Matthew 1:23 "The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" (which means "God with us").
Lk 1:26-38 In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. 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, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."
"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" 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." "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her. NIV
A little doctrine and a little devotion. Read on to the end, I think you will enjoy this.
In a time where women were not regarded in high esteem and were, in fact, degraded as half a person, not a reliable witness and all other atrocities, God begins the process of redemption with women. With the first message of Christmas came two women, Elizabeth and then Mary. Ladies, God loves you! God initiated creation with a man and the new creation and redemption with a woman….awesome.
I want to in the next few devotionasl look at Mary’s example. Mary has been a real source of interest to the church. She should be. Her example of courage, humility and love for God is above and beyond many in the Bible. In the face of scandal, rejection of family and fiancée, in the face of fearful angels she said, “let what you have said be done to me.” I am not a proponent of Mariology or Mariolatry, but a little credit, please.
Let’s look at something you might not have heard much about lately…the virgin birth. The most important belief the Christian church has besides the resurrection is the virgin birth. Without it Jesus is not who he said he was! If God did not become a man, then all bets are off. If Jesus is not the son of God, then all He did means nothing. I want this to be as simple as possible. It is worth the study and mental sweat.
So we will have a little doctrine then a little devotional... ok? Listen to a few quotes:
Albert Mohler laments, “With December 25 fast approaching, the secular media are sure to turn their interest once again to the virgin birth. Every Christmas, weekly news magazines and various editorialists engage in a collective gasp that so many Americans could believe such an unscientific, supernatural doctrine. For some, the belief that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin is nothing less than evidence of intellectual dimness. One writer for the New York Times put the lament plainly: “The faith in the Virgin Birth reflects the way American Christianity is becoming less intellectual and more mystical over time.” Does belief in the virgin birth make Christians “less intellectual?” Are we saddled with an untenable doctrine? Can a true Christian deny the virgin birth, or is the doctrine an essential component of the Gospel revealed to us in Scripture?”
It is important because the virgin birth testifies to the fact that Jesus is fully divine, that he is fully human, {that he was really born} that he was sinless. He was born like Adam as the new head of the human race, exempt from Adam’s sin. His birth is the very nature of God’s grace. The birth of Christ is accomplished by God. It is salvation by God’s act, not human effort. The birth of Jesus is like our new birth, which is also by the Holy Spirit, it is a new creation. I believe it is necessary to believe the virgin birth to maintain these vital aspects of Christianity
“Christ alone was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:18–25; Luke 1:26–38); as such, He alone qualifies to be Savior. Why does this matter? Only as the Holy Spirit takes the place of the human father in Jesus’ conception can it be true that the one conceived is both fully God and fully man. Christ must be both God and man to atone for sin (see below), but for this to occur, He must be conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a human virgin. No one else in the history of the world is conceived by the Spirit and born of a virgin mother. Therefore, Jesus alone qualifies to be Savior.
Christ alone is God incarnate (John 1:1–18; Heb. 1:1–3; 2:14–18; Phil. 2:5–11; 1 Tim. 2:5–6); as such, He alone qualifies to be Savior. As Anselm argued in the eleventh century, our Savior must be fully man in order to take the place of men and die in their stead, and He must be fully God in order for the value of His sacrificial payment to satisfy the demands of our infinitely holy God. Man He must be, but a mere man simply could not make this infinite payment for sin. But no one else in the history of the world is both fully God and fully man. Therefore, Jesus alone qualifies to be Savior.” Bruce Ware
Jack Hayford when commenting on the Virgin Birth and Resurrection of Jesus “In order for God to become flesh, He had to find a vehicle, and He couldn’t use the usual human channels because man, being sinful, transmits his sin to successive generations. So God sired a Child. Because it’s a human child, and coming through the process of human experience, He used the body of Mary, an available, holy young maiden who was a committed believer in the ways of the Lord. By the mention of the intimate part of the human anatomy—the womb—God is saying that He wants to get as close as He can get to us. With Mary, it was a miraculous sowing of His seed into her womb. If there had been any kind of intercourse, even with a divine being, Mary would not have been called “the virgin Mary who bore the Child.” There’s a supernatural transmission of that Life to within the womb.
When you trace the trustworthiness of the historic record of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, you draw the conclusion that it’s easy to believe in His virgin birth because of everything else that happens in His life. We are dealing with a Personality different from any other in human history. Most dramatically and conclusively is His resurrection—a literal rising from the dead, not a resuscitation.
