When you’re a preacher, you usually get more out of your message than the folks, because you think about it longer and delve into things more deeply. It’s one of the blessings of being a preacher. Last Sunday, I talked about the virgin conception of Christ. Since then, one aspect of that message has been going over and over in my mind. I thought I’d share it with you.
The virgin Mary (really her name was Miriam or Maryam), was chosen by God to bear the Son of God, our Lord Jesus, in her womb and bring Him into this world. It’s called the miracle of the Incarnation – the eternal, infinite God, the Living Word, the Logos that created and sustains the universe, coming into a flesh and blood mortal body and being born as a helpless baby! It’s something I’m sure will never cease to amaze us.
Mary didn’t come up with that idea or plan it or do anything to make it happen. That was all at the initiative of the Sovereign God. He planned it from all eternity. His Spirit brought it to pass in her womb. All Mary did, really, was receive. All she did was cooperate with God’s plan. When the angel told her God’s plan for her, she just said, “Be it unto me according to thy word.” Of course, that cost her. She had to face the difficult situation of telling Joseph she was pregnant by a Spirit, a daunting task I’m sure. She had to bear the baby in her womb for 9 months, then ride 90 miles on a donkey and give birth in a stable among animals. Then she and her husband and newborn Son had to flee all the way to Egypt, from 250-400 miles (depending on what part of Egypt they ended up in.) Later, of course, she had to suffer the excruciating agony, as a mother, of having “a sword pierce her own soul” as they brutally tortured and killed her beloved Son before her eyes.
Mary is really an example for us in many ways, but particularly of how spiritual life really works. I say that because God initiated and God did the miraculous in her life, but she cooperated with Him, agreed with His purpose for her life, and accepted His will. She asked at the start how it could all happen, and was told it would happen because the Holy Spirit would come upon her and conceive the baby. God did the work within as she yielded herself to Him.
Similarly, God conceived of our redemption. He came up with the plan to send His Son to die for our sins and pay our debt, so we could be adopted back into God’s family, could be regenerated by the Spirit or born again, and could be raised to new life. God has a plan to reveal Himself to us and to the world through us by His Spirit within. We naturally ask, “How can this be?” because we know we don’t have this kind of power. We know we’re weak, sinful, fallen, incapable.
But God answers us in the same way Gabriel answered Mary. He says it’s not by your might or power, but by my Spirit. He will make you new inside. He will transform you and empower you. He will arise in your heart. God does this by His Spirit and by His Word. The Word became flesh in Mary’s womb. The Word becomes flesh in us when we receive it/Him by faith. The Spirit works by the Word, and the Word works by the Spirit.
James says we are to receive the engrafted Word, which is able to save our souls (James 1:21). That’s what Mary did. She said, “Be it unto me according to your word.” On the Day of Pentecost, the crowd received the Word as Peter and the apostles preached it. Then they received the Spirit and the Church was born into the world, just as Jesus had been born of the Spirit into this world.
It’s interesting to ponder whether or not Mary had a choice in this matter. Did God send Gabriel to tell her this, but then she had to agree or it wouldn’t happen? Or did he come just to say, this is what’s going to happen, and it doesn’t matter what you think about that!? Roman Catholics say Mary chose, and that’s why she’s the co-redemptrix. In other words, she played a crucial role in our salvation, and if she’d said no, we wouldn’t be saved. Personally, I tend to think she was just a godly young woman, and if she’d said no, God would’ve chosen someone else. Just my personal opinion. Nobody knows for sure but God of course.
I think Calvinist believers would probably say God foreordained that she would be the one, and He was going to do this in her whether or not she agreed. She had no part to play at all, no free will to choose. Arminian believers like myself would tend to say, no, she had to agree. God doesn’t force anyone to do anything. Those might be interesting theological points to discuss and ponder, but again, only God really knows.
But judging from what I’ve seen in my Christian life, it seems to me God usually involves us in what He does. He seeks our active participation. There are a few cases in Scripture where it seems He overruled someone’s will, like with Jonah when He sent the storm and the huge fish, or St. Paul, when He knocked him down and blinded him. But most of the time, it seems to me people have to respond to God, agree with Him, accept and actively seek His will.
If that’s the way it was with Mary, then she played a role in the birth of the Savior. She said yes to God and she received the Word of God “engrafted,” as James says, into her womb. Which speaks to me of the need we have to read God’s Word every day and ponder it. What we see there, we need to apply to our own lives. We need to respond by saying, Lord, let this occur in my life. Let it be in me according to your Word. That’s what will make it real and transformative. Otherwise, it just evaporates without effect. It rolls off of us like water off a duck’s back.
God speaks to us. He has plans for us, a will for us. We really need to be about trying to understand that will and aligning ourselves with it as best we know how. In that sense, it seems Mary is one of the greatest examples in all the Bible to what it means to live a life of faith, a spiritual life with God.
One more thing I always like to point out about her. Years after the birth of Jesus, when she was with Him at the wedding at Cana, and they’d run out of wine, she asked Him to help out. At first, He seemed to deny her request, saying it wasn’t His time yet. (This story is found in John chapter two.) But it seems she just knew He wouldn’t let them all down. She had faith in Him. She trusted Him. And she said to the servants standing nearby, “Whatever He says to you, do it!”
I love that story! And I think Mary’s words were words of wisdom to all of us, don’t you? Whatever Jesus says to you, do it! We can never go wrong obeying the Son of God, being doers of His Word, putting it into practice in our lives. We can never go wrong by saying, “Be it unto me according to thy Word!”