Mary

Good morning, Church.

This morning's reading is from Matthew one.

And after the deportation to Babylon, Jechaniah was the father of Sheltiel, and Sheltiel the father of Zarubbabel, and Zarubabel the father of Abed, and Abed the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azar the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliad, and Eliad the father of Eliasar, and Eliazar the father of Mathan, and Mathan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.

So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ, fourteen generations.

This is the worst the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Merry Christmas.

Welcome to church this morning.

Thank you for joining us.

What a lovely snow-covered Christmas Eve morning we got to wake up to.

That is a joyous thing.

A reminder this evening, we're also gathering at 4.30 for our candlelight service, which will be a whole other sermon.

Twice as long.

So yeah, that's at 4.30 uh this evening that we'll gather for that.

Before I get into today's text and we uh and we uh bring to completion this this walkthrough Matthew's genealogy that we've been moving through for the Advent season, let's pray.

Holy Father, we thank you for the snow that falls exactly as you intend as you intend it to.

And like your word, it is perfectly effective.

There is not a place that it falls that is not watered, and Lord, your word is sent out and accomplishes all that you intended to.

We praise you that your word is still effective.

As effective as it was when you called existence from nothing at the creation of the world by the power of your word.

Still your word upholds the world.

Lord, we praise you that this Christmas Eve morning we are brought into focus together as a church on the wonder of your incarnation and the glory that is manifest in you as you sought us who fled from you and turned on you, and you brought us back to you by great sacrifice.

Lord, we praise you for that.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So yeah, this is I guess the final uh time of our of our Advent series, and we've been spending this time of Advent in the genealogy of Matthew.

And in Matthew begins his gospel with a genealogy, and what's what's interesting about this genealogy, of course, there's a number of things that are interesting about it, but the thread that we've picked up that's interesting about this genealogy is that there are four women included in the genealogy of Matthew.

And it interrupts the flow of the genealogy.

Is there's this repeated refrain of was the father of, was the father of, was the father of, and then four times there's this interruption to introduce one of the four women that Matthew includes.

And we looked at the sort of uniting characteristics of these four women's stories and how Jesus brings their stories into his story by their inclusion in his genealogy.

Now, the the shock of this genealogy is, of course, that it ends in Christ.

And what that means is that the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, who is eternal, who has no beginning and no end, takes on all aspects of humanity, such that he even takes on something that we all have.

We all have a genealogy.

We all have a lineage.

People are where people come from.

And so you are all born into a story, one that's been happening.

And Christ Himself, in taking on flesh and becoming fully man, he takes on a lineage.

So that the one who has no beginning and no end takes into his own story an origin story, something deeply human, a lineage.

And as we look through his lineage and we saw the inclusion of the people in it, you see that there are flaws and inconsistencies and dangers that took place amid his genealogy, and he takes all of those into his story as he enters it fully.

But there is, of course, not just four women in the genealogy.

There's a fifth.

And the fifth is who we are looking at this morning.

At the end of the genealogy, there is Mary.

And we see that same sort of interruption of the flow of the genealogy as Matthew lulls us into the rhythm of was the father of, was the father of, was the father of.

And then finally, in verse 16 of chapter 1, we read this.

In Jacob, the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Christ.

Now Joseph is, of course, not called the father of Jesus, because he is not the father of Jesus.

Jesus is born of a virgin, and he takes as his father directly the Lord.

And you can see that the genealogy makes this shift in the text to the emphasis not being on the father of, or, but it becomes Joseph is the husband of Mary.

That's where he finds his importance in the genealogy.

But the shift, the emphasis, lies on Mary herself.

Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Christ.

So this morning we are going to talk about Mary.

When Eve sinned in the garden, it was because she was deceived by the serpent who came in.

And her husband, Adam, stood close by, and her husband was the one who was given by God the instruction to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

When that instruction was given to Adam, Eve's husband, Eve had not yet been created.

