‘Behold, the Lamb
of God’
ide
o amnos tou theou
College Study
95th teaching
12.7.2014
“In Focus”
Review:
Last week we entitled our study
“Shots Fired: the Marian Debate” and spent a lot of time in theology. What does
Theotokos mean? Do you remember a bit of its historical background? Maybe what
council or what heretic was associated with it? What is Nestorianism? What was
the consensus the council reached?
We
listed four Catholic doctrines about Mary, can you remember them? What is the
immaculate conception? What does perpetual virginity mean? What is the
assumption into heaven? What is the coronation as queen? Where can you find
evidence for these doctrines? Why had Mary found favor with God? But notice
that if God favored Mary because she was immaculately conceived and perfect,
then she was not favored by His grace. The Catholic dogmas of Mary destroy
God’s unmerited grace. Yet that is what Mary has to offer the church today: an
example of an ordinary woman whom God was gracious toward. In fact can you
think of any possible example in Scripture where Mary sinned?
What’s
more, if Mary was born free from sin, if God could just choose to cause anyone
to be immaculately conceived, then why not skip the brutal cross and immaculately
conceive everyone? The Marian doctrines, debated through history, not only
destroy grace but they ultimately destroy the need for the cross of Christ.
Final
question: How did they come up with these doctrines? Answer: Without the Bible.
This is what happens when you abandon Sola Scriptura, when you abandon the
written Word of God as your ultimately rule of faith and practice. If you
replace the Bible with any feeling or tradition or church leader, you’ve left
historic Christianity and any basis for truth, and you might find yourself in
any number of cults or heresies, false doctrines or false emotions. It matters
that you read this Book and get to know it and understand it, and it matters
tremendously.
End Review
Since we spent so much time with
theology last week, we’ll cover a little more ground in the text instead
tonight.
Turn to Luke 1:34-56.
Gabriel has just brought the news to
Mary and described the Child that is to be born to her, a Child with an
undoubtedly messianic identity. This would be the Christ, the long-awaited
Savior, and He was going to be born not to the wife of Caesar, not to a woman
in the house of Herod, but to a lowly little virgin girl from Nazareth. This is
Mary’s response to the angel:
(arise)
“Then
Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I do not know a man?’ And the
angel answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the
power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is
to be born will be called the Son of God. Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative
has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for
her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.’ Then Mary
said, ‘Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your
word.’ And the angel departed from her.
Now
Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste, to a city
of Judah, and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. And it
happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in
her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she spoke out
with a loud voice and said, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the
fruit of your womb! But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord
should come to me? For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in
my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. Blessed is she who believed, for
there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.’
And
Mary said: ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my
Savior. For He has regarded the lowly estate of His maidservant; for behold,
henceforth all generations will call me blessed. For He who is mighty has done
great things for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is on those who fear
Him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with His arm; He has
scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the
mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with
good things, and the rich He has sent away empty. He has helped His servant
Israel, in remembrance of His mercy, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and
to his seed forever.’ And Mary remained with her about three months, and
returned to her house.”
Tonight’s study is entitled: “In
Focus”.
Right now, what does Mary have in
focus? The problem. Mary’s got a problem. Well, it’s not unbelief. It’s
technicality. Technically, how does a virgin have a baby? Fair question. A
logical, natural question.
The angel’s answer is the mystery of
the incarnation:
v.35,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and
the power of the Highest will overshadow you…”
The miracle is that the Holy Spirit
would create new life in Mary’s virgin womb, would fertilize the egg and
develop the cells that would become a human baby. That’s the miracle. That’s
where the natural laws were overridden. We’re reminded again that the miracle
was the virgin conception of Christ, not necessarily the birth. Look hard: He
didn’t “beam” out of Mary like a ray of light. She didn’t experience a painless
labor. She had stretch marks just like everybody else. The birth was ordinary
but the conception was extraordinary and thus “virgin conception” is a more
useful term then “virgin birth”.
The word here “overshadow” evokes the
cloud of brilliance, the glory of the Lord that filled the Temple in the Old
Testament, that surrounded the disciples and Jesus on the Mount of
Transfiguration. The Presence that Moses saw, that filled the Temple, and that
descended upon the disciples is the Spirit that would work in Mary. The sense
is that the Spirit would surround her and accomplish in her this mystery.
Henry Morris wrote in his commentary:
“This delicate expression rules out crude ideas of a ‘mating’ of the Holy
Spirit with Mary’.