The verification of Jesus’ rising from the dead is not difficult for any honest mind to come to terms with. If you take time to look at the historic record and all of the evidences that verify His resurrection, it takes more faith to disbelieve in the resurrection of Jesus Christ than to believe in it. The point is, if you believe in the resurrection as the climax of His life, it’s not difficult to believe in the supernatural beginning—the virgin birth of Jesus Christ”
Now some devotion:
Luke 1:46-55 And Mary said: "My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me— holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors." TNIV
Mary was ‘blessed’
In this song of praise sung by Mary, there is a portion of the verse frequently misunderstood. When we read Mary saying “behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed,” (v. 48) some have taken this to mean Mary is to be esteemed above other beings. There is an unusual and exalted place Mary was given simply by the fact that she was allowed to be the avenue by which the Christ Child was born. Yet there’s nothing in the Bible that suggests she is to be esteemed, praised or acknowledged as a mediator between us and the Lord. But if you say less about Mary than the Bible says, you can miss one of the most profound revelations in the Scriptures, and foundational to everything the Lord would have us understand about His wanting to be incarnate in our midst—Emmanuel, God with us.
And Mary said: "My soul glorifies the Lord
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed,
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me— holy is his name.
50 His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. {My Body}
The Greek word for “blessed” used in this text isn’t the word synonymous for praise or exaltation, but a simple word meaning joy and happiness to every believer who will heed the Lord’s way Matthew 5 shows the blessed life of the believer. Mary is saying that she is happy because the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14…a virgin shall conceive… happened to her. Every believer is blessed if they are obedient and submissive to God's plan for their life as Mary was.
What happened to Mary is a prototype for us
Successive generations—including ours right now—are within God’s intended purpose to recognize that Mary is a prototype or model of a kind of happy thing God wants us to experience. What happened in Mary was biological. She literally is impregnated with a baby. The parallel as it bears on us is just as real—a coming of Jesus into our lives, but into our hearts, not the womb. Four things we need to consider are:
- God wants to enter your life
- God wants to grow inside you
- God wants to happen through you
- God wants to change the world around you
Significance and scope
The growth in Mary was literal—there would have been stretch marks after the birth of that baby. There was the discomfort of carrying the child. Her world (and ours) was changed. There was universal scope and significance of what happened to and through Mary.
The significance for us is no less impacting in terms of something happening in us and the world that it changes. What’s the size of your world? What are the problems of your personality, circumstance or world that needs a Savior? The things that happened in Mary are essential toward the realization of the same kind of thing in us: Jesus entering me, growing within me, happening through me, changing my world around me. That’s what He wants to do.
Jesus entering me
Many of us have already received Jesus Christ as our Savior, but at this Christmas are you consciously opening up to a new dimension of Jesus in you? Are you willing to want more of His kingdom in you? If you let Him in, it’s not going to be status quo.
Jesus growing in me
I hear it’s uncomfortable to be pregnant. If Jesus gets inside you, it’s going to stretch you. And just like pregnancy does to a woman, it’ll change the way you walk. Let Jesus begin to grow in you, and you don’t always look as slick as you used to.
Jesus happening through me
The “happening through” happens in every way you can think of that’s inconvenient. For Mary, it happened in a stable instead of a more suitable and comfortable quarters. There is travail that attends birth—when Christ starts to happen through you, it isn’t always a neat and easy moment. But, the outflow of it is mighty, and the impact that it has on your world is worth it.
To change the world around me
Mary welcomed what the Lord wanted to do through her. She became a case study of God making an investment and God finding an instrument. He wants a new dimension of the incarnation of His Son in us. God wants to invest Jesus in us to multiply His life through us, and to make us an instrument through which He can touch the world.
The word “generation” does not always refer to a season of years, but also to a “genre” or a type of people. When Mary says, “All generations shall call me blessed,” she is saying, there will never be a genre of people who, if they understand what’s happened to me, won’t look toward this as the possibility of a happy moment for them as well.
Mary rejoices in this rich truth
- With worship (v. 46-47)
- With wonder (v. 48)
- With praise (v. 51-52)
- With promise (v. 53-54)
She is rejoicing because she knows God has done something in her that is going to last. That song happens in anybody who opens up and says, Lord, I want something new of You.
She rejoices because there is hope (v. 48) that God has exalted the ordinary person. Mary’s wonder and worship are based on the ability of God to come and bring life into you notwithstanding what you don’t have in yourself. As a member of the Israeli culture living under the heel of Roman rule, she says, what God is working in me is going to break the oppression that’s on me and around me (v. 51-52).
He sends away the “rich” not as an economic condition; a person can have almost nothing and still refuse God’s offer: I don’t need that. The Lord says, and then you won’t get it. He sends you away empty because you provided Him no place to give you anything. But in contrast, He fulfills the hungry (v. 53-54).
Who among us today have been so suffocated by pain in the past that you’ve given up hope? Mary is worshiping God because He has given her “expectancy." We use the same word to describe our hopes and dreams as we use to describe a woman who’s going to have a baby. God comes to bring an expectation. You have to decide if you’re willing to open to it.
Mary’s song of praise glorifies God working in her life. The Lord wants you to entertain an expectation He’d like to bring to you. God wants to get you pregnant! What? You heard me! He wants to see you pregnant with vision, hope, expectation, and Christ being formed on the inside of you. He want you to have a Mary Christmas.
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