Behold the handmaid of the Lord
Mary’s quiet acceptance of greatness
Nothing impresses us more than the calmness with which, after the first trouble was past, the virgin received the message of the angel.
She was not dazzled nor excited by her glorious future. She was not touched by any vanity. “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.” In nothing more than in this is the simple greatness of her character displayed. What was the reason of this? It was that the thought of God’s presence with her destroyed all thought of self. She could not think of her greatness otherwise than as bestowed by God. “ He that is mighty hath magnified me.” She could not feel the flutter of vanity. It died in the thought of the glorious salvation which was coming to her country and the world. She was nothing; God was all. Do you want a cure for that false humility, that mock modesty, which says, “ I am not worthy,” and trumpets its denial till all the world knows that an honour has been offered; which, while it says with the lips, “It is too great for me,” feels all the time in the heart that self-consciousness of merit which betrays itself in the affected walk and the showy humility? Would you be free from this folly? Learn Mary’s secret. Feel that God is all; that, whether He makes you great, or leaves you unknown, it is the best for you, because it is His work. Do you want a cure for that unhappy, restless vanity, ever afraid, yet ever seeking to push itself forward; ever shy, yet ever trembling on the verge of impertinence; which shows itself to inferiors in rank in a bustling assumption of superiority which suspects it is not superior, and to superiors in rank by an inquietude, an ignorance of when to speak and when to be silent, sometimes by a fawning submission, sometimes by an intrusive self-assertion? Learn Mary’s secret. Feel that you are the child of God, not the servant or the master of any man, but the servant of Christ, who was the servant of all. Vain! What have any of us to be vain of? Rank? wealth? beauty? pomp of household? dress? splendour of appearance? A few years, and we are lying in the chill earth of the churchyard; our eye dead to admiration, our ear to praise; and the world--whose smile we forfeited eternal life to court--regrets us for an hour, and then forgets. And that is human life! No; it is the most miserable travesty of it. We stand in the presence of God. What are all the adventitious advantages of rank or wealth to Him, or to us in Him? Only the tarnished spangles, the tinsel crowns, the false diamonds, which are the properties of this petty theatre which we call the world. Once be able to say in your heart, “ behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me as He will,” and vanity and all its foolish fluttering tribe of small victories over others, of pushing meannesses, of restless desires, of little ostentations, will abandon your heart for ever. The true greatness, wealth, nobility, is to be at one in character with the everlasting goodness, truth, and love of God; to be great with the magnanimity of Christ, to be rich in all the eternal virtues, to be noble among the aristocracy of the best men. He who possesses these can never be vain, and the way to possess them is the Virgin’s way--to be the servant of God, to do His will. (Stopford A. Brooke, M. A.)
Ready acquiescence in God’s will
How fit was her womb to conceive the flesh of the Son of God, by the power of the Spirit of God, whose breast had so soon, by the power of the same Spirit, conceived an assent to the will of God! and now, of a handmaid of God, she is advanced to the mother of God. No sooner hath she said, “Be it done,” than it is done; the Holy Ghost overshadows her, and forms her Saviour in her own body. (Bishop Hall.)
Mary’s answer exhibits
1. Genuine humility, with joyful faith.
2. Quiet resignation, with active zeal.
3. Faithful love, with unwavering heroism. (Van Doren.)
Reasons for submission to the will of God
I. THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. It is that of a Father. Whatever we have, it is God’s more than ours.
II. THE RIGHTEOUSNESS AND JUSTICE OF GOD.
III. THE MERCY AND GOODNESS OF GOD.
IV. THE ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF GOD.
V. THE UNCHANGEABLENESS OF GOD. (D. Beaumont.)
The call of God
It was the answer of profound and humble obedience to the greatest call ever addressed from heaven to a mortal creature. Sudden, undreamt of, overwhelming--interrupting in the most startling manner the daily curse of an obscure human life, breaking in on its privacy, and laying on it the most awful of charges--it was a call to prepare for being the instrument of the final and complete accomplishment of God’s highest words and most amazing work. It was a call to be the last link in a chain which, beginning from God Himself, and composed of that august line of chosen souls who in all ages had carried forward His purpose and His promise, was to end in man brought at last to the utmost and most inexpressible closeness unto God--the human mother of the Eternal Son. It was a call to such a pinnacle of unearthly and unapproachable greatness that the consequences involved in it, and the price which it might exact, must have confounded and baffled all anticipation and forethought. What might have to come before the glory, who could conjecture? What might she not have to be, to endure, to surrender, to look forward to, who in a moment learned, in the depth of her obscurity, that she had been chosen, and was called out of all mankind, to be the mother of the “Son of the Highest,” the “Son of God,” the “Christ.” It is idle, it is profane to attempt to imagine the mind and soul of a human being like ourselves at such a moment. In its sudden translation and lifting up out of all the ordinary conditions of human life, in the tides of honour and rapture, of crushing shame and consciousness of the Divine election, of possible sacrifice and certain triumph, it could be like nothing that man has ever gone through. But whatever passed before the thought of that blessed one while the angel’s words were setting before her the lot to which she had been appointed, and the place she was to fill in the eternal history, her instant expression of character was that of absolute self-surrender to all that she was called to--of perfect readiness for all that might be required of her. “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, &c.” (Dean Church.)
