MARY'S STORY

Believing the Impossible Don Moen wrote a song that reveals true faith necessary for the impossible to become possible:

"God will make a way where there seems to be no way. He works in ways we cannot see; He will make a way for me. He will be my guide; hold me closely to His side...With love and strength for each new day, He will make a way...He will make a way."

"God can change impossible situations. He sometimes moves mysteriously, but will provide what a believer needs in miraculous ways. And it is going to be far better than you can ever imagine. So, do what you can, and God will successfully execute what you can't. Nothing is impossible with Him."
Quote by Catherine Galasso-Vigorito.

Did you know there are two versions of the Christmas story in the New Testament? Although scholars debate the differences and try to reconcile the two accounts, many conservative Bible scholars think there is a fairly simple explanation.¹ Matthew tells Joseph's story and Luke tells Mary's story. If you doubt that, just go back and read the two versions for yourself. Matthew tells the story like a man would tell it. Luke emphasizes the things a woman would consider important.

What is it that we know about Mary from Luke's gospel? Here is a brief list:

1. Her father's name was Eli.
2. She had a sister named Salome.
3. She had a relative (unspecified) named Elizabeth.
4. She is young.
5. She is poor.
6. She is a devout believer in God.
7. She is very much in love.

That last one is a key to the story. Mary is a typical teenager in love. She may have been as young as 12 or 13; but, probably 15-16 would be a more appropriate age. When the story opens Mary is "pledged" to Joseph. We will find out through Scripture that Joseph was a man of faith and a trusting heart. Being "pledged to be married" meant that she had formally agreed to marry him but the "wedding" had not yet taken place. Between the "pledge" and the "wedding" was a period usually lasting six months to a year. During that period the couple was considered to be married and were called husband and wife (culture of the day)...but they:

1. Did not live together and
2. They did not consummate their marriage physically. Following the custom of that day, the norm would be that Mary would live with her parents and Joseph with his until the day of the marriage. After the public wedding feast (exchanging of wedding vows and grand feast for all attendees and participants), Mary and Joseph would live together as husband and wife.

Everything in Luke 1-2 happens against that background. Mary is 15-16 years old, living with her parents (presumably in Nazareth), and waiting with happy anticipation for the promised day of her wedding.

Like teenagers everywhere with marriage on her mind, Mary can hardly think of anything else. If we suppose that the wedding feast is still four or five months away, we can imagine that all her thoughts center on the same things prospective brides think about today-the attendants, the guest list, the decorations, the food, the music, what she will wear and where they will accommodate the people coming in from out-of-town. Mary had never been happier than she was at this time of great anticipation. This was the most exciting time of her life.

Then Comes the MISSION IMPOSSIBLE Scenario!

It is right at this point that God breaks in on the scene. He is about to ask an unknown teenage girl to take part in something that is absolutely shocking... so shocking as to be totally unbelievable. What God asks Mary to do will change her life forever.

Gone are the happy dreams of a beautiful wedding; gone are the days of sweet anticipation; gone are the carefully-thought out plans for the wedding and feast afterward; gone are the hopes for "the most beautiful wedding to the most wonderful man who ever lived;" gone are all her girlish hopes of a quiet life in the home she would personally decorate. Most of all, gone are the visions of a houseful of children conceived in love and raised with tender care.

She will be married, but not before rumors and gossip would be spread throughout the countryside. There will be a wedding, but not the way she planned. She will have a home, and it will be filled with children, but there will always be an uneasy and pessimistic cloud of dark suspicion by friends and family.

It will all happen, but not the way she expected.

Luke 1:26-38 tells us how it all began.

²⁶In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, ²⁷to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary.

These two verses set the framework for this historic event. The scriptures let us know that what is about to happen really happened, that this episode is not the figment of some writer's imagination or some kind of religious hallucination. To use Francis Schaeffer's term, this is "true truth." If we had been there, we would have seen and experienced what Mary experienced.

Well, what did Mary see? She saw an angel named Gabriel. We know his name because the text tells us; however, we don't know if Mary knew his name. We also know a few other facts. It happened in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy; we know it happened in the little village of Nazareth in Galilee; and...of course, we know it happened while she and Joseph were "pledged" to be married.

These verses stress two facts about Mary.

1. She is a virgin. Verse 27 mentions that fact twice. The Greek word here (parthenos) leaves no room for doubt on that issue. It means a young woman of marriagable age who has never had sexual relations with a man. Second, she has no idea what is about to happen. Mary is completely in the dark, without a clue that her life is about to be changed forever.
2. Mary and Gabriel are about to have a conversation in which Gabriel will do most of the talking. He says three different things to her (28, 30-33, 35-37) and she responds to what he says (29, 34, 38). Each time Mary responds we see how she begins to believe the impossible.

Gabriel came on the scene...and spoke to Mary...and, like anyone, she was caught off-guard and certainly a little fearful of her situation. I mean a big man spoke to her, ²⁸"Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." Mary quite simply did not know what to make of it. It's as if someone you've never seen came up to you and said, "Good news. This is your lucky day. God has chosen you for a special blessing." Now tell me...how do you respond to a chat like that?

