Mary above all her sex but not a co-redeemer

Our reading this morning is taken from Luke chapter 1 beginning at verse 26 to verse 56. Chapter 1 of Luke, verse 26 to 56. 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 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. Be it to me as you have said. Then the angel left her.

At that time, Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leapt in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear.

But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leapt for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished. 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 innermost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones and has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things and has sent the rich empty away. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers. Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.

May God bless that reading of his holy word. Will you join me now in prayer for a moment or two? Father, we bless you this morning for the wonderful account of how you sent the Lord Jesus Christ to be born of a virgin in a humble stable in a tiny village in the land of Israel. We bless you for your greatness.

We bless you for your goodness. We bless you for these two miracles that took place at this particular time. And we want this morning to again ask you that you will bring the miracle of the Christmas story in a new way to life for each and every one of us, that we might wonder again at this miraculous happening of your Son coming to our earth as our Savior.

Thank you for your love. Thank you for your goodness. Thank you for your compassion.

Receive our thanks. Receive our worship. Receive our praise this morning.

Thank you for Christmas. Grant that in all the festivity and rushing about, we might not miss the secret, the center of Christmas, the celebration of the Christ child coming to earth to us and for us. Accept our thanks in the precious name of Jesus.

Amen. Thank you. Muriel helps us in our pastoring and counseling ministries at the TAB and we're so grateful to the Lord for what she and her colleague Susan Huggett do.

Susan's husband wasn't very well during the week. He had an accident and got fairly badly burnt, but he's doing okay now. And Dorothy Stoner, who many of you will know, she's still hanging in in hospital.

She's in intensive care, needs our prayers. I don't think her condition is life-threatening, but it is very serious, or else obviously she wouldn't be there. Nice to see Brian and Sheila with us this morning.

Good to have your presence here at the TAB. Brian was one of our elders for quite a number of years. Now, that delightfully read reading, I'm going to supplement it by taking you to the 11th chapter of Luke's Gospel.

The 11th chapter of Luke's Gospel. You know, there are some scriptures which are like porcelain, and you need to handle them with care. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and it's profitable and should be used in public worship, and explained in public.

But there are some scriptures which need delicacy, where the preacher has to avoid being coy, and he must shun being crude. Otherwise, he will coarsen what is actually very beautiful. Well, here is one of the most intimate, delicate verses of scripture that has a backward reference to the nativity.

I've never preached on it, but this morning, with God's help, I want to share some thoughts. Our Lord is engaged in preaching, and as he's preaching, there's a number of people in the crowd, not just his disciples. One was a woman, and so impressed was she by what the Lord Jesus had to say, that she called out, she interrupted.

Verse 27 gives us the context and the response. As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, blessed is the mother who gave you birth, and nursed you. Let me give you that more literally.

Blessed is the womb that carried you, and the breasts at which you nursed. Jesus commented, even more blessed are those who hear God's word, and guard it with their lives. Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God, and obey it.

The picture in front of you is one that's familiar in any Indian railway station, and any African village. It's that of a mother, and then folded in her arms is her child, and unblushingly she feeds her little boy, her little girl. And this woman who had been listening to our Lord Jesus, possibly a mother herself, maybe she thought, if he had been my boy, how proud would I have been of him.

And so she utters this very natural, but very delicate comment, most shocking and yet appropriate from a woman addressed to a man. Blessed is the woman that carried you, and the breasts at which you were nursed. To whom does the text refer in terms of the child? And the answer is obvious, the Lord Jesus.

To whom does it refer in terms of the mother? And again, no prize for the answers, the kids who come here on Wednesday night, hundreds of them from Broadwater Manor School, they'd be able to answer if I put that question to them. Mary the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ. There's nothing so weak and there's nothing so vulnerable, is there, as a little child.