When Mary uttered these words of sweet and humble sublimity, she at once received the rankling sword-thrust into her soul, and steeped her soul in a balm that healed, and more than healed all possible sword-thrusts. (Professor Warfield.)
The handmaid of the Lord
I. Let your attention be called to THE GRAND EVENT HERE DESCRIBED AND MADE KNOWN. It is clear that He who was to be a perfect sacrifice must have a purer origin than fallen man; supernatural. “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee,” &c.
II. MARY’S ANSWER TO THIS GRACIOUS COMMUNICATION. “Behold the handmaid,” &c.
1. That this obedient saint was using the language and expressing the sentiments of God’s people in all ages. The title of Moses was “ the servant of God” (Daniel 6:20; Psalms 116:16). Ready obedience.
2. We are not less bound to the service of God under the gospel; the titles of servants and handmaids do as much befit us, as they did the people of old. St. Paul and St. James style themselves “servants of God.”
3. A word to those who can say, “Whose I am, and whom I serve.” This is your world of trial, and you may expect difficulties to draw you aside. The Master’s rule is best found in His word, “Be it unto me according to Thy word.” Let us receive with humility and gratitude the entire Word of God. With what delight must the angel have received Mary’s pious answer to his communication: and when he returned and told it in the court of heaven, there would be joy in the presence of the rest of the angels of God: so when your hearts respond to the messengers of grace. (J. Slade, M. A.)
Blessedness of resignation
I have at times caught a glimpse of the comfort which it yields to the spirit when I merge my will into God’s will, when I resolve to have no will of my own separate from God. I feel quite assured that this renunciation of self and entire devotion to God’s service would give a simplicity and grandeur to my existence; would throw an unclouded sunshine over all my ways; would raise me above the cares and provocations of this life; would enhance even my sensible gratifications, and superadd those gratifications of a higher order, which constitute the main and essential blessedness of heaven. O, my God, may it be thus with me! (Dr. Chalmers.)
The life of consecration
As Mary uttered this word, she laid herself upon God’s altar in absolute abandonment to God’s will, that He might do in her, and through her, whatever pleased Him.
I. If we consider the CIRCUMSTANCES THAT PRECEDED AND LED UP TO THIS GREAT UTTERANCE, we shall see, in Gabriel’s conversation with her, three arresting things.
1. Gabriel made clear to her what her vocation was. This is the first condition of a rightly lived life--it must be lived in obedience to the recognition of the vocation of God. Each of us has been created for a definite end, and to fill a special sphere in life.
2. Gabriel’s converse with Mary revealed also the power in which that vocation was to be realized. She must abandon herself to the power of the Holy Ghost.
3. Gabriel indicated also the condition under which alone the Divine vocation could be realized, and that was by the consent of her own will. God could not take possession of Mary without her free response to His call.
II. THE LIFE OF REGENERATION IS OF NECESSITY NOT SIMPLY A LIFE OF NEGATIVE SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD, BUT A LIFE OF POSITIVE CONSECRATION TO GOD.
1. If consecration to God is the condition of a rightly-lived life, since it is an action, it is an action which must take place at some time in our lives. It must be definitely entered into.
2. If this life of consecration is one which we definitely enter into, it must be continuously persevered in. You cannot consecrate yourself in a moment, so as to secure perseverance in a consecrated life. We can only live the consecrated life when, having entered into it by an act of self-surrender, we live in obedience to consecrating grace.
