Mary – Blessed Among Women
Pastor Mathew Magera – 7/28/19 – Sermon 359
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Of all the women we will walk with this summer, one
tends to stand out about the others as the most blessed, most highly favored,
most universally admired. Mary is the one chosen by God from among all women
who had ever been and ever will be, to be the singular instrument through which
He would bring the Messiah into the world. What a remarkable opportunity, you
might say, yet how intimidating. Mary’s life is defined by blessing but if you
were to really look at her life, I’m not certain blessed would be the word you
would use to describe it. How does blessing define Mary’s life and how does
this change our perception of blessing in our own lives?
Grace and peace to you from God our Father, from our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
While Mary does not have a large speaking part in
the Bible, she is probably the most well know person within its pages other
than Jesus himself. If you were to ask any unsuspecting person on the street to
name a few people from the Bible, I could almost guarantee Mary would not only
be mentioned but would be in the top three in many lists. Mary is so popular,
in fact, that in some parts of Christianity, Mary receives more praise than
Jesus himself. Like other saints, we know the Roman Catholic tradition prays to
Mary as a deliverer of blessing, though never being described in scripture as
such a distributer. Some people claim Mary remains untouched by the effects of
original sin, the sin committed by Adam and Eve that doomed the human
existence. You could scour books, the news, and even the Internet and find
stories about the figure of Mary appearing in various places. In early 2005,
many worshipers erected a shrine in the walkway underneath an expressway
overpass in Chicago because someone claimed to see Mary in some salt stains on
the concrete wall. A few months earlier, in an online auction, someone placed a
$28,000 bid on an item containing the image of Mary. The item was a grilled
cheese sandwich.
Mary is a popular woman in scripture but her purpose
was not to be worshiped. Instead, her purpose was to point to Jesus, the child
from her womb. We find Mary in a few places around the life of Jesus. During
his ministry, we see Mary present at the wedding in Cana where Jesus turns
water into wine. Mary seems to be the one provoking him to act. Jesus even
rebuked her for it. There was a time when Mary and family came with the intention
of rescuing Jesus from crowds of people as they feared for his safety. Mary was
also present at the cross as she watched Jesus die. Mary had a tough life as a
mother. No one wants to see their children persecuted, placed under pressure,
and no one wants to see their children die. But, it wasn’t just motherhood that
caused Mary to struggle, but even her childhood may have been a source of
discouragement.
Mary, and Joseph also, comes from the town of
Nazareth. This is why Jesus is known as Jesus of Nazareth and not Jesus of
Bethlehem where he was born. We learn a little about this town of Nazareth from
Jesus’ disciple Nathanael who questions his friend Philip one day asking, “Can
anything good come from Nazareth?” Nazareth was a peasant town in a poor region
of Israel. Mary was barely a commoner. The town was known for its drunks and
prostitutes. Life in Nazareth was life on the fringes of society. Mary would be
hardly noticeable in this small town. Her heritage and social standing was far
from extraordinary.
With that in mind, our fondest memories of Mary are
in the Christmas narrative, particularly when she gets some pretty unexpected
news. In Luke 1 we are introduced to her for the first time. Actually we’re
introduced to the angel who is bringing her some pretty unexpected news.
“Greetings you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you,” the angel says.
Mary listens as God’s plan is laid before her very eyes. “The Holy Spirit will
come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy
one to be born will be called the Son of God.” So, in the midst of this little
town of Nazareth, a place held in ill repute, we find a little peasant girl
receiving news from an angel that she will become pregnant without a husband
and that the child will be the very Messiah that has been long expected. Umm,
nope. Thanks, but no thanks. Life is already a challenge in this town. It’s
hard enough to get a good reputation and now God expects Mary’s life to just
improve because she will be the mother to God’s son? Imagine the rumors.
Imagine the jeering, jarring, the hecklers. Mary’s social standing is like a
dead horse already and it’s as if God is standing there ready to shoot it
again. Just another girl growing up to live on the streets and do nothing with
her life. If it were me, I’d say no. But, does Mary say no? She doesn’t.
“I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled.” Wow. She then even
sings about being blessed to be in such a position.
Blessed? How could she be blessed? Think of
her situation as a young girl. Much later, think of the anguish she suffered
watching her son grow up and eventually be executed. If you add all of that
together, if it were any other person, I don’t think you would find that the
sum equaled blessing. How could she have responded that way? Mary’s life
was about to change and not necessarily for the better. If we were to
get unexpected news like this, we would panic. You’re getting by and then all
of a sudden something enters the picture you never anticipated. All of a
sudden, life has thrown you a new set of challenges. When we get news like
this, we retreat. We blame. We argue. Scripture says Mary did none of that. She
willingly took what had been presented to her and she surged ahead in faith.
That’s difficult to imagine.
When we think of being blessed we think of those
moments of peace and solitude, like watching the colors of the sunset dance
across the sky at the end of a good day. We feel blessed when we’re out on the
lake trolling along listening to the tiny waves lap against the side of the
boat. We feel blessed when we hold a sleeping child or grandchild in our arms.
