LOC 005 The Annunciation to Mary

LOC 005: Life of Christ: The Annunciation to Mary

Remember Luke’s purpose in writing his Gospel? It was to set out an orderly account of the life of Christ.  His focus is to show how the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled all that God had said and purposed. Luke’s concern is not just that God fulfilled Old Testament prophecy, but that he fulfilled what he had spoken to people in his own time. His intended audience appears to be Gentile, as he writes to tell his friend Theophilus the good news.  They needed to see that the true God speaks and keeps his word.

Luke gives us some details that the other writers do not.  Some of those details are found in the background information he gives us about Mary and her relatives.  It is Luke who tells us the wonderful story of how an angel came to Mary to announce the birth of her son.  The messenger of the most marvelous event in the history of the World--God became man.

This is usually called the annunciation to Mary.  An important event in the Life of Christ.  It is an event that points us to the purpose for his coming, tells us a little of the character of the woman who would raise him and the importance of believing and obeying God.

J C Ryle calls this passage, “One that should be read with mingled wonder, love and praise.  Turn to Luke Chapter one, starting at verse 26:

    Luke 1:26-38 Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. 28 And having come in, the angel said to her, "Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!"

        29 But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was.

        30 Then the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 "And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. 32 "He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. 33 "And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end."

        34 Then Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I do not know a man?"

        35 And the angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 "Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. 37 "For with God nothing will be impossible."

        38 Then Mary said, "Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her.

The first thing we notice is the absence of what the world might call greatness.  The angel came to a little out of the way place: Nazareth in Galilee.  The woman to be honored is not someone who has made a name for herself, or is known outside of a small family circle.  Where she lives and what she does points to a humble life. 

Mary and Nazareth point to the humiliation that would attend the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.  A humiliation present even in the events of his conception and birth. 

What does the Evangelical world do?

Today, people would want to put Mary on the circuit traveling around to rallies and meetings as a great Christian celebrity.  Oh to have Mary sign the flyleaf of your Bible.

Others would dismiss her because she comes from a background of relative poverty.  They would figure God has to do something flashy and big in order to do his work.  That is gross ignorance of God and his ways.  God most often works in the humble and contrite, rather than the pomp and the show.  The one is outward and sensual, the other inward and effectual.

Do you want to know God, see how he has worked his greatness in the past and expect the same in the present and future.  God wants not just the outward manifestations of man, he wants the heart, the mind, the soul, and the strength.

But God, however, knew what he was doing.  God, who knows all things and does all things in the best way according to his purposes, was pleased to use a lowly woman from a lowly place.  He could have done a lot of things in other ways, but God is God of the details, and in order to fulfill his word, he used this young woman, espoused to Joseph.

We should not despise humble things. Jesus voluntarily and willingly came into these very surroundings.  As God, he knew exactly how Nazareth would be and he knew the humiliation that he would own.  It was not a mere humiliation of him as a man.  Coming to earth was a humiliation for him as God.  He laid aside his glory to come to earth that he might accomplish his father’s will.  As The Apostle Paul reminds us, “Though he was rich, for our sake's he became poor, 2 Cor 8:9.  Why did he come to a humble place?  For his people. 

Even though this was a humiliation for the Lord Jesus Christ, it was a high privilege for his Mother-to-be, Mary.  

The language used by the angel Gabriel in his address to Mary is remarkable in itself.   "Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!"

There are three important items in that statement. 1.  It is reported that she was highly favored. She had found favor with God. What a blessed thing to have said about anyone.  He also tells her, 2.  That the Lord is with her.  What a comfort to hear those encouraging words.  And he tells her 3. that she is blessed among all women.  An extraordinary pronouncement.  Blessed more than all the women in all the biblical stories she has been taught.  Blessed more than Hannah, Esther, Miriam. 

Mary is Favored, given God’s special presence, and Blessed.