And so it was the responsibility of Adam, who'd been given this instruction, to share this with his wife Eve, and to take responsibility for her obedience to it.

Eve is deceived by the serpent while Adam stands by and does nothing to intervene.

And then once Eve sins against God by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, having been deceived by the serpent, Adam has a choice to make.

And Adam chooses to sin alongside his wife rather than remain obedient to God.

Now that means that Adam and Eve are both brought under the dominion of that crafty serp serpent.

They are both brought under the dominion of Satan.

Now, why is that?

Well, it's it's very simple.

They became obedient to Satan.

And in their obedience to him, they treat him as though he were their Lord.

So that means that Satan gains dominion over all the dominion that belonged to Adam and Eve.

And what is the dominion of Adam and Eve that they were given?

It is all creation.

They were given the task by God to take dominion over all creation, to rule it and to keep it, so that all the wilderness might one day be as glorious as a garden.

But since Satan now ruled over the hearts of Adam and Eve, he also rules over all that was in their dominion.

So Satan takes dominion of the world.

Now, when an enemy force occupies the land that belongs to you and occupies yourself in that land, then your freedom and the destruction of that enemy are the same thing.

If that enemy who occupies you is destroyed, then you are set free.

But so long as that enemy remains, then you are under his dominion.

And that is why the very promise of freedom which God gives to Eve takes place in the curse that God lays on the serpent.

So when God curses the serpent, in Genesis chapter 3, he says this, Genesis 3.15, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

And there's a promise here.

Someone will come who will crush the serpent.

And the one who will come that will crush the serpent, and therefore set Adam and Eve free from his dominion is one who will come as the seed of the woman.

Who will come from this woman, Eve.

So there is this promise given to Eve in the very beginning that the one who they find themselves captive to and in a terrible agreement with by the power of their own sin will be destroyed.

And the one who will accomplish that destruction will come from Eve.

There is a new promised son.

And so ever since then, the wise women of Scripture have looked for the Son.

And the Son would have to be that true husband that Adam wasn't.

Adam, the promised son, would be the true husband.

He would be obedient to God when Adam sinned against God.

He would not abdicate his responsibility for Eve, but he would take on Eve's enemies as his own enemies.

And he would stand in protection for her.

If Eve found herself in sin, he would not agree with her by joining in on that sin, but rather he would offer himself as a sinless sacrifice, willing to take upon the death that she deserved, rather than joining her in a fruitless death in rebellion against God.

The true son would be the true husband.

And so, in light of this promise, Adam names his wife Eve.

Eve means the mother of all living.

And in that name that the woman gets, Eve, she becomes the mother of all living.

Now that it it it does, of course, mean that this is where people come from, that Eve becomes the source of all humanity as her children become the ones that we all become.

But it also means that the promise of life, no longer captive to sin and death under the domain of Satan, belongs to Eve.

And so Eve becomes the picture of wisdom in Scripture.

Why is it that wisdom is a woman in the Proverbs?

Because wisdom is shown forth in Eve, who is the first woman that we see look for the son.

And so when Eve gives birth to her firstborn Cain, she says, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.

And she sees the birth of her firstborn Cain as this providence of God that the Lord has given me this son.

And this is evidence that I am right to continue trusting in his promise that from me a seed will come who will destroy the one under whose captivity we are held.

But of course, that son is lost.

Cain murders her secondborn son, Abel, and in Cain's murder of Abel, there is a.

She's given Seth, this other son.

Death did not stop her from looking towards the sun.

It is a faith like Abraham, who raises the knife above Isaac and trusts that even if Isaac were killed, the Lord would be able to bring him back from the dead.

Even at the loss of both of her sons, Eve looks forward in this incredible faith, looking toward the sun.

Sarah, the wife of Abraham, Rebekah, the wife of Isaac, Leah, the wife of Jacob, they all look towards the sun in this same promise.

Of course, the women that we've looked at in this Advent series, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, they have all looked towards the Son.

This is their faithfulness that has been demonstrated, that the promise of God given in the curse against the serpent will be fulfilled.