We feel blessed when we sit in our air conditioning on a hot and humid day. We
feel blessed in these peaceful and comforting moments. We wouldn’t tell
someone, hey I lost my job I’m feeling blessed. On the contrary it would be,
hey, I got that dream job, I’m feeling blessed. Our idea of blessing may be
confused with the happenings of this life. But, being blessed is so much more
than that.
It’s like this. There was a man at the horse track
one day betting on the races and losing his money all day long. Before the
start of the next race, he noticed a priest step out onto the track and bless
the forehead of one of the horses. Lo and behold, that horse, a long shot, won
the race. The priest stepped out onto the track for the next race and blessed
one of the horses. The man made a beeline for a betting window and placed a
small bet on that horse, another longshot. Amazingly, the horse won the race. He
collected his winnings and waited for the priest to bless another. He did and
the man bet on that horse. It won. This went on for a few races and the man was
finally winning his money back. It was now the last race of the night. True to
his pattern the priest stepped onto the track and blessed the forehead of an
old horse that was pretty much 100/1. The priest blessed the horse’s forehead
but he didn’t stop there. He blessed the eyes, ears, and hooves of this old
horse. The man knew he had a winner so he bet every last cent on this horse.
The race started and the old horse pulled up lame and couldn’t even finish. The
man was dumbfounded. He went down to the track and confronted the priest.
“Father,” he said, “What happened? All day long you blessed horses and they
won. Then in the last race, the horse you blessed never stood a chance. Now
I’ve lost all my money.” The priest asked the man, “You aren’t Catholic, are
you?” “No, I’m not.” The priest nodded. “That’s the problem,” he said, “you
see, there is a big difference between a blessing and last rites.”
The truth behind this story is that we also have a
challenging time identifying blessing because what we think we are looking for
may be something else entirely. Those moments of blessing that we tend to consider
blessing will pass away. Those sunsets will pass away. Those moments of
financial security will pass away. That dream job will pass away. Your health
will pass away. If we believe we are blessed because we have these things, all
this does is make us feel worthless when they are gone. But, even when the
multitude of good things in our lives are taken away, there is still something
that can give us hope.
Mary knew she was blessed because of what the angel
told her. Five words solidified her being blessed. Five words meant all the
difference in her situation. “The Lord is with you.” What more can we ask for
other than the presence of God in our lives? What more is needed? Nothing. Mary
is blessed because the Lord is with her, the Lord chose to be with her. We are
blessed because the Lord is with us, the Lord chooses to be with us. We may
ask, well how can I be blessed when life is terrible, when I’ve lost so much? I
just got some unexpected news, how can I be blessed when so much change is
taking place? It’s not about what you have. It’s not about feeling good. We are
not blessed because life is good. We are blessed because God is with us even
when life is bad.
Unexpected things will come our way just like they
did for Mary but we must remember that though life’s circumstances can be
unexpected, Jesus also does the unexpected for us. We suffer from the
unexpected bad but Jesus brings us the unexpected good. When we feel lost,
taken, abused, set aside, abandoned, imprisoned, when we feel like this Jesus
still dies on the cross for you. God still becomes present to us.
Mary is blessed because of God’s presence with her.
This is what she sings about. The nations will call her blessed because God was
with her and God was with her in the most profound way as through her he
brought the long expected savior into the world. The savior who would complete
the work necessary for God’s presence to remain with us forever, to solidify
the blessing as eternal.
Finally, then, blessing is still more than just
knowing God is with us. Blessing is that moment where we actually take delight
in God and not in the gifts he has given us. Mary not only knew the Lord’s
presence with her but she took delight in it. She gave herself to the Lord’s
provisions. She was satisfied by surrendering to God’s will. Not always can
this happen with us. In fact, the root of the word for blessing in the New
Testament is to “be fully satisfied.” It’s so much easier to be satisfied in
God’s gifts than in God himself. It’s so much easier to look around at our
earthly blessings and take delight in them than to take delight in the God who
gave them. Because, when our stuff is threatened, we can become entirely
different people and that just proves the point. Mary went beyond this
temptation and she devoted herself and took delight in God in the moment when
her life, in her eyes, may have been changing for the worse.
How can we even think of being satisfied in the Lord
when everything around us is crumbling? Because it’s at that point we put our
trust fully in the Lord. It’s at that point when we tend to discover just how
worth it God really is, how true his promises are, how strong he is, how
steadfast his love is. Many times it takes disappointments and heartaches to
get to this point. But, pain and loss can transform us. The pain and loss we
experience as well as the pain and loss Jesus experienced on the cross. Pain
and loss are transformational.
Mary’s life was being unraveled. While that
unexpected pain or loss can unravel us it can also bring us into a deeper
relationship with God. We can be led to rest in God alone. In those moments, we
long for his presence with us, to know that God is with us just like he was for
Mary. Don’t get me wrong, the gifts of God are absolutely wonderful. A great
family, a great job, financial stability, good health. These are all good
things we can thank God for, but they are not his greatest blessings. God’s
greatest blessing rests in God himself. This is where Mary was redirected. This
is where we are redirected. To the face of God almighty, present with us,
working for us, and in Christ, raising us up. To God be the glory, now and
always. Amen.