FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ATLANTA, GEORGIA

Sermon by Dr. George Bryant Wirth

The Second Sunday in Advent

December 9, 2007

THE SEARCH FOR JESUS: MARY’S DECISION

Scripture: Luke 1:26-38

INTRODUCTION

As a young boy growing up in eastern Long Island, my father was pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Sag Harbor, and I don’t remember hearing much about Mary, the mother of Jesus. To be sure, we read the story about her during Christmas, we saw her in the pageant and we placed her next to Joseph and the baby Jesus in the crèche below the tree - but that was about it.

Then when I was eleven, we moved from Long Island to New Jersey, and our home was just two blocks away from the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church, one of the largest congregations in the entire state.

Most of my new friends and their families belonged to that parish, and that’s where Mary came on to my radar screen – those Irish and Italian Catholics talked about her all the time. They had figurines of Mary on the dashboards of their cars, there were portraits of Mary on the walls in their living rooms, and not only the parents but also the children seemed to talk about her all the time.

Walking home from school, I was the only Protestant kid in the group, and as we’d pass by the church with a huge statue of Mary on the front lawn, the conversation often escalated into theological controversy.

My friends would say that Mary was divine, and I argued that she wasn’t. They would say that Mary, like Jesus, never sinned, and I said that she did. And they would say that Mary finally ascended into heaven, and I told them that she didn’t.

One afternoon, and you have heard this story before, the conflict grew so serious that we decided to settle the score with boxing gloves in Jimmy Martaurano’s basement. With one swift punch, he knocked me down and out, and for a long time after, I felt that I had disgraced every Protestant and Presbyterian since the Reformation.

I

Well, that’s the way it was during the 1950’s in New Jersey…and so it was going all the way back to the 1550’s in Europe during the days of the Reformation – controversies between Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians over many things, including the veneration of Mary the mother of Jesus.

In 431 A.D., the Third Church Council of Ephesus decreed that Mary was to be praised as the “theotokos,” which in Greek means “the mother of God.” Roman Catholics codified the Immaculate Conception in the 19^th century, claiming that Mary was spared any stain of original sin and that she bore no other children after Jesus. And in 1950, Pope Pius XII declared that Mary’s bodily ascension into heaven was an infallible dogma of the church.

It was less than a decade after that – 1959 – when Jimmy Martaurano and I duked it out over the contention that Mary was divine – not exactly a significant date in church history, but it was an unforgettable and embarrassing moment for me.

Then in 1963, Pope John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council began to open the doors to a more productive dialogue about Mary between Catholics and other Christians. And during the past decade, a number of books have been written by Protestant authors which have taken a new look and re-explored the importance of Mary in the gospel story, among them: “Blessed One: Protestant Perspectives On Mary” by Beverly Gaventa and Cynthia Rigby (2002); “Mary Through the Centuries” by Jarislov Pelikan (2004); “The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus” by Scot McKnight (2006); and “Mary For Evangelicals: Toward An Understanding of the Mother of Our Lord” by Tim Perry (2006).

All of this is to say that our perspective within the Reformed Tradition has finally, after all these centuries of debate and division, embraced Mary as not only the mother of our Lord, but also as a woman with a deep and abiding faith who can lead us forward in our search for Jesus today. And it all began with a decision she made – “Mary’s Decision” which opened the way for God’s incarnation.

II

In our Advent sermons focused on the theme “The Search for Jesus,” you will remember that last week we explored “Joseph’s Dream” as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 1. An angel appeared in that dream and revealed that Mary was going to have a son and that His name would be called Jesus.

Today we concentrate our attention on Mary’s visitation by the angel Gabriel in the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel. And in both cases, looking at the shocked surprise on Joseph’s and Mary’s faces, the angels tried to assure them saying “Do not be afraid! Do not be afraid!” But they were afraid. Neither of them had ever seen an angel before, and the announcement about their having a baby was premature because Joseph and Mary were still engaged and not yet married. Can you imagine the anxiety they felt, trying to figure out what to tell their families and friends as the rumors began to spread all around Nazareth?

In most Christmas pageants today, this underlying fear from the angels’ announcements has been mostly forgotten. Just an hour and a half ago, our chancel here was filled with 250 children and teenagers full of joy and expectation as they re-enacted the greatest story ever told. Everything went smoothly, and as we always say, it was “the best Christmas pageant ever”!