Note that this is not the sense of the
counterfeit religions of that time. The Greco-Roman myths indeed held that
their gods visited earth, some of them apparently looking for some action, as
in the case of the great horn-dog himself: Juptier, aka Zeus. He is famous (or
infamous) for the many, many adulterous affairs he had with human women.
Remember he was supposedly married.
But hey, Hercules the famous
mythological hero himself was the illegitimate son of Zeus and a mortal woman
named Alcmene. Funny they left that out of the Disney version. I wonder why? “Who
put the glad in gladiator?” Zeus and a human woman, apparently. The legend even
says that Zeus had actual physical relations with her by disguising himself as
Alcmene’s husband, Amphitryon.
You’ll realize that standing out in
stark contrast to the crude beliefs of the pagans that surrounded this story in
the 1st century is the delicate mystery of the Holy Spirit
“overshadowing”, not in any kind of physical sense. That’s what Mormons
actually believe, exactly what the pagan Romans did, that God came down
physically and did it with Mary. That’s nowhere near what the text is saying
here.
Biblically, the miracle is the
supernatural fertilization of Mary’s ovum without the introduction of
spermatozoa. The embryo of Christ developed then normally within Mary’s virgin
womb. Now I am by no means a biologist, but I read that after 16 days from
fertilization the genetic code of the father becomes fully involved in the
development of the embryo.
In the case of Christ, what genetic
code? Not a human one. Joseph wasn’t involved at all. Was the Spirit of God
inscribing a new code into this growing life? I submit to you that one of the
greatest mysteries of human history was when a human cell began to develop as
the body of God Himself. How? Don’t know. But this Child was the Son of God.
The virgin conception of Christ points
biologically, genetically, physically to His deity.
v.36-37,
You know what’s impossible? Christianity.
How could a convicted thief being
crucified turn to the dying man next to him and ask him “remember me when you
come into your kingdom?”
How could a furious murderer named
Saul of Tarsus turn completely around from being the church’s worst enemy to
the church’s greatest teacher?
How could a rag-tag group of whiners
and sinners and nobodies, the disciples of Christ, turn the world upside-down
with their new doctrines?
How could the early Christians not
only survive but thrive during those first few centuries of intense and brutal
persecution?
How is it that you and I can still
benefit from these words that were written down 2000 plus years ago?
How is it that Jesus of Nazareth can
still have a profound effect upon our lives even though He was crucified two
millennia ago?
How is it that Christianity and the
Bible have survived for so long in a world of many competing worldviews and religions?
How is it that a virgin girl from a
backwater town could bear a Child, the
Child?
How could it possibly be that human beings once living in love with sin could be
reconciled to a God that is so holy He cannot tolerate sin at all? It’s like
mixing the worst with the absolute best.
Christianity is full of
impossibilities that God has overcome.
v.38-39,
Remember when Gabriel brought the news to old Zacharias that he was going to
have a son, and how the angel described the son that would be born? He had told
Zacharias six months earlier that the child, John the Baptist, would “be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from
his mother’s womb.”
Here, we’re seeing very possibly that.
The child, the babe, little Johnny the future Baptist, leaps in old Elizabeth’s
womb, and his mother is even filled with the Holy Spirit herself.
Now let’s pause there because I think
there are two separate subjects to be examined. The first is the filling with
the Holy Spirit. That sounds like very religious language. If we’re not careful
words and phrases like “holiness” and “sanctification” or “justification by
faith” or “filled with the Holy Spirit” can fly right over our heads without us
thinking about what they mean, simply because they sound religious and we’ve
heard them many times before. We hear a lot of talk, perhaps, about being
filled with the Holy Spirit, but what does being “filled with the Holy Spirit”
actually mean?
First, realize that it is not the same
thing as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The filling and the indwelling are
biblically two different things. Jesus said in John 14:16 . The indwelling of the Spirit is something that remains
in a believer from the moment of salvation. Ephesians 1:13 . In Galatians
3:2 Paul asks the Galatian church: “ ”. Clearly the truth that’s being
conveyed is that the Spirit of God comes and dwells within a believer when they
first believe. That’s what all the modern talk of “Jesus living in your heart”
really means. It means that the Spirit of Christ lives within, indwells the
regenerated man or woman, boy or girl.