There will come one who will destroy that great enemy, Satan, and who will set us free from his power of sin and death.

Mary looks towards the sun.

In a sense, Mary is all of the women.

Because Mary looks towards the sun and she sees him.

She's the one who looks, and they all looked, but they didn't see.

Mary's story is the fulfillment.

She looks towards the sun, and he's there.

In our fallen state, we can easily forget that it is God who upholds all things.

And we consider that we are perhaps self-created or self-imagined, and that we are the types of things that provide our own sort of origin story when the reality is that God upholds everything by the word of his power.

But the consistency with which the universe operates and the ability that we've been given to manipulate and understand it and interact with us, it can convince us and partially deceive us into thinking that we are gods ourselves and that we have the same sort of power that He has.

But God has a way of shocking us out of that stupor.

And the way that He shocks us out of such a stupor is by giving us promises that are absolutely paradoxical, that are impossible for us to realize on our own.

The promise that he gives, which Mary participates in, is given in Isaiah 7, verse 14.

Isaiah 7:14

And the promise is that a son will be given, and his name will be called Emmanuel, God with us.

And who will give birth to the son?

A virgin.

Do you see the contradictory sign?

Virgin mother.

It's such a familiar phrase that we don't even hear it as an oxymoron anymore.

Virgin mother.

This is what the Israelites were told to look for.

Look for the virgin mother.

That's impossible.

And God tells us to look towards something impossible.

Why?

So that he might put you in a position that says, you must look for something that could only be my doing.

That the redemption of the world, which I promise to you, will be absolutely accomplished by me.

And so the sign that I give you is something that you must recognize as a complete impossibility, a contradiction in terms.

You will look towards a virgin mother.

It is an impossible sign.

An absolute contradiction.

Mary is that virgin.

And in Luke 1, the angel Gabriel comes and visits Mary.

He had a busy couple of weeks of visiting people.

And so the angel Gabriel comes and visits Mary, and he explains to her that the child will come from you, and that this promised son will be yours.

You will name him Jesus because from him will come the salvation of the world.

And Mary, of course, asks the angel in Luke 1, 34, how will this be since I am a virgin?

Great question.

It's a weird.

You don't get a pregnancy test as a virgin.

How will this be since I am a virgin?

It's the perfect question.

And it is explained that the Holy Spirit will come upon her.

Mary receives the sign.

She is willing to receive this absolute contradiction, even in her own person, because she understands who she is and who the Lord is.

Luke 138, Mary says, after hearing how this will happen, she says, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord.

Let it be to me according to your word.

Who is it that could possibly understand?

Who else other than Mary in Scripture do you think could possibly understand this promise?

You will, you from nothing will receive the true husband, will receive the true son.

Well, Eve's husband came from nothing.

She might have been able to understand.

Do you see that the promise here has only the fulfillment of the virgin mother is so impossible outside of the work of God that we're being drawn back into the creation itself.

That all things would come from nothing, but that they would come just from the Lord.

If Mary understood that, which she did, then she would be able to say, Who am I but a creature of the Lord?

I am the Lord's servant.

And all things.

Came from nothing.

What is impossible for the Lord?

Nothing could be impossible for the Lord.

And therefore, she participates by her trust in the providence of God, by her trust in the absolute power, that it is his word anyway that is doing the upholding of all creation, that she would be able to participate in this new creation.

And the new creation is that from nothing in her, God would give this Son.

Now, Mary's glory is shown in her willingness to participate in this paradoxical promise.

And she participates in it with this repeated refrain throughout her story, which is that these things she treasured up in her heart.

Mary can consistently throughout the story treats Jesus as her treasure, this treasure that's been given to her by the Lord.

When Mary becomes pregnant and she goes and visits her cousin Elizabeth, who is also pregnant in sort of a miraculous way, in a way that's like Sarah, because she was too old to become pregnant.

Coffee break.

Let's all do this together, in case you guys need some too.