Of all the species, the human child, the human youngster is the most weak, the most dependable. A mare will drop its fold, a cow will drop its calf, the puppies born from the bitch, the lambs that come from the mother ewe, they, within a matter of minutes, they're on their feet. There's nothing more wonderful than to see the spindly legs of a young horse as it scampers.

Nothing more delightful than on the downs to watch a little lamb as, with the grace of life intoxicated, he or she springs and does a dance. Within a matter of hours, they're mobile. Yet, young Josh Turnbull, who was with me taking theological lessons last Wednesday, I mean, he is so backward that when his mom and dad saw him start to actually walk on two feet in our lounge, you would have thought that it was as great an event as when Christopher Columbus discovered America.

I mean, what are the Turnbulls doing? Why isn't the child into marathons already? Why is he so dependable? And the answer is that a little child, male or female, is utterly dependable, utterly dependent on mom. That's the reason why so many of us were very concerned about the little baby that went missing, Carrie Hawthorne, last week, and there wasn't a mother in the country whose heart didn't go out to the lady whose baby had been stolen from her from a hospital, if you please. Now here, my text gives a backward glance on the nativity scene.

And you are to think about Mary having Jesus in her arms. Jesus, who made the earth and the skies now confined to a span of about two feet. The Lord Jesus Christ, God, contracted to a span.

John puts it theologically. He says of God calling him the Word, the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us. The Apostle Paul speaks of the little baby and he says God was manifest in the flesh.

And this lady, not understanding anything of the background, presumably of the birth of Jesus, if Mary had been present, she would have triggered her recall, blessed. Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and at whose breasts you were nursed. Let me give you three things that I'd like you to concentrate on from this and we'll take them straight away on the overhead and switch off and then come back right at the end.

If Mary had been there, Mary, this remarkable lady, then she might have had her memory triggered to the extent that she remembered her confinement. A confinement that caused a rippled reaction. Blessed is the mother that carried you.

When Mary became pregnant, the reactions were as rippled almost by comparison as the fire at Heathrow which was stopping the traffic in Cape Town's airport down on the tip of South Africa. When Mary carried Jesus in the womb, there was a rippled reaction. Mary might have thought of that had she been eavesdropping on this conversation between some unknown woman and her now mature son.

What is more, she might have thought of the suckling that was hers that was being spanned by what I've called the bridge of pain. The references to the breasts that nurse Jesus. Even the Apostle Paul who possibly had not been a married man will use the concept of labor pain sometimes to get across his teaching.

He knows that when a child is born, there is pain experienced by the woman. But place the child to your breast, that fragile, delicate act of the child feeding although we men don't understand it. We're told that all the pain has gone in terms of just an unpleasant memory displaced by the joy of feeding the baby.

But for Mary at the end and not just at the beginning of the life of Jesus, there would be pain. But then our Lord, when he identifies with the sentiments of this lady and he acknowledges what she's saying, by way of contrast he teaches her another lesson and he makes a comparison which I argue fine tunes our doctrine, which fine tunes our understanding of Mary. Blessed? Blessed more than the privilege of being my mother is that experience whereby a man who hears the word of God from me obeys it.

You can switch off now. Let's just try to unpack this little structure that I've set up from this text. Here is Mary, a confinement that caused a ripple reaction.

There was astonishment, there was scandal and there was unnecessary honor when Jesus was conceived in her womb. Astonishment? Behold, a virgin shall conceive, Isaiah 8. Matthew picks that up and he uses that scripture when he's talking of Mary. Virgins don't conceive.

It's a logical impossibility. If you have conceived, you are not a virgin. But this is the uniqueness of Mary.

Do you remember some of you who were present a little while ago at an address when I was preaching one Sunday night? I told you about a little girl who was always sucking her thumb and her mom wanted her to stop sucking her thumb. She said, if you continue to suck your thumb you'll take so much air into you that your tummy will come out big. And a little later, some days later, this little girl bumps into her mom's closest female friend who's expecting a baby.