The filling of the Spirit is not the
same as the indwelling of the Spirit. It’s a different experience. Now note
we’re not necessarily talking about the Baptism
of the Spirit, which we’d never have time to fully unfold tonight. But there is
obvious exhortation and encouragement to people who are already believers to be
“filled” with the Spirit. Ephesians 5:18
“And do not be drunk with wine… but
be filled with the Spirit.”
How can that be said to someone in whom
the Spirit already dwells? Because they’re separate experiences. One can be
saved and be indwelt by the Spirit and yet certainly not be filled with the
Spirit. It is something else. Galatians
5:16 “I say then: Walk in the Spirit,
and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” It is something that we
take part in, something that we consciously experience because it involves our
willingness, our surrender and yielding to the Spirit. That doesn’t mean it’s
some hyper-emotional experience where some preacher touches your head and you
fall down. What it means is that you submit yourself to the influence of the
Spirit when you are filled by Him, you “walk” in Him, you practically go about
your life under His direction, just as, the Bible uses the analogy, just as
when a drunkard is under the influence of being filled with alcohol.
So then let me ask you: We see
Elizabeth here being filled with the Holy Spirit. Do you think that before Mary
showed up, Elizabeth was gossiping with her neighbors? Do you think that
Elizabeth was, say, tearing down her husband, complaining about how he never
puts the toilet seat up? Do you think Elizabeth, just moments prior to being
filled with the Holy Spirit, was mucking about all angry at life or full of
anxiety, entertaining evil thoughts, complaining or griping or whining,
watching bad soap operas, pigging out on ice cream and listening to Linkin’
Park and filling her mind with all the things that depressed people do, or just
all around having a bad day? I don’t think so.
I don’t think she would have been
filled with the Spirit just “magically” if she had been living in such a way.
How can I say that? Because Scripture teaches that the Spirit of God can be
grieved. He can be made to sorrow. He
can be vexed and saddened and grieved by the things we permit ourselves to
experience, since He so indwells us. He can be quenched, I Thess 5:19. You know what “quenched” is? The word there in the
original language is to extinguish or suppress, to stifle. It’s like covering a
fire with a wet blanket or dousing it with cold water. It’s like putting your
hand over someone’s mouth. It’s like suffocation. It’s like drowning.
That’s what our lifestyles can do,
douse the fire within us. And then how can we possibly expect to live the
Christian life if the things we do quench God’s own Spirit? Quenching the
Spirit means that you don’t want to come into the house of God and worship,
that you don’t want to listen to His voice out of His word, that you don’t want
to do what you know is right, that you don’t hear Him say to you “Go and share
with this person or that person over there”, that you don’t recall the words of
comfort and encouragement when you really need them, that your life becomes
largely mundane, joyless and unexciting, as unexciting a wet fire… It means
being able to sit at a computer or in front of a theatre screen for hours and
hours and yet find it incredibly exhausting to sit through one hour of Bible
study.
You want to be filled with the Holy
Spirit? Then don’t drench Him with your lifestyle. Don’t drown Him under your
depression and anxiety and complaints and gossip and lust and selfishness. It’s
a matter of putting the Spirit, dare I say, “In Focus” and not ourselves.
Elizabeth was filled with the Spirit
when the moment came because she was ready for Him to fill her. She wasn’t
mucking about having a bad Monday. It’s funny that we quite possibly need to be
filled with the Spirit the most on Mondays but we won’t be because we’re too
busy complaining about it being a
Monday.
So the first subject to examine here
was about the filling of the Holy Spirit. Second subject I’d like you to note
is bound up in the word “babe”, which
of course refers to the baby John the Baptist inside the elderly Elizabeth.
A while back somebody asked me about a
hot topic: What does the Bible say about abortion and the sanctity of human
life? There’s no chapter on abortion. But right here, the Bible identifies the
unborn John not as a baby. In the Greek, brephos.
The same exact word is used in Luke
2:12 which says of the newborn Christ “And
this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe [that’s brephos] wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”
The Bible uses the same exact word to
refer both to Jesus as a newborn baby and to John as an unborn baby. And what a point to make that the Bible uses the same
word, because our society has done exactly the opposite: redefined words and
redefined human life to justify the murder of countless unborn human beings
because they are classified as just some cells, a blastocyst, a zygote or a
fetus, but oh, not a baby. It’s quite hard to think about murdering a baby, but
it’s a little easier semantically to talk of murdering a blastocyst or zygote.