And when Elizabeth, it sort of sort of explodes out of her heart saying, Who am I that the mother of my Lord would come and visit me?

She says, Mary goes into her glorious prayer, the Magnificat, where she explains that her soul magnifies the Lord.

Right after Jesus' birth, when the shepherds arrive with their news of the angelic announcement that they had received in the heavens, Mary and Joseph, they hear this news of what the shepherds had seen, and the text says that Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.

Now, make no mistake, it is dangerous to have a treasure.

If you have a treasure, you are now vulnerable.

You have skin in the game.

Something that can be legitimately lost and taken from you.

Mary treasured Jesus in her heart, and for her, it would be incredibly costly.

There's a way of dealing with that sort of danger, that there's that when when you treasure something, you make yourself vulnerable, and you put yourself in a position where you can be hurt and let down, and where your heart will be invested in the pains of the world.

And a way to do that is do something like describe the world as ultimately meaningless.

And there's a there's sort of a refrain in our culture, like that that's been kind of the move of the oh, I don't know, like the intelligentsia, that's the word I was looking for.

And I thought it's the name of a type of coffee, and then I had to go, I had to walk down that road.

I've got a bit of a cold.

I'm moving at about half speed.

But kind of like the the uh here's the image that I have in my mind, so I'll just give it to you.

Like all black, very cool, and like smoking a cigarette outside of a cafe, and uh, it's all meaningless.

It's all meaningless, isn't it?

Isn't it all meaningless anyway?

And you see what you get from that.

If it's all meaningless, you don't have you have no treasure.

Nothing.

Treasure is about value.

And value and meaning are the same.

And so when you when you say that there is nothing of value, then there is nothing that can be treasured.

And there's a there's a reason to do that.

It's safety from loss.

This person, you know, nothing can hurt that person.

K, Sarah, Sarah.

They're untouchable.

They have no treasure either.

You know, there's there's no ability to lose, but they can never gain.

They can never really touch the world.

There can be no real skin in the game.

There can be no hope.

So you see the benefit.

It looks like freedom.

It looks like the most absolute freedom you could imagine.

But you never get to love.

You never have hope.

Mary is warned of the danger that she will experience by treasuring Christ.

They visit the temple just after Christ is born, so that he might be circumcised and named, and there's an old man there, and you've got to get the scene, you know.

This is like it's like, where do we get these tropes?

We get them from the Bible stories.

It's so like the old man who's always at the temple, his eyes are a little dim, and he comes in and he's a little strange, and he just prays all day.

He's a holy man, you know?

And this old holy man comes in, and his name is Simeon.

And Simeon had given had been given a promise by the Holy Spirit that before he died, he would see the Christ.

He would see the salvation of the world.

And when Mary walks in with this baby, he sees the baby, and he he says, Behold, now I can die, because the Lord has shown me his salvation.

And Mary hears this, she's like, Wow, the shepherds, the virgin birth, Simeon.

He always says weird stuff, but now that he's saying this, and she treasures up these things in her heart that in fact it says that Mary and Joseph both together marveled at what was said about him.

You know when the last time you marveled was?

I don't I don't know.

They marveled at what was said about Jesus.

But then Simeon says this to Mary.

And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is to be opposed.

And then I love that this translation puts it in parentheses because it does feel like it does feel like a parenthetical statement, doesn't it?

It's like Simeon leans in, you know, like he's talking to Mary and Joseph, and then he leans into Mary.

And a sword will pierce through your own soul also.

So that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.

This is the promise that Mary gets for treasuring Christ.

A sword will pierce through your own soul also.

In Luke 2, 51, just after hearing this, it says, and his mother treasured up all these things in her heart.

About twenty years later, there's a Passover.

Oh, I skipped one Passover.

There's a moment where this is only about 10 years later.

The 20 years later one is coming.

About 10 years later, there's a Passover.

And it was the family's custom that each Passover they would go up to the temple.

And they bring Jesus to the temple at this Passover.

