Seeing Christmas Through the Eyes of Mary

Christmas Message

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

Dec. 21, 2025

 

Seeing Christmas Through the Eyes of Mary ‘25

Last Sunday we considered Christmas through the lens of time. This morning I’d like us to consider Christmas through the eyes of the one person, next to Jesus, who was closest to the center of it all. Jesus’ earthly mother, Mary.

Full disclosure: I preached a different version of this message on Dec 20, 2020, exactly five years and one day ago. Do you remember the world in Dec. 2020? We were meeting in person – with masks and 6 foot distancing – but a lot of churches weren’t meeting in person. A lot of restaurants weren’t open for dining. I remember driving up to Aniello’s and they’d come out to the car with the pizza. Those were darks days. I’m glad we’re not there. But for some reason I decided to have us look at Christmas through the eyes of Mary and I’d like for us to that again cause I think Mary gives us a uniquely front row view of Jesus’ birth. Title: Seeing Christmas through the eyes of Mary.

The first question is, who was Mary, really? The Catholic Church teaches that Mary was born without sin. The Immaculate Conception isn’t referring to Jesus being born without sin, it refers to Mary being born without sin. I think their position is for Mary to be an appropriate vessel to carry baby Jesus, she had to be sinless. The CC also teaches that Mary is the mother of God and the queen of heaven. If you really want a prayer answered, pray to Mary because God has to listen to His mother. I think the reason they elevate Mary to such an unbiblical degree is to make her an extra special, extra holy vessel, worthy like no other woman to give birth to Jesus.

The Bible tells us that only Jesus was born without sin. Mary was a sinner just like you and me. There’s also no biblical basis for calling her the Queen of heaven – the bible tells us that the twelve apostles sit on thrones but there is no mention of a throne for Mary. Prayer too is to be reserved for God alone. Praying to people who have died, including Mary, is unbiblical. Finally, Mary isn’t the mother of God, she was chosen by God to be the mother of Jesus, the Son of God born as a Man. The Catholic Church is elevating Mary to an unhealthy and unbiblical degree.

So who was Mary, really? When we strip away the unbiblical assertions of the Catholic Church, we get a better view of who Mary was and who she was was pretty amazing! Mary was a young Jewish girl, probably only 15 or 16 years old when she gave birth to Jesus. She wasn’t a beatific saint. She was a young mom who struggled at times to know how to relate to her Son-of-God, Savior-of-the-world, son Jesus. She wasn’t a perfect or sinless vessel but she did have an extraordinary love for God and faith in God. For someone so young she had a godliness and strength of character that is truly impressive. Mary knew her Bible and her theology. Mary’s Magnificat is one of the most beautiful songs in the Bible.

For Mary the Christmas story started with an unexpected visit by the angel Gabriel, recorded in Luke 1:26.

²⁶ In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, ²⁷ to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. ²⁸ And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” ²⁹ But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. ³⁰ And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. ³¹ And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, ³³ and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

³⁴ And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

³⁵ And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. ³⁶ And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. ³⁷ For nothing will be impossible with God.” ³⁸ And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her. Luke 1:26-38

Mary had her life pretty well mapped out and it was going to be a pretty unremarkable life. Living out her life in the small town of Nazareth, pledged to be married to a good man named Joseph, after that would come children, grandkids, and a life of loving and serving God in quiet obscurity.

But God had other plans for her life. After thousands of years of promising a Messiah, God called Gabriel and said, “it’s time. Go to a young woman in Nazareth and tell her she will have a child and he will be the son of the Most High and he will sit on David’s throne forever.” Gabriel goes and greets her “Greetings O favored one, the Lord is with you.”

If Mary had been a sinless person living on a higher spiritual level than anyone in history other than Jesus, she would have been like, “Yeah, I’ve been expecting you Gabe. I’ve always known God had something uniquely special for me because I am full of grace and sinless.”

