The True Life and the False Life (continued)
Mary's Renunciation
Well, we have to come to the really important thing. Where was all this focused? In a simple Galilean woman, whose name was Mary.
You know, for two reasons we have lost something very wonderful in this connection. It is the devil's trick again! satan will always try to get hold of something Divine and discredit it, and satan has discredited this Divine thing by the worship of the virgin Mary. This is a great triumph for the devil, as you will see in a moment or two.
There is another thing that has made us very hesitant to dwell upon this birth of Christ, and I think it is either a right or a wrong sensitiveness. We are so nice and so good, you know, and we do not like to read and talk about this "virgin" Mary! I wonder how you felt when we read that passage from Luke just now! 'It is very wonderful and very beautiful, but don't let us dwell upon it too much! Let us be very sentimental, very proper, very good and very nice!' Do you know what I mean?
So, for these two reasons, we have lost something that is very Divine, and I think poor Mary needs to be redeemed. She needs to be brought back to her right place, and we have to get a new appreciation of this young woman. I have had to recover something about Mary.
There is a link between that which happened in heaven with the Son of God when He emptied Himself, and Mary. Do not make any mistake! Mary had to make a great renunciation, for she knew what it meant to have a child without a husband. Supposing it became known that this child was born and Joseph was not the Father! Who was the father, then? That is something for people to talk about! I am not sure that the people in wicked Nazareth had not already spread a rumor, because at one time some of the enemies of Jesus Christ threw this thing at Him, when they said: "We were not born in iniquity" (John 8:41). Is that not horrible, terrible?
Ah, Mary knew what it meant! She knew that if this thing got out into the world she would be counted as one of the world's most disgraceful people. Everyone would look down upon her. She was afraid, and, more than that, "greatly troubled." The angel Gabriel read what was going on in her soul and said: "Fear not, Mary." Never in all history did a woman need that word more than Mary did that day! She had taken in the situation and realized in what she was involved. The angel Gabriel said: "Mary, you are a very specially favored woman. God has favored you more than other women." And the word that the angel used was "grace" - God has put His grace upon you more than upon any other woman." Well, she considered the whole thing, realizing what it meant, knowing that if she had to go out into the world, and the world know about it, it would talk (and the world never gives a Divine meaning to a thing like that! You know the kind of world we are in!), and she said - note! - "Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word."
I put a mighty emphasis upon that word "bondslave!" Did Mary empty herself of a woman's glory? That is what it meant naturally. Did Mary humble herself to be obedient unto death? For, you know, a woman like that would have been stoned in Israel, and she knew it. Did she humble herself and become obedient unto death? Oh, yes, she did. She went down to the lowest place. But what is the word? "Bondslave of the Lord" - the servant of God.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 15)
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