Witnesses of Christ’s Passion: Mary
Midweek Lent 6
St. Luke 1:26–38
26 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.
In Christ Jesus, who was “born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons,” (Gal 4:4,5), dear fellow redeemed!
We celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus on December 25th. If you count backwards, allotting for a nine-month gestation period, you land on March 25th. This has been the date, since the early days of the Christian church, that we have celebrated the angel Gabriel’s announcement to the Virgin Mary that she would give birth to a Son, named Jesus. We call this day the annunciation, meaning announcement. It was also a common belief in the early church that Jesus was conceived and died on the same day, marking the beginning and end of his earthly life.
That’s why, in the middle of our Lenten journey to the cross, we go back to where it all began. To the day that was long foretold and promised by the prophets, believed and hoped in by faithful believers, like Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, David, and more. The day when the Savior, the morning star, would dawn.
In Genesis 3, we read that an evil angel came to Eve and presented to her a word of death by which poor Eve, even though gifted with faith, fell for the temptation and so brought sin and death to all people. The devil lured Eve away from the word of God. In our lesson, we read that a good angel came to Mary and presented to her words of life. Gifted with faith, Mary believed and conceived the Savior of the world, who would bring life and good to all people. Unlike the devil, Gabriel came with God’s Word and directive. In humble faith, Mary believed the angel’s word and therefore received the Savior, who came to take sin and death away from us.
Gabriel greeted Mary, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!” While these are the angel’s words, we tend to approach them somewhat skeptically today since we are surrounded by Christians who have exalted Mary to a position almost as significant as Jesus and given her characteristics beyond the teachings Scripture. One of the false teachings taught in the Roman Catholic Church is their so-called doctrine of “The Immaculate Conception.” By this term they are not referring to Jesus’ conception, of whom Scriptures say was “without sin.” Instead, they use this term to refer to how Mary was conceived without sin. Mind you, this wasn’t an official teaching in the Roman Catholic Church until 1854, when Pope Pius IX proclaimed this new dogma saying, “In the first instant of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the human race, the Virgin Mary was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin.”
This has caused some Protestant churches to go in the opposite direction and almost speak poorly of Mary. Of course, this too is inappropriate. We should have no problem with the angel’s greeting. Mary was blessed among women and favored by God! She was chosen to be the mother of Jesus, the mother of God! She is the one whom the prophet Isaiah spoke of 600 years earlier, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel, that is God with us.” How could this be? Gabriel explained, “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.” This is simply a mystery. One that should be approached with reverence and awe. While this claim has been bitterly contested and spoken of in unbelief with the crude of words, it’s a truth that evokes awe from all pious believing hearts. As we confess, “I believe in Jesus Christ, His only son our lord who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.”
Though blessed and honored by God, Mary had sinful nature. When she was greeted by the angel, she was afraid, she was troubled. Yet, the angel said, “Fear not!” As much as he desires it, sinful man is troubled by any close encounter with God, and so was Mary, in the presence of the angel. She was under the law and stood under its condemnation and the wrath of God. She was one whom Jesus came to redeem. This is why Mary sang after the angel departed, “My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.” Sinners need a Savior; Mary rejoiced because now she had one.
When Mary rejoices in God her Savior, she admits that she, as well as every other person born of flesh and blood, needs one who can and will save her. This is something we must also confess. Jesus will bring you no benefit, unless you acknowledge and confess that you are lost and condemned without him, that no one else can save you from the burden of your sin. Yet, we shouldn’t hesitate to confess that we are sinners in need of saving when we have this blessed comfort—as we just confessed “He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with his innocent suffering and death.”
By the power of the word, God became man in Mary’s womb. It is the same God who said, let there be light and there was light. When the angel speaks that word to Mary, by his very command and speaking, the eternal Son of God became incarnate. When God speaks, it is done. When Jesus said to Lazarus in the grave, “Come forth!” he did. When Jesus said this bread is my body… this cup is the New Testament in my blood, shed for you and for many, and gave it to the disciples, they received what he said. By the power of his word, we too receive his body and blood in the sacrament. It is the same word by which he created the world, by which Jesus was made flesh in the virgin’s womb, and by which he will also raise us up on the last day. Martin Luther connects the Annunciation and the words of our Lord in the Sacrament this way:
“The angel Gabriel brings the word; Behold you will conceive in your womb and bear a son etc. With these words, Christ comes not only into her heart, but also into her womb. As one cannot deny the fact that she thus becomes pregnant through the Word, so no one knows how it comes about, so it is in the sacrament also. For as soon as Christ says: This is my body, His body is present through the word and the power of the Holy Spirit. So certain can we be that what is conceived in Mary’s womb is the true, eternal son of God; and so certain can we be when we are offered the body and blood of our Lord, who has made ordinary bread and wine to be his body and blood simply by the power of his word.”
Mary believed the angel’s words. She said, “Let it be to me according to your word.” Here, Mary also serves as an example of a pious Christian, who trusts the word of God and his promises. How could it be? She was a virgin. It didn’t make any sense. But she trusted in the angel’s word. The angel also pointed to how her cousin Elizabeth, who was barren and beyond the age of childbearing, would bear a son. “For with God nothing will be impossible.”
There are many things which don’t make sense to us. How can I be forgiven? How can it be Jesus body and blood under the bread and wine? How can baptism save? In humble faith, we believe God’s word—because with God, nothing is impossible. God sent the Holy Spirit to our barren and closed hearts so that through his Word he might open our hearts and give birth to faith which trusts these promises. It is the same powerful voice which said let there be light. It is the same powerful word spoken through Gabriel.
Let it be to us according to your word. Amen.