And the little girl says, I know what you've been doing. A virgin shall conceive. There is only one way in which conception comes about.

Through the mother and through the father coming together. No one is more surprised than Mary when the news is brought to her that she shall be the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ. But the astonishment gives way to scandal.

You see, Nazareth probably only has 200 people in it in those days. Now if news spread quickly of the fire that he throw, even more quickly would the rumor spread in Nazareth that this girl, Mary, can you believe it? Mary, the child. Scandal.

And the man who's going to be her husband, he gets to know and he may not understand indeed, the evidence is that he doesn't. She's packed off, that's what they did in Victorian times. Scandal in the house, move them away, take them out of the public gaze for a while.

And so she's off to Elizabeth, relatives conveniently living in the south where the scandal has not permeated. And if ever the mother whose womb is being filled by the growing child needed affirmation, it's Mary, can you think of that girlish? For possibly she was no more than a mid-teenager. She makes that hundred mile journey on her own.

No companion, no Muriel to talk to, no Susan to get counsel. These things didn't exist, at least not in terms of trained ministries in those days. And when Elizabeth sees Mary, she, even though she's an older lady, has found herself too miraculously, though not quite as miraculously as Mary to be with child, she comes to Mary and she acknowledges Mary's great faith.

Blessed, blessed are you Mary. For what reason? Well because you believed. Blessed are you Mary because you accept that what God has said he will do.

Blessed are you Mary because you're the mother of the Lord and you've come to grace our house. A woman said to Jesus, blessed is the mother who gave you birth. And had Mary been around, she would have remembered the time when her womb was quickened and the chain reaction, the ripple reaction through the village to Joseph and eventually to Elizabeth made itself felt.

You know my friends, Mary will teach you this, that whatever God determines for you is right. And even as sometimes you go through a puzzling experience, not everyone is sympathetic. God will eventually justify what he has done in you.

Mary has no need to be afraid for her reputation. It's intact within the sovereignty of the purposes of the Lord God of Israel. A confinement that caused a rippled reaction.

Listen to Mary as she rejoices because of what Mary, because of what her cousin Elizabeth has said. I'm bursting with good news. I'm dancing the song of my savior God.

God took one good look at me and look what's happened. I'm the most fortunate woman on earth. What God has done for me will never be forgotten.

The God whose very name is holy set apart from all others. His mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him. He bared his arm and showed his strength.

Scattered the bluffing braggarts. He knocked tyrants off their high horses. Pulled victims out of the mud.

The starving poor sat down to a banquet. The callous rich were left out in the cold. He embraced his chosen children Israel.

He remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high. It's exactly what he promised beginning with Abraham and right up to now. Magnificat put in modern language.

Mary rejoicing because of what God has done is doing through her. But not just a confinement that caused a rippled reaction. Here is a suckling spanned by the bridge of pain.

The breast that you were nursed at, says this woman, the woman who had those is blessed indeed. You ever think about Jesus and his mother's breast? Listen to Jim Packer, not the most romantic theologian, but one of the most accurate and spiritual men that the Anglican church have had this century. He says, the divine son became a Jew.

The almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human babe, unable to do no more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. A suckling spanned by pain.

I mentioned the pain that women have at childbirth. But the pain, we're told, goes when the youngster or youngsters are born. But with Mary, who really is out front amongst all women kind? The pain does not finish at birth.

You see, there's a man with prophetic gifting. His name is Simeon. And some weeks after the birth of Jesus, he takes the child from Mary.

Maybe Mary had been actually feeding him in the company of Simeon, for in those days, and in the Asia and Africa, as I've mentioned, that's quite socially acceptable. Maybe from the breasts of Mary, Simeon takes the child in his arms, and he utters that beautiful prayer that we call the nunc dimittis. Lord, now let us all thy servant depart in peace, for he's an old man.