But actually Gabriel’s greeting bothers her. She tries to discern what kind of greeting it was. Why would you call me highly favored (or full of grace)? I’m just an ordinary girl living in a one-horse town. Nothing special here!”

Gabriel says “what is special, and why you are highly favored, is that you have found favor with God. He has chosen you to bear the Son of the Most High. He will sit on David’s throne forever and you are to name him Jesus (God saves!). What makes you favored and full of grace isn’t who you are, it’s who will be born through you: Jesus!”

1. Mary was an ordinary person called by God to do an extraordinary thing

The beauty of Mary isn’t that she was a sinless person who walked around with a halo glowing around her. Who she was is better than that: she was an ordinary girl – admittedly with an extraordinary faith and humility – who was just as amazed at what God had chosen to do through her as anyone.

In the movie Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail, when Indiana Jones and Walter Donovan come across a room full of cups, and the Guardian of the Holy Grail tells them if they choose the goblet Jesus drank from they would have eternal life, but if they chose the wrong goblet, they would die after drinking from it. Walter Donovan chooses a gold, diamond studded goblet as befitting the King of Kings and toasting to eternal life drank from it, only to age rapidly and die. The Guardian simply says, “he chose foolishly.” Indiana chooses the most modest wooden cup and says this would be the cup of a carpenter and drank from it. The Guardian says, “you have chosen wisely.”

We might think putting Mary on a pedestal of sinless perfection makes her worthy of being the mother of Jesus, but really it was her ordinariness. She was a humble vessel, the kind God loves to choose to do His great work through.

Yes Mary was full of grace but that proves the point. The word in Luke 1:28 for “full of grace” is only used one other time in Eph. 1:6 referring to God’s glorious grace freely given to all of us in Christ Jesus. All of those who believe in Jesus have freely received grace and favor from God. Mary is just like us in that regard. The beauty of Mary is that we can relate to her as humble, sinful vessels saved by Jesus alone.

Mary asks the very practical question of how this can be possible since she is a virgin, the angel describes the one true immaculate conception. Sin, the Bible says, was passed through the seed of Adam. There would be no seed of Adam, no earthly father involved in the conception of Jesus. Instead the Holy Spirit would come upon Mary and the power of God would overshadow her and the impossible would happen: God the Son would become a man. The Incarnation.

2. The miracle of the Incarnation

Astronomers believe that a black hole is created when a massive star (far larger than our sun) collapses in on itself until it becomes so compact that its gravitational pull is too powerful for anything, including light, to escape. The largest black hole discovered so far is at the center of the Messier 87 Galaxy and is believed to have the mass of 3 billion of our suns, contained in a space about the size of our solar system. Our sun is relatively small as stars go but its mass accounts for 98% of the mass in our solar system. Imagine 3 billion suns squashed into our solar system. It’s beyond our imagination.

But it’s nothing compared to the infinite God – far bigger and greater than 3 billion suns – being “squashed” into a man. Not just a man, but an embryo. We can’t understand the Incarnation – theologian Wayne Grudem says it’s the greatest miracle in all the Bible – but we know that Jesus was fully God and fully man. His divine nature – even when he was developing in Mary’s womb – was infinite and limitless. His human nature was finite and limited. Jesus was both at the same time. Fully God and fully man. The baby that Mary held was God. The line in Mary, Did You Know that says Mary did you know that when you kissed your little baby, you kissed the face of God?

It would be impossible which is why the angel says nothing is impossible with God!

Mary didn’t understand what was happening. She was frightened and troubled and confused. But then this teenage girl, brought up in an ordinary family, in an ordinary town, does something extraordinary: she believes! Even Gabriel must have been impressed when she says, “I’m the servant of the Lord. Let God do to me all that He has said He will do.”

The amazing thing about Mary wasn’t that she was sinless, or the Queen of heaven, or the Mother of God. What’s amazing about Mary is that when God spoke promises that were too big, too impossible, too far-fetched to believe, Mary believed! She took God at His word!