Many of you have come out of Roman Catholicism and know how Mary is revered better than I could ever imagine to tell you.  They honor Mary as a special saint to be venerated.  Technically, she is not to be worshiped, only adored or venerated. (It is a distinction without a difference) She is looked at as hardly inferior to the Lord Jesus Christ at all.  She is often called, the Mother of God.  The phrase “highly favored is translated “Full of Grace”.  This is then understood to be supererogative works wherein she can convey this super-abounding grace to others.  The words simply mean that God has found favor with her as he did with Noah of old.  Since 1870, at the Vatican I Council, it has been believed by that Church that she was conceived miraculously by what is called the Immaculate Conception.   This is believed for two reasons, to remove a sin nature from Jesus by one additional step and to bolster her position as a mediator between God and man. 

A priest in Spokane, once told me that it was more effectual to pray to Mary than to Jesus.  He was amazed Protestants hadn’t figured it out. Why?  Because Jesus would do anything his mother asked of him.  If you get Mary’s ear, Jesus will do it. 

This is Mariolatry--making Mary into an idol.  Mary would have never accepted this place and all of the attention.  There is not even a hint of all this in the Scriptures.  Actually, the Scriptures contradict these teachings on some important points.  For instance, Mary is not a mediator.  We are told clearly by the Apostle Paul that there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus, I Tim 2:5.

If Mary was so significant for the Christian Life, we should expect her to be venerated by the disciples and revered by the Apostles.  How many times is a Mary mentioned outside of the Gospels?  How many times do you suspect?  Twenty, ten?  Only three times in Acts 1:14, 12:12 & Romans 16:6.  The Mary in Romans is one who labored much for the Apostle Paul and is probably not the mother of Jesus.  The Mary in Acts 12:12 is the mother of John Mark.  Only in Acts 1:14 do we meet Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Here we meet her with her sons and other believers assembled and praying.  What does this show us?  That her character was steadfast and consistent from her young years to thirty-something years later.

The fact that she was praying with the disciples shows her to me more like them, than it does that she is special and above them.  She was a faithful and godly woman from her teens right through her mid-thirties. 

Young women--do you live your live in such a way that God would be pleased with you, as he was with Mary?  Its something to think about.  Mary is not portrayed in the Scriptures as one who is to be venerated, worshiped, prayed to, or one who can know bring redemption.  She is just a faithful Jewish girl who found favor with God. She is an example of godliness, not an idol. She was favored by God to bring his Son into the world, she had God’s presence overshadowing her to keep her safe, she was blessed to be the channel of the incarnation.  She is one of a kind among women.

What was promised to the one woman who was deceived and sinned in God’s paradise, the garden of Eden, has come through another one of a kind act through another woman.  One is known as a parent who brought us into misery, guilt and shame, the other brought “God manifest in the flesh” to restore what the other had lost.  What a privileged thing for Mary, the Mother of Jesus.  She was and remains highly favored and blessed in that she was saved by the death of her own son who was also God’s appointed redeemer.

There is a relationship possible that is closer than that of bloodlines, and natural birth, it is a relationship of true fellowship between God and man to all who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for their soul’s salvation.  These are the ones he calls truly blessed.  Turn a few pages over to Luke 11.  Starting at verse 27 we meet an instructive narrative.  It teaches us of Jesus’s own perspective in these things.  Natural birth brings joy, supernatural birth brings true blessing and contentment.

Jesus has just cast out a demon miraculously in verses 14-26.  Verse 27 is a reaction from the crowd of witnesses.

Luke 11:27-28 And it happened, as He spoke these things, that a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, "Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!"

28 But He said, "More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!"

Jesus saw his mother as blessed, but a greater blessedness comes from hearing the Word of God and keeping it.

What are you doing with what you hear today.  If you hear and keep these things, if you listen and do what you hear, you are more blessed than even Mary was.  Let that sink in a little.  Those who hear the Word of God and are found doing what it says, as Mary did when she joined the disciples for prayer in Acts 1, are more blessed than Mary, the human mother of Jesus. 

What is the place of Mary in God’s way of doing things?  She remains an example of godliness in a woman.  One to be emulated, but not idolized.  It is more important that we hear the Word of God and do it.  In another context he said,     "For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother. [MAT 12:50]." Jesus concern is not about his physical birth and his physical family as much as it is with his true spiritual family who hears and does the will of his heavenly father.  That is what it is all about.