Verse 29 tells us that ²⁹"Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be." After all, she's only 15-16 and getting ready to be married, dreaming of Joseph and herself walking holding hands and enjoying each other in the evening, and some stranger says something bizarre like this to her. No wonder she wondered about it!

But that's not the half of it. Without a pause, Gabriel proceeds to tell her something. He tells her she's going to have a baby...and not just any baby. She's going to give birth to the Son of God. That information would demand a response from anyone. No doubt, to use a 20th century term, Mary's emotional response would be "disturbing and one of total shock." A verbal response would probably be like..."You've got to be kidding."

Listen again to these words you have heard time and again. But this time, remember that you are about 16, deeply in love, and on the way to do her chores for the day. You don't have any inkling of what you are about to hear:

The angel said to her, ³⁰"Fear not, Mary, you have found favor with God. ³¹You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. ³²He 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, ³³and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." (30-33)

Well now. How's that for a conversational opener? What, really, do you say back to Gabriel? Remember, you're 16, you're waiting to see Joseph tonight, and your life just seems perfect. Now here comes this stranger with the most preposterous-sounding thing you've ever heard in your life.

Do you argue? Do you ask for clarification? Do you ask yourself... "Am I dreaming?" Do you say, "Who are you and how did you just appear in my life?" Do you laugh out loud?

Mary could not be blamed for any of those responses. But she does none of those things. In fact, she passes over all the hard stuff. When Gabriel says, "He will be called the Son of the Most High," she doesn't ask what that means or why she was picked for such a high honor. None of those ordinary concerns seems to affect her in the least.

She only has one question, a technical matter she would like cleared up: ³⁴"How can this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" This is a perfectly natural question. Mary is betrothed but not formally married. She has never had sexual relations with any man. How then can she become pregnant and bear a son?

It is instructive to note that Mary does not doubt the angel's word, even though it must have sounded incredible. She believed what the angel said. Her only question had to do with how it would happen.

In essence she says to Gabriel, "All right. I'm willing to do my part, but you need to explain how we'll handle this one little personal problem." That's real faith. That's believing the impossible. That's trusting God when the "facts" argue against it.

Now that the big question has been settled, there remains only one final word from Gabriel. It is the only explanation of the Virgin Birth in the entire Bible: "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." (35)

The key point in Gabriel's explanation is that what is about to happen to Mary will be the result of the direct intervention of the God of the universe. The Holy Spirit is the agent of the Virgin Birth; "overshadowing" is the means of the Virgin Birth; the Son of God is the result of the Virgin Birth.

This suggests something that is often denied-even in the conservative evangelical circles. It is often suggested that the Virgin Birth was not necessary even though it really happened, i.e., God could have brought Jesus into the world in some other way. Gabriel's word seems to indicate the opposite. The whole point of verse 35 is that the Virgin Birth produces the Holy One of God. The "so" is very crucial. Without the virginal conception by the Holy Spirit, the Holy One of God will not be born. Every Christian should understand this fact-the Son of God had to be born of a virgin "to fulfill Scripture"...Old Testament as well as the New. That is why it is "so" important that all translations of the Word of God never take away this truth...Mary was a virgin when she conceived the Son of God, Jesus the Messiah. This was not a just a "young girl" or a "girl with no husband" or a "girl who was not married" as some translations/versions state.

In reality, there really, truthfully, positively was no other way for Jesus to be born. Gabriel's words imply that the Virgin Birth was not just another Christmas miracle that God could have dispensed with had he so chosen. Without the Virgin Birth, there would be no Christmas at all.

If someone inquires into the biology of the virginal conception of Jesus, we have only this verse to give them. The Greek word translated "overshadow" (episkiazo) was the same word used of God's visible presence in the Old Testament tabernacle. It pictures "the God of light" personally dwelling with his people. We might also think of the Spirit of God hovering above the waters in Genesis 1:2. At this time, please note that the Word says "the Spirit of God" and not "the spirit of God" hovered over the waters. The Holy Spirit was present with the Father and the Son as they created the universe, earth and all that is therein. "God's powerful presence will rest upon Mary, so that she will bear a child who will be the Son of God."

Does this mean that Gabriel has now made everything 'perfectly clear' to Mary? This demands one of those important answers to the question... "Of course not." As anyone who has ever taken a course in human embryology knows, even 'ordinary' conception within the human womb is veiled in mystery. Psalms 139:13-16 makes that perfectly clear. Therefore, this unique conception, by means of which the pre-existing Word of God assumes the human nature, surpasses human comprehension all the more. Neither God nor Gabriel demands of Mary that she must understand everything. What is required of her is only this...that she believes and willingly submits.

So it is with the Christian; we must understand that there will be many things happen in our life that we will not comprehend as to how it happened, but it did. Our salvation is based on the new birth...the "born again" experience when we accept Jesus as our personal Savior. We don't know how it happens, but it does. It changes our lives when we yield to God's Word and repent of our sins. "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." (John 3:17).