And thinking that her treasure is with her, they the family leaves, probably the huge extended family that all comes together, and they get back to Nazareth after having been in Jerusalem.

And I think it was actually just when they sat on the caravan, before the caravan could be turned around.

She she looks and she goes, Caravan! It was actually Jesus, is what she said.

And she realizes that he had been left.

And so he's left at the temple, and Mary and Joseph go to try and find Jesus.

And they look for him, and he's lost for three days after this Passover.

But finally they see him, and he is actually at the temple itself, and he's teaching.

And when his parents saw him, it says in Luke 2.48, when his parents saw him, they were astonished.

And his mother said to him, Son, why have you treated us so?

Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.

Mary, this treasure that she had, she realizes that there is a danger to having this treasure.

The danger of having a treasure is that it can be lost.

Why have you treated us so?

Your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.

Jesus says, Would I not be in my father's house?

And the text says that Mary and Joseph did not understand what he was saying.

They returned home, and Jesus remained submissive to Mary and Joseph.

And in Luke 2.51, it says, And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart.

She remembered this story.

Twenty years later.

Twenty years after that first Passover.

Or that's that second Passover, actually.

They're back in Jerusalem at another Passover feast.

This time she loses her son again.

While Jesus is hanging from the cross, the Jews are arguing with Pilate regarding the sign that Pilate put over the top of Jesus' cross, which in three different languages, so that you don't miss it, it says King of the Jews.

And the Sanhedrin are gathered with Pilate and they said, Can you take that sign down?

Can you say?

How about we'll compromise?

This man said he was king of the Jews.

And Pilate says, I've written what I've written.

And he washes his hands again.

Everything he did, he washed his hands afterwards.

The soldiers that hung Jesus on the cross, all except one, are arguing together about who gets to keep the tunic that Jesus wore.

It was a nice tunic.

And they didn't want it divided among them because it was seamless.

And so they cast lots in order to see who would have the tunic.

While Jesus is hanging on the cross, everyone's off doing their own thing.

But Mary is looking at her son.

Jesus, while he's on the cross, he sees his mother.

When Jesus saw his mother in Luke 19, 26 through 27, it says, When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, Woman, behold your son.

Then he said to the disciple, Behold your mother.

And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

Because it is right for the son to take care of his mother.

He wasn't like the Pharisees, who, while they were busy tithing their mint in cumin, were neglecting the care of their parents.

Jesus was a good son.

And so he was making sure that his mother would be cared for even while he was dying and hanging from the cross.

And that's true.

That is true.

But that's not all that's happening here.

It may be the least of what is happening here.

Jesus doesn't say, mother.

It says, he said to his mother, but Jesus says, woman, behold your son.

Now, is that just being cold?

Gain some emotional distance from the weight of the situation.

Woman, behold your son.

There was another who didn't have a name yet.

She was just called woman.

Eve was just called woman.

When she received this promise, which told her, look toward the sun.

And all the women of the church have heeded that promise and they have looked toward the sun.

Now Jesus hanging on the cross says, Woman, behold your son.

As if to speak to them all.

Behold your son.

But it's stranger than that.

Because as Jesus hangs on the cross, he's not saying, Behold your son about him.

He tells Mary, Behold your son about one who is not given a proper name here, but is just referred to as the beloved disciple.

Now who's the beloved disciple?

We know that this is the way that John, the writer, the author of this gospel, refers to himself as the beloved disciple.

And he is telling Mary, woman, behold your son about the beloved disciple.

And what is what is happening here?

When Jesus is dying on the cross, when she looks up and she sees the death of the promised son, Jesus is making sure she knows what she's seeing is many sons being brought to glory.

That while this is the death of her son and the loss, it is the end of looking towards the Son because he's there on the cross, the promised one, but he's dead.

He's moments away from being gone forever.

Jesus says, This is a birth.

Mary, this is your birth.

Behold, this disciple is now your son.

John would have heard Jesus on the cross is now my brother.

