Luke 1:46-48 - And Mary said: My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
Okay, so Mary, mother of Jesus wasn't exactly ordinary. I mean, come on, conception by the Holy Spirit? How often does that happen?
However, what we know of her shows her to be not of an elevated status, but a typical girl from a typical, simple family in Nazareth. I did a little research on what Nazareth would have been like. There is not much mention of this town so one can conclude that it was not a prominent town or village. One account stated it could have been between 480 and 2,000 people. Mary was considered a humble peasant girl, so I am assuming all of Nazareth was comprised of people of humble means, yet not necessarily all humble spirits.
John 1:46 states, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? I'm guessing the town did not have the greatest reputation. If you recall Jesus returned after His ministry began and was rejected, most likely because He was only the Son of Mary, a peasant girl, and Joseph, a carpenter. I'm guessing the people really wondered at the way Mary conceived since who had ever heard of this. Oh, the skepticism. Can't we all be like that at times?
The other night we had a women's dinner at church for the Christmas season. It was called An Extraordinary Night. The speaker, Sandy Bradford, spoke on the things we don't often think about regarding what Mary went through as being chosen, conceiving and giving birth on that extraordinary night to this Son who was the Son of God. Bradford asked the women who had children to imagine all the feelings, thoughts, concerns Mary might have had.
I'm not going to reiterate all her thoughts. One thing is clear, Mary was ordinary...yet not. A peasant girl suddenly to become the mother of the Son of God...all in nine months' time. She didn't even have time to prepare for this. Only God could have given her the strength and more importantly the faith and trust she would need. The point I'm making is that it had nothing at all to do with anything she determined to do, apart from trusting, which alone is a huge thing.
God purposely chose Mary. Part of this purpose is to show how He uses ordinary people in life to achieve His purposes. We all know that Jesus, God, came down from His throne to live among us sinners. He walked and talked with the basest of people at times...prostitutes, thieves, liars, the proud and arrogant. He chose His disciples not from the elite class but the humble. He Himself, despite being the King of kings was humble. Isn't that just the perfect example of what we are to be?
What makes any of us think we are so great? Remember yesterday I mentioned Mitch's comment: But I realized that night that I'm not better or smarter than anyone. We are told that we are not to worship the creation but the Creator. And we are to worship nothing other than Jesus Christ.
Mary herself said these things about her own Son:
My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior...For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name. (Luke 1:46-47,49)
She understood. She understood she was ordinary put into extraordinary circumstances. Imagine all she had to go through beyond just His birth. She was the mother of God yet she had the same feelings about her Son as we would have about our children...frustration, fear, sadness, joy, hope, pride, ending in abject grief. She learned first hand that she could not tell Him what to do...He was in His Father's house when she complained about His not telling them where He was going to be and His time had not yet come when she asked Him to do a miracle at a wedding.
Mary endured His comings and goings as His ministry took, literally, legs and sent Him all over the countryside. He claims to not have had a place to call home. He exclaimed, My mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice, when told she and his brothers wanted to see Him. Imagine how she might have felt. And the worst feeling of all was the helplessness of being a mother seeing her Son whipped and beaten for telling the truth about Who He was, and then led to His crucifixion.
She was an ordinary woman then. She had no power or strength of her own to change the situation. She may have even found it difficult to trust in God during this time. She also knew that her salvation came through her own Son! I imagine what it was like after He arose and returned for a period of time. Was the sadness removed? Was the joy resurrected in her life? Did she fully understand now all He had to have gone through?
We are all ordinary people. We might think otherwise, but we still are. We only elevate ourselves with our sinful, prideful natures. We might learn a lesson from both Mary and her Son about humility. As Mary honored Jesus, as Jesus honored His heavenly Father over His earthly parents, so should we honor the Man who came to an ordinary woman and humbled Himself for all us sin filled people that we might all receive His free gift of salvation.
Our pastor, Rory Grooters, this morning asked us also to imagine what her life was like. Here was the gist of it, in my own words! She was the actual first temple of God, carrying Christ in her, having the very God within her, going through the difficult days when people didn't understand what she was going through and how it all happened, all the flapping gums and gossip, just like we go through because we have Christ in us...and doesn't that make us different? BUT what did she do? She delivered that Baby, the Baby that was to be all for us. And we are to deliver Christ in the same way to those around us, that they might also have the power of God within them.
So if, as followers of Christ, God chooses us for something, are we prepared as ordinary people? We may not think so but He has given us all we need to do what He desires. We are His ordinary people whom He has chosen to become in Christ, or better yet, have Him in us. He has given us talents and life experiences. All ordinary things. Coupled with trust and faith in Him we are able to do. It's all about Him. We are as ordinary as Mary. We are as ordinary as the fishermen, the prostitutes, the thieves and liars. He changes us. He takes the ordinary and makes them extraordinary...all to glorify Him.
Will you humble yourself as Jesus did? Will you come down from whatever place you're at, like Jesus did? Make no mistake, you are ordinary! Let Him make you extraordinary. Mary understood that. The mother of the Son of God...ordinary to extraordinary...all by the hand of God.
James 4:10 - Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
No comments:
Post a Comment