Take a Walk In Mary's Shoes
A Christmas Journey • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Welcome to the strangest Christmas series you have ever heard.
Turn to Luke 1.
The events we’re going to discuss today and next week take place in the region of Galilee, in a small town called Nazareth. How small you ask? Somewhere around, 0.0154 square miles. To put that in perspective, Ramseur is roughly 1.7 square miles. Asheboro is 15.4 square miles. Nazareth is barely a speck.
The population of Nazareth at the time of Jesus’ birth was somewhere between, 200-500 people. To say Nazareth was a “small town”, would be a tremendous understatement.
Now we all know how quickly news spreads through Ramseur with, as of 2020, a population of 1774 people, imagine how much faster, how much further, how much nastier, news must have traveled in Nazareth in the first century?
For the next few weeks leading up to Christmas, I want you to walk me down its dusty streets where I believe we will truly begin to understand what Christmas is truly all about. Today we will begin our journey by taking a walk in Mary’s shoes. Read with me, Luke 1: 26-38...
Imagine you are a teenage girl, some have suggested she was as young as 13, others say she was approaching 19 in the culture of their day this was certainly the common age range in which a young lady would be betrothed to a husband. The betrothal period of Mary’s day was just as binding as a marriage, and dissolution of the betrothal included a writing of divorce.
Now, imagine you are a young girl, living in Nazareth, a town of maybe 500 people, you are engaged to marry a man, a man of the tribe of Judah, of the very lineage of David, and you are…pregnant. Can you imagine once news got out, once Mary could no longer conceal her condition? Can you imagine what her parents thought? The neighbors? How devastated she must have felt. Yet she took the shame, she welcomed the scoffing, the rumors, the names, the accusations, the assassination of her character, why? So that we could have Christmas. Not presents, not parties, not food, but Christmas, the birth of Messiah, Jesus.
Mary serves as a true hero of Christmas and is s wonderful example of faith to us.
How could she endure all this? I suggest to you the following reasons as to why she was willing to endure such difficulty. First, God knew her...
Real Reputation v. 28-30
Real Reputation v. 28-30
While the rest of the town may have busied themselves ruining Mary’s reputation by spreading rumors and making accusations, Mary took solace in the fact that God knew her for who she was! Luke 1:28
28 And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
30 And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.
In verse 28, the word “favour” means to be given a special honor - now we understand Mary’s response in verse 29! the word ‘troubled’ means to be disturbed. She was taken aback at his greeting, not understand why an angel would make such an announcement. Immediately the angel assures her in verse 30 - “fear not”
Someone has said those two word, “fear not” appear 365 times in the Bible! They have said that there is one for each day of the year and that is an indication of the goodness of God. I take issue with that, and here is why - the Jewish calendar is only 360 days, not 365. Those “extra” five days indicate that the goodness of God extends even further than we deserve!
Here the angel says to Mary “Fear not!” again she is told she finds “favour’ with God! The word favour here means, quite simply, grace. What an amazing word! Grace.
It doesn’t mean Mary was perfect, it doesn’t mean she was deserving, it means that God is gracious! Mary must have been a faithful young lady with a stellar reputation, but she was still a sinner. Not perfect, but aren’t you glad God is not looking for perfect people?
Mary knew the Scriptures, she knew Isaiah 7:14
14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, And shall call his name Immanuel.
She, as all good Jewish girls were taught, no doubt asked God, if it be His will, to allow her to be the vessel through which the Messiah would come. I find it funny that when the answer to that prayer came, she was shocked and needed the reassurance of the angel…Luke 1:31-33
31 And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.
32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:
33 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
The Messiah! The Messiah would come through Mary! If you want to know how she felt when the local girls her age called her names and shunned her, she probably felt the same way you would, but she kept her faith, because she understood that God knew her real reputation! Still, her situation was not without a...
Reasonable Reservation v. 34
Reasonable Reservation v. 34
34 Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
In plain English she was saying: I have never been with a man in the physical sense. This is not the typical way that children come into the world!
Notice, she did not say to the angel: What will my fiance think of me when I tell him? Or what will my mother think of me? She did not say to the angel, What will the other girls, the women, the people in the village say? What will this do to my reputation? Her thoughts simply went to the “how”, not the “what”. Church all of her doubt was crushed by the angel’s response: “Don’t worry about the ‘how’, just trust in the Father”, Luke 1:35-37
35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
36 And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.
37 For with God nothing shall be impossible.
Read verses 37 again...
“For with God nothing shall be impossible”. Even for a young, unmarried, untouched girl living in a small town alongside women with big mouths. The angel told Mary not to worry about what others thought of her because what truly matters is what God thinks of you (her real reputation), next he told her not tow worry about how this miracle will come to pass (her reasonable reservation), because nothing is impossible with God. Lastly we see her...
Respectful Response v. 38
Respectful Response v. 38
What was Mary’s reaction to the news that her entire life was about to be changed? Luke 1:38
38 And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.
May I sum up her words in just one? Faith.
In this verse Mary is saying essentially, “I don’t care what anyone in this town thinks of me. I don’t care how others may look at me or say about me. I do not care about the rumors that will follow me the rest of my life. I know the truth! I know that God loves me and has chosen me to be the vessel that Israel has longed for, to be the one prophesied in Isaiah to bring the Messiah into the world. I trust God.”
And with the words in verse 38, Mary accepted the responsibility of bringing Jesus, of bringing the Savior, into the world.
Conclusion: This is the first leg of our journey through the streets of Nazareth, today we walked in Mary’s shoes, but what have we really learned? If time travel were possible, and any of us could travel back to Mary’s day and meet her, all of us would be thrilled, we would all hug her and thank her for her faithfulness in bringing Jesus into our world…but how would we have responded to her if we had lived just down the street in Nazareth in her day? Would we have shown such compassion and concern, or would we have been there to judge her, ridicule her, shun her?
Can I give you an idea of how you would respond? If we were to have a young lady in our church, a teenager, who was pregnant, how would you respond to her? Would you be gracious towards her, or would you gossip about her? Would you be kind and loving, or judgmental and condemning?
Think of the courage it took this young girl to stand up to such opposition. Do you want to know what Christmas is all about? It is about a girl putting aside her plans, her dreams and sacrificing her reputation so that you could be saved! What are you willing to do this Christmas season so that others may be saved?
Let’s bow our heads for prayer...