There is a Christmas lesson in that for us. We have all the great and precious promises of God in this book. There may be times and circumstances that make it hard to believe them but we can stand on God’s promises – nothing is impossible with God! Actually there are some things that are impossible for God and we need to remember it – it’s impossible for God to lie. And it’s impossible for God to break a promise. God promises to be faithful to those who trust Him. He promises to save those who call on Him. He promises to work all things out for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purposes – which are all those who believe in Him. Jesus said the work of God is to believe on the One God sent.

Christmas is precious because it reminds us that God kept His promise and always keeps His promises.

Continuing the story through Mary’s eyes. The angel told her she was favored by God. In her song the Magnificat she declared that generations would call her blessed. But favor and blessing didn’t mean an easy life for Mary. Just the opposite: favor and blessing meant the complete upheaval of her life. Joseph decided to divorce and put Mary away, quietly so as not to shame her more than necessary. God sent the angel of the Lord to tell Joseph that the baby within Mary was of the Lord and he was to take her as his wife. But it was a small town and there were whispers that followed Mary all her life. Did you know thatMary got pregnant out of wedlock? Then to comply with Caesar’s census they needed to travel back to Joseph’s hometown with Mary about to have a baby. When they got there there was no room for them anywhere because it was God’s purpose that Jesus, the Lamb of God, be born in a stable.

God’s favor and blessing on Mary has brought trouble and hardship and shame on Mary.

Then Jesus is born and all heaven breaks out! What the angel told her in that quiet, small room, was now being proclaimed loudly by all kinds of voices! Angels light up the sky, telling shepherds who were keeping watch that the Savior was born! Those shepherds show up breathlessly telling Joseph and Mary all that the angels said about this baby. Wherever they go, people speak words of promise and hope over their baby Jesus. Wise men travel long distances to worship and give gifts to the newborn king.

As we see Christmas through the eyes of Mary, we see shock, fear, upheaval, confusion, displacement, discomfort, joy, hope, and wonder as the rush of events and proclamations to big to comprehend swirl around her. She must have wondered, “God, what are You doing?” But Mary does one more thing that we should all emulate:

3. Mary treasured and pondered

¹⁵ When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” ¹⁶ And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. ¹⁷ And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. ¹⁸ And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. Luke 2:15-18

In the midst of all this noise and activity, Luke zeros in on Mary’s heart:

¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. (vs 19)

Mary treasured and pondered. She didn’t just turn it over in her head, she treasured it in her heart. In the midst of so many inexplicable, incomprehensible things swirling all around her, she processed it internally by treasuring and pondering.

We can never fully understand the meaning of Christmas or appreciate the beauty of Christmas by just thinking about what God did for us. We also need to treasure what God did for us. Some things are more than the sum of facts and information.

I came across an article titled “How to Understand Love as a Chemical Reaction”. It was informative but I suspect that if all we understand about love are the chemical reactions involved, we don’t really understand love at all.

God has given us things like love, beauty, even grief, that can’t be understood with the head unless we feel them with the heart. Mary pondered – she turned it over in her head. But Mary also treasured – she valued it in her heart.

Christmas is a busy time, but let’s be purposeful to take the time to treasure Christ our Savior’s birth. Reflect with love and gratitude on all God has done for us, on the massive promises He has given us, all possible because of that first Christmas morning. Mary treasured and pondered.

Christmas is about God’s promises, let’s believe them! God loves you, He is your heavenly Father, He has saved you by the Savior born on that Christmas morning two thousand years ago. Let’s put away doubt, let’s put away negativity, let’s put away cynicism and let’s believe our Faithful God at His word!

As we see Christmas through the eyes of a teenage Jewish girl named Mary, let’s imitate her amazing, extraordinary example by treasuring and pondering and believing all that God did for us through Christ our Savior.