Mine eyes have seen thy salvation. But Mary is told that the day will come when that child, no longer an infant that caused pain at birth, will be a fully grown, mature man. And in the height of his manhood, he will pay Mary to the extent that the pain at birth will go into insignificance.

A sword will cut through you as you see him who you love die. A mother is always a mother. Jesus, in one sense, was always Mary's child.

A man in his 60s is still a child as far as his mother is concerned. Maternity, it straddles the whole compass of the child's life. And Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus, knows a bridging of pain at the beginning and at the end.

Miriam, from whom Mary derives her name, for Mary is a derivative of Miriam, was the Old Testament daughter who looked after her brother, Moses, who too was the potential victim of an ethnic cleansing policy. And as Moses was looked after by Miriam in a little tributary in Egypt, so Mary takes the young Jesus to her breast, climbs on a donkey, and carefully protects him to Egypt, then back to Nazareth, and then is with him from time to time, punctuating his ministry by visits during his earthly, mature life of ministry. Blessed then, Jesus, this mother of yours, she is so wonderful, so blessed, oh Jesus, I wish that I had been, dare I say it.

And the Lord Jesus says, you're right and you're wrong. Blessed rather, by comparison, than being my mother, is the action from any individual, man or woman, who obeys what I say and believes what I teach. The death of Diana, Princess of Wales, has helped us all to understand what we mean by myth-making.

Another woman I respect died some days later, Mother Teresa. She and I are poles apart in certain aspects of theology, but I honor the woman for her life and what she achieved. Teresa is on the fast track to being a saint.

Generally it takes 200 years for the Catholic Church to make saints. I'm not speaking critically, I'm speaking objectively. The British working-class, ordinary middle-class person is not as patient as Catholics are in terms of Vatican promulgations.

And we've already had reports of nativity scenes with the likeness of Diana in the place of Mary, on the tabloids ran a picture last week. As though to be Mary, as though to be Diana, is to mount to a position of womanhood, which makes that position so very wonderful it almost vies for a place on the Godhead. And indeed, there is a movement on within the Catholic Church to have Mary pronounced as a co-redeemer with our Lord Jesus.

And what it really is, is the peak of the myth-making process. What you have in the Scripture regarding Mary is very scant information. Mark's Gospel, only two references.

John's Gospel, only two references. And one of the references in Mark's Gospel is almost puzzling as though Jesus is distancing himself from his mother. He's preaching and some people come along and they say, don't you know that your mum and your brothers and your sister, they're in the crowd? And Jesus said, who is my mother? Who are my family? Then he points to the people who are in front of him and says, those who do what I say and believe what I teach, they are my mother, they are my brothers, they are my sisters.

So you see, as I bring this meditation to a conclusion, what we are learning this morning is that though Mary was a remarkable woman, beyond any other in terms of spirituality, blessed art thou amongst women, alone in all her sex, above all her sex, one whose fidelity to the cause of God was breathtaking to the extent that she, a virgin, should conceive by divine fiat. Nonetheless, she had, as Derek so brilliantly brought out the kids, to confess that Jesus was her saviour, to confess that God in his saving purposes had sent her son into the world. And what you get in the ministry of Jesus as the story unfolds is his discreet distancing of himself from Mary and the final committal is for Mary to be taken by John and John to play the part of a son to Mary and Mary to look upon John for John to take Mary as his mother and Mary to look upon John as his son.

For Mary the wonderful is not on the same plane as the Lord Jesus. Heap on her all honour. I love that woman.

But she's not a second Eve. She's not a quartet to extend the Trinity by the addition of another member. She is Mary, the wonderful, spiritual, faithful mother of our Lord Jesus who needed to accept who he was to believe what he said and to confess what he, what she believed about him.

The ABC of faith. Put the overhead back on again, please. Mary, above all her sex, blessed is the woman in whose womb you were placed and that would have triggered had Mary been present in her memory that confinement which caused a ripple reaction in Nazareth and elsewhere.

