Speaker Justin Bradury

 

I like being prepared. I was brought up to make lists. Before I flew off to New York on a mad 48-hour trip to see my great friend, Tyler Slade, get ordained, I wrote reminder lists of what needed to be done and packed. A list makes me feel safe; it contains the potentially unmanageable strands of my life.

Mary prepared to make the journey, but she was being prepared well in advance of her receiving news from the angel Gabriel. 

Steve spoke two weeks ago about Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, and husband of Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin. God wanted to prepare Zechariah for the news of John the Baptist, his son’s arrival. But Zechariah was doubtful of the message he was hearing, so he was struck dumb. I have been speechless for a few days and it is an unnerving, unsettling experience. One cannot offer explanation; a sense of powerlessness and isolation comes with a lack of words. 

Contrast Zechariah’s doubt and lack of speech with Mary. She has an angelic visit like Zechariah’s yet she is not left speechless. Zechariah asks for certainty; Mary wonders how what is to happen will actually happen. She asks how something beyond her human, natural understanding is to come about. You would have thought that Zechariah would have been more used to the supernatural workings of God. After all, he was a priest serving in the Temple of God. Surely that was a good training ground for being open to God? Well, the sad answer is that Zechariah appears to have known the theory, but was slow to accept the reality of God’s sovereign power. How easy it is to see the natural as all there is, to go through the seemingly predictable daily motions, to repeat the words and ritual practices, and yet fail to realize the character of God.

God is mighty; His presence is unapproachable light. From that mighty presence the angel Gabriel comes, sent to deliver messages of eternal importance to Zechariah and Mary. At his arrival Zechariah’s response is typical of many: he is gripped with fear. Mary, however, is not described as fearful of Gabriel’s presence, but is troubled by his words. She, it seems, sees and believes; it is the manner of the greeting, the unworthiness of the object of God’s favour (herself) which troubles her. How could she deserve this divine attention?

So what made Mary more willing to accept the message than Zechariah? Do you recall that story in the press a few years back, that scientists were discussing a possible God-gene - a gene which may predispose one person to be more open to God than another? As an idea, it didn’t go very far; after all, you can’t reduce God’s creative work to a single common denominator. 

I am often asked, by those who are curious as to why I am a priest, whether I have always been religious. The answer is that I have grown in an awareness of God. I am made – we are all made – for relationship with the God and Father who made us. Some scientists may argue that some of us may be genetically predisposed to believe, but I believe we are all hardwired to be loved by the Maker of the universe, and in time to choose to return that love, or not. 

Life is about change; living things change. Immediate transformation is not often our experience. How many times have you heard it said that the latest celebrity is an overnight success? No effort required; the star has star quality. Mary was ready to receive the good news; to receive the Son of God into herself – literally. This was not an immediate decision on her part, I am sure. I feel she spent a lot of time saying yes to God. Faithful in the small things she could, eventually, be entrusted with this great matter. So often, we can look at the supposedly glamorous, kudos-laden, jobs and want to be there on the big stage as the international speaker rather than the one who cleans to church loos. We can look at the supermodel or sports hero and expect to look the same after just one week’s dieting and exercise. But my understanding is that God wants us to be integrally changed, inside and out, and that involves a process of sanctification. Holiness does not come overnight. Mary made a habit of being open to God, available in the humble, little things. Mary was ready for the greatness of God.

God certainly showed His favour in choosing Mary, but Mary had been brought up by earthly parents who, presumably, taught her to choose to love and serve God. God did not choose a high-born princess, He chose to have His Son raised by a teenage mum. It has nothing to do with kingly status and everything to do with using the ordinary, everyday. God wants to be understood and so He chooses to use Mary. She is not learned, that she might counter God’s request with a clever philosophy. She is not wealthy that she might be distracted by the cares of this life more than pursuing God’s will for her life and the life of the world. No, I imagine Mary to have been someone of simple trust. A trust which grew over time.

I wonder, have you ever met anyone who is without guile, who has no shrewd ability to present themself in a good light? They are as they are, and they do not play games with others’ lives. I meet very few people like this, but when I do, I recognize something of God at their core. There is no deceit in them; truth is what they desire. Mary desired truth. She was ready to receive Jesus, Truth personified. Mary was prepared to receive ridicule and scorn as a pregnant, unmarried mother. Mary was prepared to be scandalous; her reputation was not more important than God’s will. She was ready to give up everything, even her good name, to be God’s servant first. Mary made room for God.

But Mary does not get the fully formed Son of God. She is asked to wait; the child will grow in her womb. She had been prepared to trust that she is, in fact, bearing the True Saviour. But confirmation comes as she enters her cousin, Elizabeth’s house. There is something different about both these women. Elizabeth had waited for her long, longed-for child. In waiting Elizabeth had been prepared for pregnancy. But I’m not sure how easy the wait was. 

You see, Elizabeth and Zechariah knew shame in their childlessness. To be childless was a scandal in ancient times; people assumed it was a punishment from God. Yet the Bible never lays blame on the childless couple. Such couples are always portrayed as innocent and loved by God.

God had prepared these two women, Elizabeth and Mary, and they had played their part in the preparation. They were ready to trust God and give way to Him. Elizabeth confirms Gabriel’s message. And she is not hesitant in bearing witness to the truth. Elizabeth shouts it out. The Holy Spirit fills her and she cannot contain the excitement. She recognizes the presence of God, and her own child in her womb, John the Baptist, jumps for joy, too.

Somehow, miraculously, Mary is holding God. God who fills heaven and earth is contained within this teenager. This is no everyday meeting; Mary and Elizabeth are changed beyond recognition. God has come close to Elizabeth and is dwelling in Mary. The Maker of all things is living in one of His own created beings. The transcendent God is now imminent; He is in our midst, in our own form. Spirit is now being made into bodily form. What is holy has become humble.

The presence of God is now to be directly available to all people. God is moving into the neighbourhood. He is tabernacling with us; camping out with us. No longer living in inapproachable light, no longer invisible, Jesus is to be seen and believed. He is to be tangible. No wonder, even at this unrevealed point, still contained within His mother, Mary’s womb, Jesus is acknowledged as Lord by Elizabeth. The moment is not lost on her. Elizabeth knows that, just as Mary herself has found favour with God, she, too, is being favoured as God comes to her in Mary.

So, where does that leave us? How ready are you to be favoured by God? God wants to bless us. Fact. But we can put ourselves outside of His blessing through unbelief, and other forms of disobedience. We can choose to be filled with what is unhealthy and unhelpful or we can pursue and think on “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable…” (Philippians 4:8) We need to be ready. We need to make room for God by rejecting the short-sighted, short-lived promises of this life. God’s blessing will only be partial if we only give ourselves partially to God.

Mary shows us that by habitually saying yes to God, in the small things, we shall show ourselves to be ready for even more acts of loving service and, maybe, even greater kingdom work. Like Paul, may we consider it a gift to be, “granted not only to believe on Jesus, but to suffer for Him,” too. (Philippians 1:29) Even the pain of suffering with Christ.

In going back to Scripture and taking God at His word, in living lives with eyes fixed on Jesus, and led by the Spirit, we shall be changed. We shall transformed by the renewing of our minds, if we continually say yes to God.