We are no longer under the dominion of Satan.

We have been brought into the family of God.

And so Eve in this moment is this picture of the church.

The church.

She is the one who is the mother of the disciple that goes out and looks for the disciple, just like she went out and looked for Jesus.

She is the one who nurtures and cares for and continues compelling us, look toward the sun, look toward the sun.

And we all receive this love and nurture and care from the church, which is our mother.

And we see that Christ from the cross is establishing this with Mary, where he says, Behold, to the disciple, behold your mother, and to Mary, behold your son.

And so the disciple is called to treat Mary like his own mother, to receive the love from her as his own mother.

So that on the cross, at the death of the promised son, many sons are brought to glory, and the one who is losing her son is becoming a mother.

Look at all these paradoxes coming together.

In Galatians 4, 6 through 7, Paul writes regarding precisely this, and he says, But the Jerusalem above is free.

The Jerusalem above, that is the church.

The Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

For it is written, Rejoice, O barren one, who does not who does not bear.

Break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor, for the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband.

How could a paradoxical sign like that ever be true?

Do you see Jesus is taking it all into his story?

He's making it all true on the cross.

As the Virgin Mother, this impossible sign gazes up at this other impossible sign.

Listen to this contradictory sign.

Crucified Savior.

The Virgin Mother, impossible, gazes up at the crucified Savior.

Two impossibilities.

God accomplishes them all in Christ.

So that we are brought in.

Look at the death of Christ.

It is the birth of many sons, being brought into glory by the mother that he establishes, the church which he sends down from heaven, that we might participate in the family of God, that we might call Jesus our brother, that we might see him as our Lord and Savior.

And so he becomes the true husband.

The true husband who takes on the sin of Eve, that she might be saved.

The perfect, sinless sacrifice.

And we find our rescue in him.

At the last Passover that the Bible mentions with Mary and Jesus, well, it's just like this Passover.

Because she loses her son, and three days later, she gets him back.

This is our hope.

That in Christ, as seen in this story of Mary, we look towards the sun, that we might have hope even in the face of death.

That we might be able in this world where everything ends in death, that we might be able to take hold things as our treasure.

Because we treasure Christ above all else, we might be able to treasure the ones that we love, even though we we know the absurdity of that.

Well, how could we do that?

Well, we we risk it in hope.

In hope in Christ.

Because we've been promised that a hope in Christ we will not be put to shame.

Now, what is a picture of that?

Well, the mother of Christ, when she looked up at the one whom she hoped in, and he was being killed in that moment, she receives this promise of hope that in this death, what you're seeing is a birth.

Only the gospel offers that type of hope.

So this Christmas, risk the treasure.

Treasure Christ that you might really love those in your life who it's risky to love.

You might truly hope.

We're right at the very place of death.

In Christ, you will not be put to shame.

Just like Mary, who looked for the sun, was not put to shame.

All right, are there any questions today?

Great.

Yeah, it's not a very texty morning, this Christmas Eve morning.

So with that, let's take communion.

Paul writes, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

The Lord Jesus was born to die.

And this is the as the church shares in the suffering of Christ, we see that modeled in Mary's own soul being pierced as she saw her son being pierced.

But we have this incredible hope that his body that was broken, his blood that was poured out, was a willing sacrifice, that in doing so, he crushed the serpent, he atoned for our sins, he made us his family again, and all humanity can be restored in him.

So as we come to the table this morning, let's remember the wonder of the sacrifice of Christ, that our redemption, like a virgin mother, is a promise that could only be accomplished by God Himself.

And in Christ, He has done it.

Be like Mary, look towards the Son.

We like her get to see Him.

Holy Father, I pray that you would bless this meal that you call us to.

Lord, that you would enliven our hearts to see the wonder of your rescue, and you might give us hearts that trust fully in it, so that we might experience not the freedom of resignation, but the true freedom of knowing that you have accomplished the victory, and that our hope is made sure in you.

Lord, let our hearts have that true freedom.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.