The annunciation is not about Mary, if we read it properly, it about the Lord Jesus Christ.  I only bring out these matters because many of you have family, friends and co-workers who remain in the darkness of Roman Catholicism.  These things are to encourage you that you understand the truth of God’s Word in these matters.  Use these things to answer those who would question you in order to understand, but don’t use them to beat up on others theologically.  Only God can open their eyes and unclog their ears that they might hear and do what God has truly said.

Now, about the Lord Jesus Christ.  To remind you:

Luke 1:31 "And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. 32 "He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. 33 "And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end."

        34 Then Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I do not know a man?"

        35 And the angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 "Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. 37 "For with God nothing will be impossible."

        8 Then Mary said, "Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her.

You will conceive in your womb and call his name Jesus.

Jesus will be great:

He will be the Son of the Highest--He will be God Son with birthrights to all that is God’s.

He will be on the Throne of David--He will bring all that the Kings of old could not. He will be a faithful shepherd king as God had intended.

He will reign over the house of Jacob--he will have his people Israel.

Of his kingdom there will be no end--all of the other kings had come and gone.  The duration of his kingdom would be from his inauguration onward and forever.

Jesus would be all the prophets had pointed forward to.  He would be Son of God, and a son of man, sympathetic with the concerns of both sides in order to rule and reign in righteousness forever.  A glorious king bringing a blessed time--greater than that of old, never to be eclipsed by another. 

The angel describes the coming of the son in terms of a king, Mary is thinking about the practical concern of how.

Mary’s confusion--How can this be since I know not a man? Conceive?  I haven’t know a man in that way.  How can this be?  She doesn’t doubt, she needs more information.  Just like a normal woman of her age would react.  Believing the angel, she doesn’t understand from her limited perspective.

The Angel’s answer--with God nothing will be impossible

The Angel gives an explanation, then an illustration, than a summation

The Explanation: "35 The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.

God will do it.  The Holy Spirit will come over you and bring this to pass.  He will be the Holy One and called the Son of God. 

How is the sinlessness of Jesus preserved?  It was the work of the Spirit making him to be the Holy One in every sense of the word.  How did he do this? We are not told.  It is simply asserted.  It is for us to hear and believe what God has said.

The Illustration of God’s Power: The Angel uses Mary’s cousin Elizabeth, a woman in her twilight years, as an example of God’s ability to do what he has said.  36 "Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren.

With God the miraculous is commonplace.  Therefore the Angel gives .....

The Summation: 37 "For with God nothing will be impossible."

We are prone to look at the things of this world to do for us and in us what we truly need.  We think that we can muster up enough strength to deal with our problems.  Even though we never have been able to overcome these things in the past.  We are full of pride, refusing to come to God for him to work in us what he has already spoken in his word.  We want to be in control, we want God to do what we want, when we should want to do what God wants.  This is idolalatry of the self and our own finitness over the infinite power of God to do what we need most.  That is if we admit our greatest needs. 

It is not enough to hear God’s Word, we must examine ourselves and do what he commands.   When hearing isn’t accompanied with self-examination we are likely to misuse what we hear and to excuse ourselves from it.  The Bible outs it this way: JAM 1:22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.  It is not enough to hear, you must act accordingly.  Consider Mary’s response.

38 Then Mary said, "Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word."

She identifies herself with lowly, humble language.  She is a servant ready to do God’s work.  She is a maidservant.

The work she is ready to do: Let it be to me according to your word.  Whatever you would have me to do, let me know. Mary’s godly response--she hears God’s Word and she wants to do it. She is Jesus Mother physically, yet in his family spiritually. 

What is your response to God’s Word as you hear it?  Deflect, distort for your own purposes, self-deception thinking all is alright?  Or thorough self-examination that humbles you to seek The Lord Jesus Christ and his grace.  Unless you purpose at the outset of this study to hear and do, it will do you no good. 

We are often afraid to see Mary as an example because of how she has been misused in the history of the Church.  But, we can recover her to be an example of a faithful disciple who puts us to her God for the same grace to be found in us.