2023 Advent Guide | Week 3

Joy in the Story of Mary 

As we ponder “Joy” this third week of Advent, we turn to one of the most important figures in the Christmas story: Mary, the mother of Jesus. The mystery of God’s ways is that He chooses to use lowly, ordinary, and fallen people like you and me to carry out His plans. The Christmas story is no exception. The eternal and perfect plan of God for the salvation of the world hinges on the quiet, innocent yet powerful submission of a teenager from the ancient Near East to the will and plan of the Almighty.

Her obedience to God likely produced in her many questions, fears, and anxieties. What would it be like to have been asked to grow, carry, and give birth to The Messiah? What type of public gossip and shame might she carry being a pregnant virgin? Why her? The incredible thing about this marvelous young woman is that being obedient to God in the impossible ultimately produced in her, Joy. Let us use this story and the person of Mary to meditate on Joy this week.

Just like Hope and Peace, we look for Joy this season in many ways. It certainly is a rather joyful season in the festive decorations, gatherings, music, and gift-giving. The liturgy of the world is designed effectively to try and help us find joyful feelings. This isn’t bad or wasted on us. The various “smells and bells” this time of year can help our hearts to rejoice, just as the beautiful liturgy of the Church in our sanctuaries and the themes in the appointed hymns and Scriptures are designed to orient our hearts to rejoicing. For Mary, though, she was living her life, going about her duties, and preparing to travel to Bethlehem with Joseph to report for a census and be taxed. No trees, gifts, songs, lights, and parties. The everyday duties and patterns of normal life were interrupted by the angelic visitation that changed Mary and the course of human history forever! As fearful as an angelic visitation is and as inconvenient it can seem at times to follow God’s plan, Mary says that her soul “rejoiced.” In who? God: her Savior. See, for Mary, Joy wasn’t based on her circumstance or her feelings or the current season but on what she knew to be true about God. Just like our last two Sundays, let us be reminded that Hope, Peace, and now, Joy aren’t simply feelings. They are rooted in the truth of a person: Jesus Christ.

In her astonishment, awe, and questioning, Mary ultimately expresses Joy because her God has spoken and has fulfilled His promises. She says, “He has done mighty things for me,” “He has remembered His promises,” and “He has filled the hungry with good things.” If we seek our own joy based on how we feel, if we’re honest, we will be found wanting. Again, if we asked Mary how she was feeling, (granted, this is projection) she might be feeling anxiety, fear, and confusion, but she responds with speaking truth about God and what God has revealed to her. The only chance we have for true Joy this season is not in feelings or nostalgia or traditions, but in Truth. Pastor Alistair Begg said in a sermon, “Don’t ask me what I feel about myself. Ask me what I know about God! Ask me what I know about His Word. Ask me what I know of verity that can deal with my soul.”

When we remember, tell, rehearse, and meditate on the promises of God and His salvation, it produces in us joy not found in this world. The purchased and sealed promise of His Gospel that is ours today, and a future of perfection that is coming can produce in us true Joy, as it did for Mary. The truth of Christmas is that Jesus has come to deal with the sin that causes our real and true sorrows. We can KNOW that God’s salvation from sin is here for us today. We can know that He fills our hearts with His righteousness and that He fulfills His promises. Find joy in Him and His truth this season. Finally, enter into the helpful and lovely liturgies of lights, merriment, decorations, songs and parties, hymns and Scriptures. Allow them to awaken joy in us, and reorient and remind our hearts to the true joy and true light of God’s salvation. “A Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it!”

Amen.