In just a moment, the entire universe was changed. In just a moment, history was made, and His human/God story began. In just a moment God became man. God chose this moment, the moment Gabriel announced to Mary that she, a peasant girl from Nazareth, had found favor with God and would carry within her the Son of God, the Savior of the world.
For the second time in six months, Gabriel was sent to earth to announce a birth, but this birth would change the world for all eternity; however, something is strange with this story. The address God chooses does not make sense in the natural. My address is Hill Road, Mohnton. When telephone solicitors call my home, they ask if my address is Mon-e-ton, Mo-hon-ton, the town is so obscure that most people cannot even pronounce it. And so, an announcement is about to be made that the Messiah is going to be born. God is coming into the world. Not in Jerusalem or Rome or Athens, but in Bethlehem. Not in London or Paris or Washington DC or Philadelphia, but in Mohnton. Some nowhere town.
And WHO the angel goes to is strange. Not a famous person or, even like at least Zachariah and Elizabeth were, people of religious significance. Not to one of the high priest’s children. Not to anyone from Herod’s court. No, to an unknown teenage girl from a poor town no one ever heard of. Clearly, God’s ideas about marketing are not the same as the world’s. The girl God chooses is Mary. He went to an obscure town to an average girl. Mary was Jewish and would have been very familiar with the promises of God to the
Jewish people. Gabriel tells Mary she would be the one spoken about in II Samuel and Isaiah. He’s using very specific language that Mary was very familiar with and would have understood as a Jew. As she was growing up, she would have been told about a Messiah who would come from her very own bloodline. Do I think that she may have hoped He would come from her? Maybe. I am sure when she became engaged to Joseph, that thought or hidden desire left her mind because there is no way she would bring forth a Messiah when she was all but married to a man. And then in a moment, God sent one of His prized messengers to announce to Mary that she indeed would carry God within her.
What we know about Mary is that she was most likely between the ages of 13-15. Scripture says she is a virgin, that is, she is of marrying age and still living at home, but she’s engaged to a man named Joseph. In that culture, an engagement, or betrothal was a legally binding contract, breakable only by divorce. So, she’s betrothed to a man named Joseph and he’s probably young, in his early 20’s. We know from Matthew and Mark that he was a “Tekton,” a worker with his hands, probably doing carpentry. This tells us he was not a man of independent means. He was a working man, a blue-collar man.
Here are our characters through whom God is going to invade the earth. By all indicators, they were not extraordinary. Mary would have wed Joseph, and they would have lived humbly. She would have given birth to numerous poor children. She would never have been educated, never traveled farther than a few miles from their tiny home, and one day DIE, like THOUSANDS of others before her. A nobody in a nothing town in the middle of nowhere, and this is the stage God chose to launch from to heal this broken world.
We look at the setting and think this is an inadequate town, and certainly, an unqualified girl to have such an enormous world-changing assignment.
Do we feel inadequate or unqualified to be used by God to make a difference? Do we feel too insignificant for God to concern himself with us?
Well, we learn from this that THE LORD COMES TO NEEDY PEOPLE. If there’s one thing we learn over and over in the Bible, it’s that the very first step we have to make in seeing our lives change into what God intended it to be, we have to acknowledge we CAN’T do this on
our own and that we are NEEDY. As Jesus had said in the Sermon on the Mount, “blessed are those who are poor in spirit.” Jesus is talking about those who realize their own weakness and powerlessness apart from Him! The incarnation, salvation, resurrection, CHRISTMAS isn’t for the proud and self-sufficient. It’s for those who know how much they NEED God.
Later, it will be poor, humble, shepherd outcasts who see and hear the heavenly announcement that Jesus has been born. In fact, all of Luke’s gospel is punctuated by the words “poor” and “humble”. The whole notion that we must achieve something spiritually or religiously in order to find God’s approval works AGAINST this idea! The only thing we REALLY must do is acknowledge that we CAN’T do anything valuable on our own, that all good will come from him. Psalm 119:68 in the Message says, “You are good and the source of good; train me in your goodness.” So if we feel like we don’t have anything to offer, that’s OK. That’s EXACTLY who God uses to make a difference in this world. GOD'S GRACE IS WHAT ENABLES THE UNQUALIFIED.
