The Song of a Pregnant Teenager / Luke 1:47-55
Third Sunday of Advent, Year A; Downsville Baptist Church; 16 Dec. 2001
She was the last girl anybody expected to fall under this kind of disgrace. Fourteen years old, a freshman at Jerusalem High School with a straight A average, Mary always attended church and was considered by everyone in the community the kind of daughter you hoped you would have. Mary did not go to the wild parties. Mary did not do drugs. Mary did not talk back to her parents. Mary and her boyfriend Joseph had even led a “True Love Waits” Rally to challenge all of their friends to save sex for marriage. Her boyfriend Joseph was a senior, star of the football team, and President of the church’s youth group. He and Mary had made plans for the future. Joseph would stay in town after graduation and become a carpenter’s assistance. By the time Mary graduated, Joseph should have enough saved up to open up his own carpenter’s shop and they could get married.
Now you are going to find this next part hard to believe. One night while Mary was tossing and turning in her bed, trying to fall asleep, she was visited by an angel. The angel told her that she had found favor in God’s eyes and that she was going to become pregnant with God’s child. The child she would bear would be the most important person to ever walk upon the face of this earth. His name would be “Immanuel.” Mary’s child would be “God with Us.” The news is so exciting . . . that is, for about 15 minutes before the 14 year old Mary realizes that nobody will believe her. Her parents will be disgraced to have a daughter who is pregnant out of wedlock. Her entire community of support and friendship at both school and church will turn against her with scornful accusations of hypocrisy. And Joseph, oh no!, Joseph. She loved him so much, but how could he be expected to believe that this baby was God’s baby, that she had not betrayed him and slept with another man, an intimacy they had not even allowed one another. Later, Joseph would find out soon enough and true to his character he would behave like a gentleman. He was hurt and he was angry, but he still loved Mary. He would end their relationship in as quiet and a respectable way as possible. What Joseph did not know is that he too would soon be visited by an angel who would impart to him the truth that Mary’s expectant situation was just as she had described it—an act of God. Everything would eventually work out between Joseph and Mary, but not yet.
Once a mother was anxiously watching from the window for her 7 year old daughter to return home from school. A storm was brewing in the east. Lightning was flashing and thunder was roaring. The mother always let her daughter walk home from school because the campus was only 3 blocks from their home. Finally, the mother caught a glimpse of her daughter, 70 yards away, walking toward the house at a leisurely pace. The mother became a bit perplexed when she noticed that every time the lightning would flash in the skies her daughter would stop walking, turn her face toward the menacing clouds and smile. Then she would begin walking again. A couple of minutes later the mother met her daughter at the front door. “Sweetie, I was watching you walk home. What were you doing, stopping so often in a storm like this?” “Momma,” the girl replied, “God’s flashbulb on his camera kept going off so I had to stop and smile while he was taking my picture.” When we try to imagine what Mary must have been feeling, we usually miss the mark completely because we are not like her. In retrospect, it is easy for us to consider Mary the blessed, chosen, mother of the baby Jesus—Mary, a little girl who stops and smiles for God to take her picture. However, if you were to actually put any of us in Mary’s situation, feeling blessed by God might be the last thing we would feel. Some have suggested that Mary’s situation was a cursed one in which she draws the ridicule of the masses and the disappointment of those closest to her.
In recent years, there has emerged a group of women who have sincerely questioned what happens to this young girl named Mary. They say that we have become so accustomed to the Christmas story that we have missed what actually happens to Mary through the very hands of God. These women conclude that the immaculate conception is nothing more than a divine form of rape. Their fists of anger are raised toward heaven against a God that would put a 14 year old girl in this situation. Mary was not asked if she wanted to bear God’s only son. God did not seem to take into consideration all the pain and hardship that this would bring upon Mary. These women are sincere and logical in their arguments, and they view themselves as rushing to Mary’s side in defense of a poor Jewish girl who is taken advantage of by God. However, these women who accuse God of rape never seem to stop and listen to what Mary has to say about her own situation.
Mary does have one family friend she can go to, someone she can confide in about her expectant situation without fear of judgment or condemnation. Mary’s Aunt Elizabeth is expecting a baby also. Elizabeth’s pregnancy is almost as amazing as Mary’s because it was thought that Elizabeth was well beyond the age of child bearing. Yet she too will have a son, a boy who will grow up into a long-haired, tattooed, leather jacket wearing, Harley-Davidson riding prophet. His name would be John, and he would tell people plainly that they needed to get right with God. Then he would dunk them in the Brazos river as a sign of their new lives. Elizabeth’s soon to be born son had the important job of getting the world ready for the miracle that was growing in Mary’s womb. As Mary shares her news with her aunt, she doesn’t cry out against God for putting her in such a difficult situation. Nowhere does she even come close to accusing God of taking advantage of her. Instead, in the midst of sharing her news with Aunt Elizabeth she cannot help but burst forth in song, a song that has been treasured since the day it was sung as the Magnificat of Mary, the blessed Virgin, mother of Christ Jesus.