3. The life of consecration must be lived in a God-assigned sphere. If Mary had turned aside from the vocation of God, and with all possible zeal had sought to serve Him elsewhere, and in other spheres than He had appointed, her life would have been a life, not of consecration to God, but one of self-pleasing. For you must remember this, that it is quite possible for a religious life to be a self-pleasing life. We may be apparently leading the most heroic lives of self-sacrifice, and, after all, our lives may be lives of self-pleasing all the time, for they are lived in a self-chosen sphere; and the question which every one who seeks to be consecrated to God must ask himself is this--Lord, where wouldest Thou have me to be? And then--Lord, what wouldest Thou have me to do? And then--Lord, what wouldest Thou have me suffer? We must be where God would have us be, we must do what God would have us do, we must suffer what God would have us suffer, if our life is to be consecrated to God, and not dedicated to self. It is so important that we should remember that all right spheres in life are God-assigned. God calls one man to the priesthood, another to serve Him in lay life; God calls one to religion, another to secular life; God calls one to serve Him in married life, and another to serve Him in single life; God calls one to serve Him in wealth, and another in poverty; but the essential law of living a life of consecration to God is a hearty, generous embrace of the God-assigned sphere of life. Hearty, generous embrace--no mere resignation. What have we Christian people to do with resignation? We have to rise to something much higher than resignation; we have to leap forward in response to Divine vocation, because it is the vocation of God.
III. THE CONDITION OF RESPONDING TO THE DIVINE VOCATION IS ABANDONMENT TO THE HOLY GHOST. What is God’s great purpose in putting us in the sphere of life in which we are? I do not answer this question with dogmatic confidence, but my belief is that the primary purpose of God’s dealing with His people is--formation of character; that we are placed in our spheres of work, wherever they may be, rather for what God means to do in us than what God means to do by us. I know quite well that wherever God places us He means to do a work by us; but--I repeat it--I believe that God’s primary purposes of His dealings withus is not the work He does by us, but the work He wills to do in us.
IV. CONSECRATION IMPLIES PAINFUL SACRIFICE. Mary would naturally shrink back from response to this vocation for two reasons.
1. The call might seem too high for her. How many there are who shrink back from living generous, Christian lives in the world because they think that, if they are really to make up their minds to live lives consecrated to Christ and of loyalty to God “in among the haunts of men,” they will be taking up a position which is too hard and difficult for them to maintain. What underlies many a poor, miserable, dwarfed Christian life is this cowardice which is so common among us. It is undeniably the fact that whole surrender to God does of necessity involve painful consequences; for they who thus give themselves up to God are called to know the fellowship of Christ’s suffering. It is quite true that consecration to God is going to Calvary. Unless we are prepared to know the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings, we cannot really and truly say this second word of Mary’s.
2. But there is another thing that would have made her shrink back from her vocation, and that was the suspicion and calumny that would follow upon her consecration. Ere long men were pointing at her with the finger of scorn, and even Joseph was thinking of putting her away. And one thing is certain--is it not?--that men who go out into the world to try to lead a godly life often find themselves exposed to its calumny. Its hatred of goodness will make it only too ready to believe any scandalous story that is spread abroad about any one who lives for God. It is a fear of the condemnation of the world which holds so many back from God. Yet Mary faced it all; though her response meant such awful nearness to God, though it involved such great sacrifice as to bring upon her intense shame, boldly she said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to Thy word.”
IN CONCLUSION, let me point out how that this life of consecration is the fruit of love. It is love that consecrates. Love is based on gratitude, and Mary recognized the-fact gratefully that God had the right to claim her to use as He willed. “Behold the handmaid,--the slave of the Lord--be it unto me according to Thy word.” “O God, I am Thine handmaid, Thy slave; Thy right over me is absolute; I cannot for a moment refuse to obey Thy voice.” And so it is. God has upon us a threefold claim, each springing from an act of love.
1. The first is the claim of creation. Here we are in God’s world not of our own will, but of His will.
2. But God has a second claim upon us, and that is the claim of redemption. The eternal Christ, the Son of God, came into the world, became the Child of Mary, and passed to the cross. He gave Himself--every portion of Himself--upon the tree for us--His mind, His heart, His will, each member of His sacred body. Behold it quivering upon the cross! Why? That He might buy us for His own.
3. But there is one other reason, and that is gratitude for regeneration. O mystery of mysteries! To think that you and I, sin-stricken as we are, should not only have been redeemed, but that we should have been “married to the Lord!” To think that He who in His humanity is the fairest of God’s creation, should have stooped from the height of His Father’s throne to the deep depths of our fallen state, and not simply have brought us forgiveness, but that He should have embraced us in His arms, and brought us to His sacred heart, and made us with Him one--bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh! To think of this, and all this as within the bounds of truth! Grasp the mystery of regeneration, and what follows? Consecration to God, abandonment to Christ. As the wife consecrates herself to her husband, so the regenerate to the great Bridegroom of the Church. Whole surrender is my duty; whatever He asks, that I yield. Creation, redemption, regeneration--revelation after revelation of God’s love, kindle in my heart gratitude, and then lead me to take myself wholly up to God’s altar and lay myself down there a living sacrifice at God’s feet, as I cry, “ Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to Thy word.” (Canon Body.)