mary. The Lord is with you.” Mary, as any sinner would be, was afraid in the presence of this holy angel, and needed the assurance that the Lord was with her and that she had nothing of which to be afraid. Her future was not going to be easy. As her life unfolded, she was going to need the abiding presence of the Lord every step of the way against the slander and murderous hands of those who would kill her Son. Thus, it was vitally important that she have etched on her heart the comforting truth, “The Lord is with you.”
Then the angel, without pause, went on to tell her something that exceeded anything that she could possibly have dreamed. “You are going to have a baby, and not just any baby. You have been chosen by God to give birth to His Son, Jesus.” What a joy this was for Mary. She already knew the prophecy of Isaiah, “behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son and shall call his name Immanuel,” Isaiah 7:14, but now to think that she was that virgin and the Son to which she was going to give birth was the incarnation of all the Messianic prophecies that had been foretold for hundreds of years. Her Son would be great. He would be called the Son of the Highest. He would be the King who would rule over the house of Jacob, and of whose kingdom there would be no end! She would give birth to the glorious Son whom the prophet Isaiah called “Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6. This Son “would save the people from their sins.”
In her joy, Mary had just one more question, “How can I, a virgin, give birth to the holy Son of God?” to which Gabriel responded, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” The angel had just described a miracle, namely that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, a sinful human mother would give birth to a holy Son. Most important is the fact that Mary believed this. That took faith, but is it any different with you and me? Only by Spirit-inspired faith are we able to accept this miracle and to realize that without it we’d be forever lost. It takes faith in this promise of angel for us to confess every Sunday morning, “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary.” Dr. Luther expressed this eloquently when he wrote in an Advent hymn:
1. Savior of the nations, come,
Virgin's Son, make here Thy home!
Marvel now, O heaven and earth,
That the Lord chose such a birth.
2. Not by human flesh and blood,
By the Spirit of our God,
Was the Word of God made flesh--
Woman’s offspring, pure and fresh.
6. Brightly doth Thy manger shine,
Glorious is its light divine,
Let not sin o’er-cloud this light;
Ever be our faith thus bright.
TLH 95, 1,2,6
This sermon was preached by Pastor Robert Dommer on December 2, 2007.