Blessed are the breasts that you exposed to satisfy the hunger of your child and that would have reminded Mary of a suckling that was being spanned by the bridge of pain which would reach its height months later when Jesus was on the cross. And our Lord's response, blessed are those who obey and do what I teach and say. A comparison which fine tunes our doctrine our understanding of Mary a wonderful woman who gave birth to a glorious son that he and he alone is the Redeemer.

Let's listen to the Magnificant being played and I can ask Sue if she'll sing it for us and then the men will take this bread and wine which reminds us of the death of our Lord his body and his blood broken and shed we're going to take and eat in remembrance of him and in thankfulness to God for our salvation. I'll sing it through once and then join me on the repeat. Mighty hath done great things and holy is his name my soul doth magnify the Lord my soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior for he that is mighty hath done great things and holy is his name my soul doth magnify the Lord my soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior for he that is mighty hath done great things We'll take that repeat again.

my soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior for he that is mighty I'm bursting with God news I'm dancing the song of my Savior God took one good look at me and look what happened I'm the most fortunate woman on earth what God has done for me will never be forgotten the God whose very name is holy set apart from all others so we, we're bursting with God news we're dancing the song of our Savior we've accepted we've believed we've confessed God has taken one good look at us and look what's happened we're amongst the most fortunate people on earth what God has done for us will never be forgotten the God whose very name is holy set apart from all others it's exactly what he promised beginning with Abraham and right up to now for unto our year is born 697 let's read out together the first verse and Sue come and help us sing the second to the fifth if you need to collect your boys and girls then do so we've got a little bit of prayer that we need to offer for two very precious people in just a moment or two at the end of this hymn 697 reading out together the first verse which speaks about Mary's child thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly crown when thou camest to earth for me but in Bethlehem's home was there found no room for thy holy nativity oh come to my heart Lord Jesus there is room in my heart for thee receive your glasses as you sing as well for thou camest before me oh Jesus help me and I shall sing so if you accept what Mary accepted you believe what Mary believed you confess what Mary confessed then our Lord Jesus says to you that spiritually your position is actually higher than was the privilege of Mary's in bringing him into the world if Jesus hadn't said that you wouldn't believe it neither would I it's mind-blowing but thank God for it we're asked to pray for Betty Phoeben some of you will remember her sister who was with us for many years she has a malignant condition an operation is pending on Thursday Martin Rolfe's brother-in-law a man in his forties had a heart attack serving with the Royal Navy down in the Falklands Island and has gone into the presence of his maker we need to pray for his wife and his young family be seated please be seated as I pray Father we bring these requests to you we thank you that in the the fragility of life all its chopping and changes not controllable by us not controllable by politicians but still within the compass of your sovereignty you work things out pray for Betty we thank you for her many of us remember her and love her commit her and her dear husband to you the Rolfe family with this devastating news of the father taken in the prime of his life Lord be with his dear wife we pray and the children we bring them to you and to your grace pray too for our dear friend Dorothy Stoner be with her and undertake for her grant peace to Judith and Hillary in these vexing circumstances Father again we thank you for your goodness to us we praise you for the marvel of the message this morning not in terms of what was preached in my performance but in terms of the truth that was contained that blessed are we even greater than Mary who have believed and accepted what Jesus came to teach and to do Father we accept we believe we confess thank you for the privilege that is ours of being part of the divine family circle Amen thanks for coming this morning do hope you'll come this evening the candles are not because we've gone liturgical though I've got no problem with candles they help to warm us a little bit more on a cold evening as well as give some light we have a carol by candlelight service we're bringing at incredible expense Eric Harmer over from from Brighton he's going to preach on what I really really want for Christmas nothing to do with the Spice Girls you'll be glad to hear we'd like you to take notes and news read through our program this coming week and if you can be with us on Thursday for the special service we've got here mid-morning with my friend Fiona Castle taking part then we'd be glad to have you in attendance thanks for coming this morning good morning, God bless you