Mary is just a teenage girl. She’s not the 30-year-old stately-looking woman we see in statues or icons of the mother and child-she’s just a KID! And she is told that she is being entrusted with carrying the Messiah, God, embodied in flesh. This story just gets more and
more absurd, even in terms of the people involved. Yet God trusts her. And He CAN trust her because it’s his own grace that enables her to do this, even though she’s someone the world would consider unqualified.
What is it we have a desire to do in God? What difference would we like to make in this world? If God is enabling us, if God is leading us to His purpose, and He often leads us by giving us the desire to do something, then what can keep us from doing it? Is it our age? If
we are 16 or 70 does that disqualify us?
I struggle with being unqualified...I really do. The thing I hated being asked the most is “what college did you attend?” Suddenly, I felt inadequate, and I used to say “I graduated from cosmetology school,” and then I knew, in my own mind, that doesn’t qualify me for
leadership or for ministry. Then I hear my Father’s voice say, “Ah, but by my grace, you have been in MY SCHOOL for over 30 years!” I listen to people who can rattle off scripture with the chapter and verse, and I know in my own mind how much I struggle with that and feel so
inadequate because of it. Once again, I hear my Father’s voice say, “By my grace, you know my Word. Remember my Son said, ‘It is written.’ You may say that also.” The voice of the enemy says, “You can not,” but then I read Mary’s story, and I see how a poor teenage girl
could carry the Messiah into the world because of God’s grace, and God’s grace will make the difference with US TOO! By God’s grace, WE can carry the Messiah to OUR world. By God’s grace, we can do ANYTHING!
Our struggle with feeling insecure or inadequate is usually stemming from insecurities and incompleteness. But God has a plan, and we are a part of that plan. If we can see our lives as part of God’s BIG plan, our purpose becomes clear, and that is, to yield to God’s will in life. That’s not always an easy thing to do, and it can even end up being very difficult at times. We will have to make painful choices at times to yield to God’s plan for our lives. Mary’s response was, “I am the Lord's servant, may it be to me as you have said.” Making this statement was not some joyful anticipation of being able to be the Messiah’s mom. It may have been a small part, but what she was facing was not all good times. This was a huge, monumental upheaval of Mary’s plans, life, and for her reputation!
From that point on, she would be called “whore” by cruel people who didn’t know her story. She would endure the scorn of neighbors and relatives alike. She would have to hear her son being called a bastard, not to mention the perplexing, even unapproachable way his ministry would lead him. She would have to watch him go on a headlong collision course with the religious and political authorities of his day. Mary would have to feel the pain of standing below his cross while his tortured body expelled his last breath. But the end result would be joy and power like the world has never known.
What incredible strength she shows here! Mary is saying in her statement, “Your will be done!” Jesus taught us to pray, “Father, let your will be done right here, right now, just like it’s done in heaven itself! I’m yours, let YOUR will have the final say concerning my life!” It is that submissive attitude toward God that this young, teenage mother will be known throughout history as “the blessed virgin Mary.” It is that submissive attitude toward God that WE will one day know the joy of falling into our Savior’s arms and hearing him whisper in our ear, “Well done, well done. Welcome home.”
We look to so many temporary things to make us feel complete, and as good consumers, we watch the commercials with bated breath just KNOWING that a blanket with sleeves built into it will make us feel complete. Perhaps we believe that next relationship, or that
next promotion will make us feel fulfilled, but only in submission to God’s plan will we EVER know wholeness, as His plan leads us into life the way we were intended to live it.
And so, Mary had her moment, the moment that would change everything. God gives us our moment. Will we respond like Mary, or will we allow the world to tell us we are inadequate and unqualified? Will we allow our insecurities to stand in the way of stepping into completeness? In her moment, Mary’s response to God was, “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you said.” In our moment, what will our response be? It’s not man that calls our name, it is God. He is the one who gives the assignment. He is the one that chooses and equips, and we only need to respond and trust. Look into His eyes, hear only His voice, and in that moment say, “I am the Lord’s servant, may it be to me as you said.”
Cyndi Scharadin