But that was not so in The Presbyterian Church of Sewickley, Pennsylvania twenty years ago. That’s the congregation I served before being called to Atlanta in 1990, and the Children’s Christmas Pageant up there was held on a Sunday evening.

I remember as all the children came forward and took their places – the angels, the shepherds, the wise men, the animals, and in the center, little Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus, a four month old infant who was fast asleep – I remember that the junior high fellowship, in charge of the lights, made a mistake as one of those teenagers turned the wrong switch and the whole place went dark.

The young shepherd boys began to move around, and suddenly we heard the sound of a third grade angel girl shouting out loud “Hey, get off my ankle!” and then we could hear all of the angel wings rustling as they brushed against each other back and forth in the darkness.

As the junior high crew turned the lights back on, the baby Jesus woke up and started to cry. Joseph shrugged his shoulders as Mary looked at him with bewilderment in her eyes. And above the chaos and confusion up in the choir loft, the angel Gabriel, who had already delivered her lines, began to repeat them, although it wasn’t in the script that way, saying over and over again: “Do not be afraid! Do not be afraid!”

It wasn’t “the best Christmas pageant ever,” but it was a pageant that I will never forget. And the thought occurred to me back then in 1987, which I share with you today, that the fear, anxiety and lingering doubt of that first Advent season could have knocked Joseph and Mary down and out.

III

Except – except for Joseph’s dream as the angel convinced him to go on instead of giving up…and Mary’s decision , which opened the way to God’s incarnation and ultimately, for our salvation.

When Gabriel appeared to her and said “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28), Luke tells us that Mary was “perplexed by his words and wondered what sort of greeting this might be.” So the angel assured her, “Do not be afraid, Mary…for you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to Him the throne of His ancestor David. He will reign forever…and of His kingdom there will be no end” (verses 30-33).

But Mary, with a look of anxiety in her eyes and fear pounding in her heart, replied “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” You see, she was only fourteen or fifteen years old. And then Gabriel told her: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you: therefore the child to be born will be holy; He will be called the Son of God…for nothing will be impossible with God” (verses 34-35, 37).

Upon hearing that explanation, and then taking a deep breath, Mary made her decision and said: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (verse 38).

From that moment on, Mary never looked back. She carried the child in her womb until He was born in Bethlehem, and together with Joseph, she named Him Jesus, which in Hebrew means “Savior.”

So they raised Him in Nazareth, taught Him the Torah and how to pray, they guarded His life, gave Him their love, and guided Jesus in the way His Father in heaven wanted Him to go. All along the journey, it was probably Mary who helped Jesus discover His true identity. When He turned thirty and began His active ministry, Joseph had more than likely died, but Mary walked alongside her Son down that final road to Jerusalem where He was arrested, suffered through a mock trial and was crucified. The Gospel of John tells us that Mary stood at the foot of the cross as her Son died, and Luke leads us to believe that she and the other women from Galilee were there at the empty tomb on East Day. In chapter 1 of the Book of Acts, we read that Mary was with the disciples in the Upper Room after Jesus’ ascension into heaven.

CONCLUSION

All of that brings us to the conclusion that Mary was not only the mother of God’s holy and begotten Son – she was also the first one to believe in Jesus as the Lord and Savior of her life. Which leads us as Protestants and Presbyterians to acknowledge with our Catholic sisters and brothers, that God has given Mary a special place in the long line of Christian women and men who have followed Christ by faith. Even my old friend Jimmy Martaurano and I could agree that is true today!

The Presbyterian author Kathleen Norris believes it too, and this is how she describes the angel Gabriel’s annunciation and Mary’s decision in her book “Amazing Grace”:

“We all need to be told that God loves us, and the mystery of The Annunciation reveals…that love. But it also suggests that our response to God’s love is critical (essential)…Mary’s response is profound…like the prophets, she asserts herself before God, saying ‘Here am I.’ There is no arrogance…but only holy fear and wonder. Mary proceeds – as we must do in life – making her commitment (her decision) without knowing much about…where it will lead. I treasure this story because it forces me to ask: When the mystery of God’s love breaks through to me, do I run from it?...Or am I…(ready) to respond from my deepest self, and say something new, a ‘Yes’ that will change me forever?” (From “Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith” by Kathleen Norris, Riverhead Books, New York, 1998).

In our search for Jesus during this Advent season, that’s what Mary’s decision can help and encourage all of us to say to Him: “Yes, Lord – here am I, according to your Word.” What better place than here, what better time than now to let go of our fear, to believe in Him and to receive Him as our Savior!

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.