What we witness in Mary’s song is not a teenage girl who is angry at God. There are no accusations that God has taken advantage of her. Mary’s song is not filled with words of lament about what a difficult situation of embarrassment and disownment she faces. Instead the Magnificat of Mary is a song of praise and thanksgiving to God. As difficult as the situation Mary faces might be, Mary is still able to do something at fourteen years of age that many of struggle with today. Mary still has no hesitation to trust God and to trust God completely. Mary knows that God is not only present in her situation but that God surrounds every aspect of her condition. Therefore, no matter how difficult things might appear, her circumstances are one for celebration and thanksgiving because she trusts that God is with her. With childlike innocence Mary is able to believe the stories of the God of Israel who loves and protects his people, stories that many of the grownups had begun to doubt. In the midst of subjugation under the Roman Empire, of having to give most of your money away in taxes to a government that did nothing but oppress you, a government that denied their God and denied them the recognition of being human beings, it was easy for most of Israel to look upon God as a God of the past, a God who had forgotten them, a God who had abandoned them. But not Mary she still believed. She was not angry about all the difficulties her pregnancy would bring upon her. She was humbled that the great God of Israel had come to her and blessed her with his presence. The Mighty One had done great things for her, and she had nothing but gratitude for the merciful grace in which God had bathed her. Mary still trusted that the God who had made a covenant with Abraham, the God who had brought the Hebrew people out of slavery through the leadership of a man named Moses, the God who had raised up a great kingdom through a shepherd boy named David, Mary still trusted that this God was with Israel, would save Israel, and would never abandon his children of which she was one.
Our young teenage, soon-to-be, mother was still able to believe what so many of us have surrendered, the belief that our God is not only a God who is with us now, but a God who is fulfilling future promises in every divine action. An anonymous source is quoted as having said that you can’t break God’s promises by leaning on them. Mary is certainly living out this adage. She will lean on the promises of God in the present, trusting that the future God has vowed is certain. In the midst of a sermon on trust, a pastor asked for four members of the congregation to come forward. The first was a 65 year old retired man. The second was a 42 year old nurse. The third was a 21 year old college student. The fourth was a 5 year old little girl. The pastor had each of the four stand in a chair and then a deacon was told to stand directly behind each individual. The pastor asked the four members to cross their arms on their chest and simply fall back out of the chair trusting that the person on the other side would catch them. The 65 year old, the 42 year old, and 21 year old all hesitated and awkwardly stepped back off of the chair rather than falling so they could in that way insure their own safety. The five year old little girl, however, fell back flat as a board into the arms of the deacon who happened to be her father. That little girl illustrates the bond of trust Mary had with her God. So many others in Israel had known what it was to have their hopes devastated and trusting that God will still send them a Savior was becoming a difficult promise to hold onto. But somewhere in Jerusalem was a young lady barely entering her teenage years who had no hesitation to fall back from the chair. She trusted that the great God of heaven and earth would be there to catch her. Mary has the spiritual insight as a young teenage girl in a very precarious situation to realize that she is in the heart of God’s will. One of the most difficult things for many of us is not necessarily how trying some of our circumstances are but trying to figure out what God’s will is in the midst of difficult times. When the preacher’s car broke down on a country road, he walked to a nearby roadhouse to use the phone. After calling for a tow truck, he spotted his old friend, Frank, drunk and shabbily dressed at the bar. "What happened to you, Frank?" asked the good reverend. "You used to be rich." Frank told a sad tale of bad investments that had led to his downfall. "Go home," the preacher said. "Open your Bible at random, stick your finger on the page and there will be God’s answer. "Some time later, the preacher bumped into Frank, who was wearing a Gucci suit, sporting a Rolex watch and had just stepped our of a Mercedes. "Frank." said the preacher, "I am glad to see things really turned around for you." "Yes, preacher, and I owe it all to you," said Frank. "I opened my Bible, put my finger down on the page and there was the answer--Chapter 11.” Like Frank, we often times try to mold God’s will into what we want it to be. Mary doesn’t even pretend to know the mysteries and the depths of God’s will. She simply trusts that God has spoken to her and that whatever she encounters in this pregnancy with the Son of God shall be the will of God. Mary knows that she is intended to fit into the will of God and that God shall not be misshapen to fit into our own plans.
In Mary’s song, we also see the delight of a God who relishes being ironic. If God laughs, I think he must laugh hardest when we think we have him figured out. The very nature of God is that God will always remain somehow a mystery to us. Mary recognizes this blessed irony as she thanks God for his goodness and holiness. He is a God who exalts the humble and throws down the proud, a God who will give good things to the hungry and send the rich away empty. Mary’s God is a God who has shown the divine strength and will do so again through the baby in her womb. We should rightly recognize in this song of a pregnant teenager a girl who knows the scrutiny and embarrassment she will encounter, but more importantly we recognize an example of just how beautiful God’s creatures can be when we give ourselves unyielding back into the hands of our Maker. Later, Mary is said to reflect upon the life of her son Jesus and ponder all those things he would do and say in her heart. Even now as the Savior of the world grows inside of her, Mary is pondering the grace and goodness of the God to whom she belongs.