That’s why defining terms is so
important. If you redefine terms and words and even biology itself, you can
justify nearly anything. We have tragically justified an infant genocide that
has claimed 50 million human lives
since 1973. To put that into some perspective, over 60 million people were
killed in the deadliest military conflict in history: World War II. Abortion
has nearly killed just as many people and in the next decade or so it may
easily surpass even the death toll of that great War itself. Could you imagine?
More people dying in clinics than were killed during World War II? Not even the
womb is a safe and sacred haven anymore.
This is what our world is facing.
Imagine all that needs to be done in our world, and yet imagine all the
potential philosophers and poets and writers and athletes and politicians and
leaders and teachers and engineers and scientists and explorers and geniuses
and humanitarians and heroes and people who could have possibly found the cure
for cancer already if they hadn’t been among the first lives to be aborted.
Have we shot ourselves in the foot? Have we potentially murdered the very
people who could have grown up to cause the next revival, the next medical
breakthrough, or the next step in space exploration. Have we killed the next
Albert Einstein, the next Leonardo Da Vinci, the next Abraham Lincoln, the next
Isaac Newton, the next William Shakespeare, the next Frederic Chopin, the next
Martin Luther, the next Billy Graham? What about the next Tesla or Mozart or
Washington or Aristotle or Columbus or Gutenberg or Paul? Thank God that Jesus Christ and John the
Baptist weren’t born in our modern “civilized” era; they might not have
crucified Him if they could have aborted Him.
As far as the Word of God is
concerned, that is a human being in the womb, just as much as it is a human
being outside of the womb. What’s more, the unborn John even seems to have some
consciousness, reacting to the greeting of Mary, the mother of his Savior, by
leaping in the womb of Elizabeth. Personality, memory and consciousness exist
in the womb. If you want a good pro-life passage out of Scripture, there’s one
right there in Luke.
v.42-44,
Mary went to visit her relative Elizabeth because the angel had told her that
this elderly woman was with child. Mary went out of curiosity, because that’s
not something you see every day. Or perhaps she went looking for encouragement
from a close friend and believer. Or perhaps she went looking for mutual
understanding: Elizabeth was experiencing a miraculous birth just like Mary
herself, and together they were in a sense sharing an experience that no one
else could grasp. Or perhaps she really just wanted to see a pregnant old lady.
But check out Elizabeth! It’s not Mary
who gets the shock of her life seeing her elderly relative, it is old Liz who
is surprised to encounter the unborn Lord in Mary. But whoa, how does Elizabeth
know all of a sudden that the unborn Child in Mary is her Lord?
She pieces it together. Most likely
Zacharias had told her about the angel’s words to him in the temple. He
couldn’t speak, yes, but evidently he could still write. No doubt, Zach had
told his wife about what the angel had said of their unborn son, the one they
were to name John, that this John would “make
ready a people prepared for the Lord”.
Women just sometimes seem to have some
incredible intuition, especially as mothers. And on top of that, Elizabeth was
filled with the Spirit here. But what she does is piece together the
relationship between the two miraculously conceived children in her and Mary’s
wombs, and realizes that hey, this reaction from her unborn child is a reaction
of joy toward the One he would someday herald and announce to the world, the
One that John would prepare the people for: the Messiah, the Lord.
v.45,
Last week we had mentioned some things that made Mary special. Not listed among
them were her immaculate conception. Mary was not special because she was
sinless. Mary was not special so as to deserve the grace of God. Mary was not
“full” of grace in the sense that grace originated in her. But she was special
because she was a virgin.
And also, she was special because she
was a young woman of faith. Elizabeth indicates that Mary “believed”. The key of salvation, the key to the pearly gates, is the
key of faith. Abraham “believed the LORD
and it was counted to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6).
Note this is faith in someone, faith in God. Abraham believed
the LORD. Mary believed the words the angel brought from God. It’s not like
they just had faith in faith, faith in nothing.
We often hear that little jangle in
our modern society don’t we? “Oh you’ve just gotta have faith!” “Hang in there!
Just have a little faith!” Well, faith in what, you 21st century
motto, you?
I was reminded of the animated movie
“the Prince of Egypt” since I taught out of the book of Exodus yesterday, and
it’s a pretty “okay” film, but there’s a song in there right at the thrilling
moment when the Jewish slaves drop their tools and waltz out of slavery,
singing. It’s sung by Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston, remember? “There can be
miracles, when you believe!” They left out two words: “in God”.
“When you believe!” Believe in what
Ms. Carey? Believe in whom, you animated movie, you? Are we to expect to
understand that the Jews could have just walked out of Egyptian slavery because
of simple faith in faith? You know what faith in nothing is?
