Luke 1:26-38 - The Mary Problem - December 20, 2020

You know the Beatles’ song Let It Be? There’s a line in that song that used to trouble me: “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, let it be.” It troubled me because I assumed that Paul McCartney was referring to Mary, the mother of Jesus, as the one who came to speak to him in times of trouble. It turns out, however, that McCartney saw his own mother, also named Mary, in a dream and it was she who advised him to “Let it Be.” Today we confront what might be called the Mary Problem – and we will find that the answer to this problem is none other than to “Let It Be.”

First, what’s the Mary Problem? One side of it is making too much of her. That’s what Catholics do, for example, in the famous Ave Maria – the Hail Mary. You’ve probably heard it before: “Hail Mary, full of grace the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of death.” While Mary certainly received God’s grace and her Son Jesus is to be blessed, nowhere does the Bible tell us to pray to the saints or that they can pray for us (1 Timothy 2:5). The last part was only added in the 15th century and declared to be authoritative in 1568.

The unicorn can show us another aspect of the Mary Problem. If you’ve ever been to or seen St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, you may have noticed a unicorn and wondered what a mythical creature has to do with Christianity. It’s a symbol of the Mary Problem. Mythology says that the only way a unicorn can be caught is for a virgin to go into the woods and sit on a stump. The unicorn comes and places its head in her lap and then it can be captured. The unicorn is said to represent the unapproachable and unreachable 2nd person of the Trinity and the virgin who caught him is Mary. Now the problem isn’t that Mary wasn’t a virgin; our text affirms it three times. The problem is thinking that Mary’s virginity is what attracted Christ to her. [1]

Rather than simply assuming that Mary was obedient to the 6th commandment and that virginity is the normal state of an unmarried woman, Catholics assume that Mary was especially holy. This really complicates the Mary Problem. First, how could Mary be holy herself if she was born of a flesh and blood mother and father just like everyone else? Jesus told Nicodemus that whatever is born of flesh is flesh (John 3:6) – that is, sinful, as David confessed in Psalm 51. How did this one girl escape the stain of original sin that infects every other human ever born? Catholics argue that somehow Mary was “redeemed” before she was even conceived – thus she was never infected with original sin. That’s what the Immaculate Conception is all about – not Jesus but Mary’s conception – which was made official Catholic doctrine in 1854 (why it took so long to recognize this as true is anyone’s guess). [2]

But that leads to a second problem, doesn’t it? The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). We don’t die simply because of age or disease or accident – we die because we’re sinners. At the same time, if you don’t sin, you won’t die. Mary died. Do you see the problem? The Catholic church solved it this way: “Finally, the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 252, 966). [3] While the Bible does record that God took Enoch and Elijah home to heaven apart from death (Genesis 5:24; Hebrews 11:5; 2 Kings 2), we are told nothing of the sort about Mary, the mother of Jesus – which is a significant problem!

Now, as confessional Lutherans, we might think we are immune to this Mary Problem. We’re not. However, our problem typically isn’t making too much of Mary, but not enough of her. We usually picture Mary as a young, innocent, beautiful and rather naïve girl. Now, she was probably young (14-16 or so); she was no any more innocent than you or I; I can’t speak to whether she was beautiful or not – but from what the Bible tells us about her, she doesn’t appear at all naïve. When you read through the words of the Magnificat (the Song of Mary) later on in Luke (Luke 1:46-55), you see that while these words were certainly inspired by the Holy Spirit, Mary knew her Bible and her theology.

Of course, that’s not what caused God to choose her to be the mother of his Son. No, as Gabriel told her, she was chosen only because she had found favor (literally “grace”) with God – grace is always only given and never earned. And yet, we should acknowledge her piety and humility. She was obedient to the 6th commandment. Even though she was going to be the mother of God, she refers to herself as the Lord’s servant. Although she did have parental authority over Jesus, the times she overstepped her bounds – when he was 12 and at the temple (Luke 2:41-52) and at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1-12) – she graciously accepted his rebuke. Even though she knew Jesus better than anyone and was present at his crucifixion (John 19:25-27), after Jesus’ Ascension we find Mary in the upper room with the rest of Jesus’ disciples as just another sinner saved by Jesus’ suffering and not her own (Acts 1:14).

And yet, while not recognizing Mary’s piety and humility is sometimes a problem for us, there’s a bigger problem. We have a Mary problem when we don’t see that even though she was visited by an angel, she didn’t base her faith or actions on what she saw with her eyes but on what she heard with her ears. This becomes clear in Mary’s response to all of the amazing and impossible things Gabriel had told her: See, I am the Lord’s servant. May it happen to me as you have said (literally: according to your word). Mary believed the angel because he spoke the Word of God, and she responded and acted appropriately. That’s the real Mary Problem, isn’t it? It’s not that we make too much or not enough of her – but that we aren’t enough like her; that we fail, regularly, to respond to God’s Word by saying may it happen to me as you have said. And that’s where Paul McCartney’s advice comes in: when God speaks, our proper response should be: let it be.