Since Mary might have doubts about all this conversation with Gabriel, he calls her attention to the case of her relative Elizabeth. She is now in her sixth month of pregnancy (which will result in the birth of John the Baptist) even though she had been barren and she and Zacharias were both advanced in years. That is, they were both too old to have children and yet, through another of the many miracles of God, she is expecting her first child.

Of course, these cases are not the same. Mary is a young teenager and Elizabeth was perhaps 65-70 years old; Elizabeth's conception came the natural way while Mary's came via the Holy Spirit. That's not the point, however. The point is that both are examples of "human impossibilities" made possible by the Word and promise of God.

"Mary, if you doubt my word, just take a look at Elizabeth. She's expecting her first child even though she's 'too old' to have children. If God can do that for her, don't you think he can do this for you?"

A Christmas verse that is often overlooked at Christmas time is found in verse ³⁷"For nothing is impossible with God." He is able to do anything he decides to do. If he wants to cause a virgin to conceive, he can do it.

If you look at some of the great paintings of Mary, the artists make her look so peaceful and beautiful that you almost forget she was a real person. That's a shame because Luke makes it clear that she was very real, with very real doubts, very real questions...and very real faith. Nowhere is this seen with more clarity than in verse 38:

³⁸"I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her.

Without exaggeration, we may call this one of the greatest statements of faith in the entire Bible. We read it so often that we forget how great it really is. But remember, Gabriel tells her.... You're going to get pregnant, you're going to give birth to a Son, and He's going to be the Son of God. When you ask how, he says, "Don't worry about it. The Holy Spirit will cover you like a cloud and you'll end up pregnant. That's all there is to it." What do you say to that?

Mary said, "Yes." Yes to God, Yes to the impossible, Yes to the plan of God.

Did her heart skip a beat when she said, "Yes?" There she is, head tilted high, her hands trembling just a bit, wide-eyed, nervous, open-mouthed, questioning... but not afraid, wondering but not terrified, unsure but not uncertain. When the angel said, "Nothing is impossible with God," Mary took a deep breath and said, "Be it unto me as you have said." And with those words Christmas came to the world.

Let's not underestimate what it cost Mary to say Yes to God. From that moment on, she faced the laughter and shame from her friends ("Oh Mary, how could expect us to believe such a bizarre story?"), the unending gossip of the neighborhood ("Did you hear about Mary? I guess Joseph finally got lucky.") and the whispers of promiscuity that have lasted 2,000 years.

Mary knew-or would soon realize-that saying Yes to God meant a misunderstanding group of friends and public shame. Gone was her pure reputation and with it her dreams of a quiet, happy life in Nazareth. In the future, her life would at times be happy but it would never again be quiet.

Since we know the end of the story we may tend to overlook the possibility of divorce. But Mary had no way of knowing how Joseph would respond to her pregnancy. Would he blow his top and walk out on her? Would he humiliate her publicly? Would he divorce her?

As the story turned out, Mary had every reason to worry about Joseph. He didn't blow his top or try to humiliate her, but he did intend to divorce her. Only an angel's intervention kept that from happening.

That, too, was on Mary's mind. By saying Yes she risked losing the man she loved. Her whole future was on the line.

And all these things were just the beginning. Mary could not know what the future would hold. Before it was all over, she would experience heartache, opposition, slander, confusion, anguish, despair and loneliness. In the end she would face the greatest pain a mother can endure when she would watch her son die on a cross.

Mary couldn't know all those things. Perhaps if she had known she might not have said Yes. But it's just as well that she didn't. Sometimes we say, "I wish I knew what the future holds for me." But you really don't want to know. It's far better that we don't know what life will bring us in 10 or 15 years.

Mary didn't know the full cost of saying Yes. But having made her decision she never looked back. Those two aspects of her life may be the greatest things we can say about her:

1. She believed God when it seemed to be impossible.
2. She never looked back.

When God said, "Are you willing to believe the impossible?" Mary said, "Yes I am!" Without that Yes, there would be no Christmas.

I have no doubt that Mary asked, "Why me?" Why should God choose an obscure peasant girl in some out-of-the-way village as the chosen vehicle to bring his son into the world? There are many answers that have nothing to do with Mary, but there is one answer that has everything to do with her. God chose Mary because he trusted her. He knew she was willing to believe the impossible. He also knew she was willing to pay the price for that belief. He knew she was willing to bear a child out of wedlock in order to bring God's Son into the world.

Mary said Yes to shame and glory; she said Yes to God's power; she said Yes to the impossible.

Saying Yes brought her...

1. This Burden-33 years of turmoil and heartache.
2. This Joy-She was the mother of the Son of God.
3. This reward-Among women there has never been anyone greater.

If somehow Mary could be here today and we could ask her, "Was it worth it?" she would once again say... "Yes, Oh, Yes!"

Mary, then, stands as a model for all believers but especially for women. She is a model of openness to great possibilities and she is a model of faith in the face of many natural doubts.

Some of the truths in this message were paraphrased/revised from Ray Pritchard's, Mary: Believing the Impossible Sermon; Keep Believing Ministries-Link https://www.keepbelieving.com

¹ https://www.keepbelieving.com, Ray Pritchard, Mary: Believing the Impossible, Page 1