It’s wishing on a star. It’s just
wishful thinking. It’s hoping and dreaming and yearning, but none of these
things are actual faith in God. None of these things will really accomplish
anything, no more than when you sat in class in high school and wished that
that pretty girl or handsome stud would turn and look at you longingly. Wishing
upon star never did anyone any good at all. Sorry to burst your bubble there,
Jiminy Cricket. “When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are,
anything your heart desires will” not happen just because you stare at a
burning incandescent orb billions of miles away in space. Even if that distant
star was sentient, conscious, alive, what could it possibly do to solve your
problems?
Let’s not take our theology from
American society and pop culture. I like rather what the Reformer Martin Luther
said of faith: “Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure
and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times.”
The world says “Have faith! Things
will turn out alright.” Will they? Just being hopefully optimistic will change
nothing but your own emotions. And if that’s all you want, great. But if we
want to change the world, it will happen not through faith in faith, but faith
in the living, powerful active God.
What does that look like? It looks
like prayer that is made to the Lord expecting and knowing that He hears and
desires to act. It looks like making daring and courageous decisions in life.
It looks like taking His Word at face value. It looks like committing your life
to a God you cannot see but that you’re so sure is out there that you would
stake your life upon Him a thousand times.
*Now
we come to the song of Mary. It is traditionally known as the Magnificat, a
name that is taken from the Latin words that begin the song. “Magnificat” thus
doesn’t mean “a magnificent cat” since that would be ridiculous, rather it
means “my soul magnifies”. In other traditions this is known as the Ode of the
Theotokos, which I thought was interesting.
But names aside, realize what we’re
looking at here: one of the oldest hymns used in the oldest Christian churches,
and quite possibly the very first
song in Christianity. The Church has since produced numerous melodies of
worship and praise, but it could be that we’re looking at the earliest one of
them all.
v.46-49,
Who is “in Focus” here? Quite obviously it’s God.
Mary really only directly references
herself and any quality in herself once. She says that all generations will
call her blessed. And certainly so: out of all women, only the blessed Mary was
chosen by God’s grace to bear the Christ and bring the Savior into the world.
But while the church has historically taken this one phrase out of Mary’s song
about her being blessed and built up colossal and fantastic doctrines and
dogmas from it, that’s hardly Mary’s concept is it?
She hardly mentions herself at all but
dwells almost entirely only the power, the glory and the holiness not of
herself, but of God. Heck, the opening lines say “My soul magnifies the Lord”. That’s what Mary did. She glorified
God. She praised God. She directed people to God. She sang of God. So then
where does the church ever get off singing and praising and directing people to
her.
To this day, the Eastern Orthodox
church accompanies the Ode of the Theotokos with the following refrain: “You
who are more to be honoured than the Cherubim and incomparably more glorious
than the Seraphim…” Who do you think they’re singing about? The same Being that
Mary sang about?
Nope. It goes on: “…you who,
uncorrupted, gave birth to God the Word, in reality the God-bearer, we exalt
you.” Who? You, Mary. They’ve gone and missed the whole point of the song. The
whole point of the song is that Mary’s soul magnifies the Lord. The song is
about magnifying and glorifying God, not the singer but the subject.
You ever watch a movie with that one
person who’s like “Well, to me, the
movie meant this. I think it was really a metaphor for racial inequality.” And
you think to yourself: “Really? Jurassic Park? That’s about racial inequality?”
The point is that it doesn’t really
matter what you think a movie or a book or a song is really saying. It doesn’t matter what you think it means. What matters is what the author knew it meant. What matters is the
author’s interpretation, the author’s meaning and the author’s original
intention. You can interpret “Stairway to Heaven” as an allegory for
Christianity or you can interpret “2001: a Space Odyssey” as an allegory for
the drive of human exploration, but ultimately your interpretations are
doo-doo, less than worthless beside what the author actually intended to mean.
The meaning of Mary’s song that she sang and she wrote was not to give evidence for her perpetual virginity or
immaculate conception. Mary’s meaning and Mary’s point is simply to magnify the
Lord, just as she says and says plainly. As the preacher Spurgeon said:
“Singing is the natural language of joy.”
