Mary Did You Know?
Dr. Larry Thorson
December 21, 2008
Luke 1:26-38
26 In the sixth month of
Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in
Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named
Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. 28
The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored!
The Lord is with you."
29 Mary was greatly troubled at
his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30
But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor
with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are
to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called
the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,
33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his
kingdom will never end."
34 "How will this
be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"
35 The angel answered,
"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. 36
Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she
who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37
For no word from God will ever fail."
38 "I am the Lord's
servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me according to your
word." Then the angel left her.
Today’s New
International Version Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society
Each sermon during this Advent season has a theme
song. Today’s song “Mary Did You Know?” was
written by Mark Lowry. Mark and I were
students together at
This song came about because in 1984 he was asked
to pen some words for his local church choir and he wrote a poem that began
like this, “Mary, did you know that your baby boy would one day walk on water?
Mary, did you know that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters?”
A few years later guitarist Buddy Greene added a
perfectly matching tune and a wonderful song was born. “Mary, did you know that
your baby boy has walked where angels trod? Mary, did you know when you kiss
your little baby, you kiss the face of God!” Each of the little couplets
touches the heart in a wonderful way. “Mary, did you know that your baby boy is
Lord of all creation? Mary, did you know that your baby boy will one day rule
the nations?”[1]
How could Mary know what was happening to her when
the angel Gabriel came to her long ago? Only Luke tells this story. In the
sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to
What does it mean to be favored by God? Think
about Mary’s situation. She was a teenager about to become an unwed mother.
Whoopee! Mary and Joseph lived within a
strict community regulated by religious laws and customs. Mary could have been
stoned for being pregnant and unmarried. And imagine Joseph’s hurt since she
was a virgin. God has an interesting way of showing favor.
Years ago a psychologist named Thomas Holmes developed
a scale for measuring stress. He assigned numerical values to events that cause
stress such as the loss of job, moving to a
A writer by the name of Bridget Kuhns took Dr.
Holmes’ scale and applied it to Mary. Holmes calculated that any pregnancy
earns 40 points: an unwanted pregnancy, add 20 more. A change in living
conditions where Mary stayed three months with
Surely there must have been words between them
when she discovered that he had not made reservations at the inn: score 35
points for an argument with a spouse. And
then the birth‑‑39 points: 16 for a change in sleeping habits; 15
for a change in eating habits. Not to mention all those uninvited guests:
shepherds and angels coming and going and wise men from the East.
Psychologist Thomas Holmes says that people get
sick when they reach 200 points on his stress scale. Ms. Kuhns calculates that
Mary’s ordeal earned her a record 424 points.[2]
This, of course, does not even include the flight to
This is an important truth. It is so easy for us
to say when things are going our way, “The Lord sure is blessing us.” Maybe the
reason things seem to be going our way is that we are living only for
ourselves. It’s easy to have a merry Christmas with lots of fine presents under
the tree when we insulate ourselves from the world’s problems. Rather than
blessing us, God may actually despise our opulent self-indulgence. Conversely, if we are going through a
difficult time in our life right now when we feel like we can barely hold on,
God may be very close to us.
The angel Gabriel, in saying that Mary was blessed
by God, was not saying that God would make her way easy. What he was saying was
that Mary would be used of God, and in the long run of life, this is what being
blessed means. How about you? Can you say that right now you are being used by
God for a purpose? Be careful whom you call favored by God.
Gabriel told Mary that she was favored by God and
that she would bear a son. And Mary asked a sensible question: “How will this
be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” Good question.
Here is how the angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon 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. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in
her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For
nothing is impossible with God.”
Underline that last sentence: Nothing is
impossible with God. I have often wondered, is it anymore difficult to believe
that God gave Mary a virgin birth than it is to believe that Abraham and Sarah
and Zechariah and Elizabeth bore children at an advanced age? Certainly Mary in
her shame could have lied about the visit of an angel, but there was no way
that Elizabeth, who was far beyond child bearing years could make up a story
about her pregnancy. It was a miracle! If
If scientists were to announce tomorrow that a
virgin birth had been created in the laboratory, not a one of us would dispute
it. Science can do such amazing things nowadays. But some want to deny the God
who created science the ability to manipulate the laws of the universe and to
give a baby a unique birth. That’s absurd. Jesus’ birth was a miracle.
Underline it again. Nothing is impossible with God.
Remember that the next time you are in a hard
place. Nothing is impossible with God. Now there are many theologians and Bible
scholars who have real difficulty with the notion of a virgin birth. For one
thing, Isaiah didn’t really prophesy that a virgin will conceive and bear a
son. A better translation is simply that a “young woman” will conceive and bear
a son. That’s all right. It really doesn’t matter to most of us how God sent
Christ into the world, only that He did.
New Testament scholar Fred Craddock tells of being
in
Then the Jewish man said something very
interesting. He said, “I know that’s just one way to look at it. When I was in
school,” he continued, “the rabbi explained everything in the Bible two
different ways. When he would come to a miracle, he would explain it two
different ways, and his reason was this: If something happens and you can’t
explain it another way, then God didn’t do it.”[3]
Think about that for a moment. If you can’t
explain it a second way, God didn’t do it. God always gives us a second way to
look at anything that happens. God never overpowers us with certainty.
Everything we know about God is seen “through a glass darkly.” That is what
faith is. It is never certainty. It’s faith.
There can always be another explanation. This is
so we can still be free to say yes to God or to say no. If you have difficulty
with the idea of miracles, then God does not hold that against you. Many fine
Christians don’t believe in the virgin birth. All we’re saying today is, when
it comes to God, be careful what you say is impossible.
This Christmas be careful whom you call blessed. The
poor and troubled of this world may actually be more blessed. Be careful what you say is impossible because
God can do anything, anywhere, anytime. That’s the message of Mary’s encounter
with the angel Gabriel. Mary did you know? Mary couldn’t have known where this
encounter would lead her. But today, two thousand years later, we know that
truly she was favored by God.
Dynamic
Preaching Sermons, Fourth Quarter 2008, King Duncan, ChristianGlobe Networks,
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