“26 In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. 31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. 32 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, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” 35 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. 36 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. 37 For nothing is impossible with God.”
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her.”
Did you know that Ziploc has a website? What does a sandwich bag need a website for? Is there a lot of bag and container related news that simply needs to get out? Have they somehow improved on the red and blue makes purple seal?
Now, of course, Ziploc, like everything else, has a website. We live in an age of promotion. Everything must be promoted. Everything is newsworthy. Earlier this year, Selena Gomez had a big announcement; she is starting a new line of makeup—Rare Beauty, available at every Sephora store. It is going to finally—after thousands of years—completely revolutionize the way that we humans apply colored compounds to our faces. We are treated to similar big announcements on almost daily basis. As a result, we find it hard to recognize what actually is newsworthy.
The virgin birth is newsworthy. It’s so newsworthy that we divide history by it. BC—before Christ. AD—the year of our Lord. The virgin birth doesn’t divide history simply because it is a biological anomaly. It divides history because of what it means. It means that the son of Mary is the son of God. That’s the claim of this sermon: the virgin birth means that Mary’s son is the son of God.
We will study this in two points. First: highly favored. Second: the power of the Most High. First, in verses 26-33, we will see that Mary was highly favored. Second, in verses 34-38, we see that the virgin birth came about because of the power of the Most High.
First: highly favored. This gospel of Luke, which you hopefully have open in your hands, doesn’t begin with Jesus. It begins with John the Baptist. It is hard to overstate the impact of John the Baptist. He was the first legitimate prophet in four hundred years. Extra-biblical literature underlines the fact that this man was a big deal. As Josephus, a Jewish historian who lived in the first century wrote, “some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, [who] was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him. [John] was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God.” John was a religious superstar—think Billy Graham but much, much bigger.
The gospel of Luke begins with the announcement that this John was going to be born. It then announces even bigger news—a baby would be born to a virgin and he would be the Christ; this was bigger news than the birth of a superstar; that’s verse 26, “In the sixth month [as in six months since John’s conception], 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.”
Now the announcement about superstar John’s birth took place in the temple. The announcement about this virgin birth took place in a town that was so obscure Luke needed to tell his readers where it was located. No “Rare Beauty, available at every Sephora store,” roll out for the Son of God. Don’t let the schmaltz of this upcoming season fool you. It’s no different today. The biggest news of all time was hidden and remains hidden from the self-important world. As Darrel Bock puts it, “The tone of the setting of Jesus’ birth matches the tone of his ministry. The great God of heaven sends the gift of salvation to humans in a serene unadorned package of simplicity.”
Now this virgin birth requires a virgin; verse 27 tells us, “the virgin’s name was Mary.” This inclusion of Mary’s virginity isn’t primarily about morality. It is a reference to the fact that she hadn’t been intimate with a man and therefore it was impossible for her to be pregnant. When describing superstar John’s parents, Luke focused on their virtue. He described them as, “righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly.” Now we will see that Mary was indeed devout, but we see that by the way she responded to the word of God, not by this focus on her virginity.
I say this because humans have a strange way of putting people on pedestals, and we religious people have a very strange way of putting religious figures on pedestals. We see this, perhaps at its worst, in the way people think of the virgin Mary. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that Mary was free from original sin. They read verse 28, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you,” as “full of grace” rather than “highly favored.” They take that to mean Mary was a unique specimen of holiness. You see how this plays out in their use of this angel’s greeting as a prayer, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed are thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” That’s the beginning of the Hail Mary, which ends, “Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”
Mary can’t help you in death. She can’t help you in life. She isn’t any different from you. She was highly favored because, and only because, she was chosen by God just like Abraham was—by grace. As Darrel Bock put it, “Mary is about to receive freely the special favor of God. She is a picture of those who receive God’s grace on the basis of His kind initiative.”
Don’t set the virgin Mary on a pedestal. Instead, ask yourself if you too have received God’s grace on the basis of His kind initiative. Ask yourself if have been highly favored by being chosen by God. Ask yourself if God is with you. He can be. Why do you think most of us are here this morning? We are here because God is with us and we want to be with Him.
Mary knew this favor was undeserved; verse 29, “Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.” Can you imagine it reading, ‘Mary nodded in agreement with the angel’s words and said, “yep, that’s me—the only sinless one around”’? Mary’s response was simply the outworking of who she was. This was no sacred show. She was humble. Humble people respond humbly.
Mary was troubled because she knew that she was nothing special and yet the angel had told her that she was chosen by God. Being chosen by God will change everything about you. Only beginners think that being chosen by God is about being special. The more mature know it is usually about fear and trembling. As Calvin put it, “Let us always remember—what arises from the weakness of the flesh—that, whenever the feeblest ray of the Divine glory bursts upon us, we cannot avoid being alarmed. When we become aware, in good earnest, of the presence of God, we cannot think of it apart from its effects.” You know this if you hear God’s word as a willing servant and not as a consumer looking for what you think you need.
The angel told Mary not to be afraid. He explained why she shouldn’t be afraid by detailing what God was doing; verse 31, “you will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.” Jesus, or Joshua, means “the Lord saves.” Mary didn’t pick that name. God picked that name. This is all about what God was doing.
The angel told Mary that Jesus would be great. This language of “great” is likely a reference to Micah 5:4, “He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth.” That’s the greatness of Jesus. You might be more familiar with Micah 5:4 from what comes before, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”
This was Davidic language—language about the line of king David. You see this clearly in what comes next in verse 32, “The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.” This is why, in verse 27, we were told that Mary was engaged to Joseph who was from the line of David. God had promised David that he would always have a son on the throne. There was no son of David on the throne in Mary’s day and there hadn’t been for hundreds of years. This was the announcement of the return of the king; verse 33, “he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.” This kingdom would never end because the king would never die. This king would be as human as David and as eternal as God. This is Isaiah’s announcement, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
You need to ask yourself if this son of David is your king. If you’ve been reading the New Testament this year, you know what it means to enter his kingdom. You know all about the kingdom of God. If you haven’t read the New Testament this year, reading plans are still available. You can pick up your Bible at any time.