Let it be God’s Word about your sin and sinfulness that you go by – not what you feel in your heart or are told by our secular society. So much of what goes on this time of year gives the impression that the real problems we have are that we don’t have the enough time, enough money, enough health, enough energy, enough freedom, or enough Christmas spirit. Why is it so dangerous to believe that those things are your real problems in life? Because if these are your real problems, then you don’t really need Christmas; you don’t need Jesus. No time? Start earlier next year. Not enough money? Get a side-gig driving Uber. Not enough health? Go get vaccinated. Not enough energy? Will five hours work? You can find that at the gas station. Not enough freedom to do what you want when you want? Don’t worry, no one else is obeying the health department’s advice either. Not enough Christmas spirit? That’s nothing that a few Christmas gifts, a good meal and your favorite adult beverage can’t fix.

The thing is that those aren’t your real problems at Christmastime or any time. No, when you go by the Word of God, you discover that your real problem is that you are the offspring of sinful parents who was conceived and born with a sentence of death and damnation hanging over your head (Ephesians 2:1-3). Your problem isn’t just that you don’t have enough money but that you couldn’t possibly scrape together enough silver and gold to buy back your soul (Psalm 49:7-8). It’s not just that you don’t have enough energy to do everything you should – it’s that deep down you don’t really want to do God’s will, you’d much rather do your own. It’s not just that you’re chafing against mandates restricting your freedom – it’s that you aren’t free at all, in any sense of the term; you are by nature a slave of sin and death and the devil. It’s not just that you’re sick or chronically in pain – those are simply symptoms of your looming death. And good luck finding solutions to those real problems with a little extra money or a little extra time.

So what’s the solution? Let it be! Let it be God’s Word that delivers you from the lie that you can make everything merry this Christmas by better preparation, with more money or energy or freedom. Find the solution to all of your problems in the promise the angel made to Mary: you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The real solution to the Mary Problem isn’t making less or more of her – or even trying our best to imitate her – but in recognizing that God in his grace has solved all of our problems by sending his Son to be conceived and born of this young virgin. Not enough time? Jesus spent every moment of his life tirelessly obeying God’s Law as your substitute. Not enough money? Jesus didn’t use silver or gold but his holy, precious blood to redeem you (1 Peter 1:18-19). Not enough freedom? Jesus has freed you from your slavery to sin, death, and the devil by taking your place under God’s wrath in hell’s prison (John 8:31-32). Not enough energy? Because in Jesus God nailed your ugly, lazy, disgusting sinful nature to the cross and put it to death you can now put on the new self, which has been created to be like God in righteousness and true holiness (Ephesians 4:24). Not enough joy? While it’s true that there’s not much to be joyful about these days, because Jesus lives, you too shall live forever (John 14:19), and heaven will exceed all your expectations, even if this Christmas doesn’t.

And so, while we shouldn’t pray to Mary or expect her to pray for us, we can strive to be like her. Let God’s Word guide your life, not your thoughts and feelings. Learn from that Word not only about your sinfulness and your Savior but also about the signs God graciously gives to assure you that it’s true. Unlike Zechariah (Luke 1:18), Mary didn’t ask for a sign, she accepted the angel’s words; she just had some logistical questions – like how she was going to have a baby as a virgin. But Gabriel gave her a sign anyway: listen, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age even though she was called barren, and this is her sixth month. For nothing will be impossible with God. Just as God gave Mary a sign to validate his Word, so God gives us signs, visible, tangible, objective signs to validate his Word and anchor our faith – baptism, absolution, and Holy Communion.

God gives us these signs because just as Mary asked how will this be? we may be tempted to ask: How can a baby born 2000 years ago in Bethlehem have any real effect in my life today? How can I be sure that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection are my life, death and resurrection? And the answer for you is the same as Gabriel’s answer to Mary: the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit conveys to you, here, today, the gifts Jesus lived and died and rose to win for you. So let Mary’s miracle be yours! Let it be as God’s Word says that you have been baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection (Romans 6:3-5). Let it be as God’s Word says that when I or any other Christian forgives your sins, they are forgiven (John 20:23). Let it be as God’s Word says that this bread is Jesus’ body and this wine is Jesus’ blood which conveys to you personally the gift of everlasting life (Matthew 26:26-29).

Don’t make too much of Mary and don’t make too little of her – but do be like her; let your final and most important preparation for Christmas this year be a readiness to receive the Son God has given you. Let it be to you, like it was to her – that God is good to his Word and is fully capable of doing the impossible. He who can conceive his Son inside a virgin’s womb can certainly create faith in hearts like ours to believe and to confess: I am the Lord’s servant. May it happen to me as you have said. Amen.  

[1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/unicorn

[2] https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p122a3p2.htm

[3] https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_P2C.HTM#84