You ever tried writing a song. That’s
hard. Yet Mary, for all her gifts, was
also apparently a gifted songwriter and just sings this glorious song off the
cuff. How? Out of the abundance of overflowing joy in her heart. O that we
would think of God as Mary thought of God, that our worship services would come
alive with the natural language of joy.
v.50-52,
remember, Jesus wasn’t born to Caesar’s palace or the harem of Herod, powerful
and famous men. He chose to be born to a lowly little virgin of Nazareth. Why?
Because God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. That “motto of
God” is everywhere in the Bible.
v.53-55,
The content of this song reveals that Mary knew the Scriptures. It is full of
allusions and references to biblical concepts and Old Testament doctrines and
passages. This shows us that Mary studied the Word. She knew the Word. The
Bible was available to her memory and to her heart.
And the thing that makes that truly
amazing is the possibility of the tender age of Mary in this moment. It’s
possible and some have speculated that she could have been as young as 15 or
even 14. So let me ask you: Is your biblical understanding put to shame by a
14-year-old girl? If that strikes at your manhood, or your adulthood, fine. But
frankly, it’s pretty sad that we could very easily be put to shame by the
knowledge of the Word of God that this little girl possessed.
And why? What could possibly be the
reason or the excuse? We’ve lived longer? We’ve been to church more times?
We’ve had in many ways better biblical training than Mary? And yet how many of
us could make even 12 allusions to Old Testament Scripture in a song, which by
the way, we’ve got to sing on the spot? How many of us know the Bible as well
as a little girl, this girl: Mary?
Note that because the Word was on her
heart, the Word came out on her lips. There are fewer things more trite, more lame
and more insincere than “Christianese”, the pseudo-language of the average
modern church-goer. How you doing today? “Oh I’m feeling blessed”. Or we throw
out a few “praise God”s, a few “I’ll pray about it”s or a few simple “Jesus
loves you”s to assure everyone watching that in actuality we’re really into
this whole Christian thing, really. When in reality we aren’t particularly
feeling blessed today or we haven’t deeply praised God at all recently despite
the phrase, or though we say we’ll pray about it we’ll probably forget to pray
at all instead, or though we say “Jesus loves you” we’d be hard pressed to
explain exactly how, or exactly what His love did or how it was demonstrated or
what the cross that emblazons our t-shirts really means for a human being.
And really, it comes back to a matter
of putting the right things in Focus. For Mary, God her Savior was her focus.
Many times in our lives, we can unfortunately allow ourselves to take our focus
off of God and put it on ourselves, our desires and happiness and wants, or on
others, human beings who will disappoint you and shrug you off, or on events
and circumstances, or on feelings and emotions, or on entertainment and
pleasure. And suddenly we wonder why we’re depressed all the time, living among
people who are depressed all the time, and everybody’s so depressed that
everybody’s taking pills for depression or trying to get the next exciting
thing that we might not be left alone with the cold isolation of sadness. We
move from warmth to warmth, from peripheral happiness to peripheral happiness
in a great looping circuit of sorrow, moving from one boyfriend or girlfriend
to the next, moving from infatuation with one person to the next, moving from thing
to thing, object to object, movie to movie, hype to hype, event to event to
somehow quench our inexorable sense of longing without finding until we move to
ashes to ashes and dust to dust, all the time never turning our eyes upon
Jesus.
As the old hymn goes: “Turn your eyes
upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow
strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”
We can learn a lot from the mother of
our Lord. And for the last time, not
the immaculate conception or any of that rubbish. What we’ve learned from Mary
is that God is gracious and that we must turn our souls toward Him, and magnify
Him. What we’ve learned from Mary is that you’re never too young to learn God’s
Word.
You know, there are many, many
fascinating things about this Book of books. You can read it and read it all
your life and still it will continue to speak to the humble heart. It comes
alive. And you can delve as deep into it as you want: scholastically,
philosophical, ethically, textually, historically, and theologically while at
the time it is a Book which can simply speak to simple children. This Book has
the ability to entertain the greatest minds for a lifetime, and at the same
time it can fill a child with wonder.
You don’t need to meet an
age-requirement to be an expert in God’s word, and besides this is a college
group. We’re old enough now to serve in the military, to drive automobiles, to
run for political offices, to work for a living. We’re old enough to be experts
of God’s Word.
My final question to you tonight is
this: If you’re unsatisfied with your understanding of God and His Word, why is
that? Why aren’t you an expert in God’s Word? You may be an expert in a lot of
other things that take up your attention: you might be a trivia-master for the
Walking Dead, but in the end what will all that really matter. Become an expert
in God’s Word, not that you might know more than others, but that you might
know God yourself.
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