Mary doubtlessly picked up on the Davidic language in the angel’s words. She grew up waiting for the Christ. However, she didn’t yet understand the fully God, fully man aspect of it. She didn’t grasp the incarnation. She didn’t see what her virginity had to do with the birth of this child. We see that in our second point: the power of the Most High.
We don’t know how old Mary was in this passage, but it is safe to say that she was much younger than most brides in our culture. Remember that when you see her maturity. Since, as we’ve seen, Mary wasn’t a unique specimen of holiness, we would do well to ask ourselves if we see or expect such maturity by way of obedience in our young people. What’s setting our expectations for the youth of this church—young people in Scripture or young people in the culture?
Mary had a question for the angel; verse 34, ‘“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”’ Mary literally asked, “how will this be since I do not know a man?” Now Mary knew men. She knew her father. She knew her uncles. She had seen these creatures we call men puttering about in their natural habitats, but she didn’t “know a man.” The word “know” is often used as a euphemism for sexual intimacy and, as we will see in the new year, it is a very apt euphemism. Sex involves knowing and being known, or at least it should.
Mary wanted to know how she could conceive this child since she had not known a man. What’s interesting in the angel’s response and the subsequent text is that there is no experiential language. There is no word about what this conception would feel like. The focus here was not on the how, but on the who; verse 35, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”
This was all about God. This same language of overshadow was used again in the gospel of Luke to describe the cloud that overshadowed the Mount of Transfiguration when Jesus’ glory was revealed. This was almost certainly the same glory cloud that descended on the temple when Solomon dedicated it and that left the temple when Ezekiel foresaw its destruction because of sin. This was a manifestation of God among us.
The angel pointed Mary to the presence of God. The virgin would conceive because God works among us. As Calvin put it, “the angel does not explain the manner, so as to satisfy curiosity, which there was no necessity for doing. He only leads the virgin to contemplate the power of the Holy Spirit, and to surrender herself silently and calmly to His guidance.”
The focus was on the power of God and so, we are told in verse 35, “the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” Now if this were the gospel of John, this “Son of God” title would push us to focus on the fact that Jesus, as the Son, was just like his Father. Since this is the gospel of Luke, we must use the title as Luke uses it, which is as a reference to the Davidic king, à la the coronation Psalm, Psalm 2, “you are my son; today I have become your father. Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.” We need to let that speak. We need to use that title. This is about the Davidic king.
The virgin birth tells us that this Davidic king is not only fully a son of David but also fully God. Now this is just one place where you see God’s genius because why did God ever set a Davidic king on the throne? If you’ve read your Old Testament, like we are going to start doing next year, you know that Israel didn’t always have a human king. Before the monarchy, the Scriptures make clear that God was their king. Israel rejected God as their king telling Samuel, “appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.” That’s what eventually led to the Davidic kings. So people wanted these human kings rather than having God as their king, and now we find God giving them a human king who is also God. God gives them what they want, but in the end he makes clear that what they want must be Him. ‘You want a human king? I’ll become human.’ That is the long-suffering love of God. That’s the God you meet at Christmas.
This idea of a virgin having a baby was hard to accept so the angel gave Mary a sign. Mary’s relative Elizabeth, who was thought to be barren, was in her sixth month. In other words, the miraculous birth of John was a sign that Jesus would be born. Now we just spent weeks studying barren wombs. Of course, Mary’s womb was even less likely to bear a child than Sarah’s or Abraham’s, which is why we get verse 37, “for nothing is impossible with God.”
Remember, the message of the birth of Isaac was that nothing is impossible with God. The message of the birth of John is that nothing is impossible with God. The message of the virgin birth is that nothing is impossible with God. That’s one of the central messages of Scripture provided that you think in terms of promises and not wishes. As Calvin warns, “it is idle, and unprofitable, and even dangerous to argue what God can do unless we also take into account what He resolves to do.” Don’t think about wishes. Think about promises; they gave us Jesus.
Mary believed the promises. She believed that God would do whatever He resolved to do. That’s what’s going on in verse 38, ‘“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.”’ That was the end of the discussion in Mary’s mind, “God said it. That settles it.”
Now do you think Mary could have come up with any more questions about what was going to happen to her? I’m sure she could have come up with a thousand very understandable questions—what about Joseph? What about my parents? What about money? What about my reputation. She didn’t. She didn’t because she recognized that the word that God had given her was sufficient. What more could she have wanted said? That’s a test for how you respond to the word of God too. “What more can He say that to you He has said—to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?”
So that’s the announcement of the virgin birth—not a birth of natural descent, not of human decision, or of a husband’s will, but born of God. Now is that how you were born? Were you born not of natural descent, not of human decision, of a husband’s will, but born of God? You might be thinking, “of course not. We are studying it because it’s unique.” It’s not completely unique. That’s actually a description of how every one of God’s children has been born. “Not of natural descent, of human decision, of a husband’s will, but born of God,” wasn’t originally a description of the virgin birth. It was a description of true faith. “To all who did receive [Jesus], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”
The virgin birth and the new birth aren’t all that different. If you’ve experienced the new birth, you won’t find the virgin birth beyond belief because you’ve experienced something similar. You and Mary have both experienced what the Christmas carol speaks of, “where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.” Amen.