| Sermon | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Service | ||
|---|---|---|
|
|
||
|
To download this video, press here to go to the download page. You may need to scroll down to see the download button. |
Download Bulletin | |
Sermon for the week of Advent 2
Jeremiah 23:5-6 + Luke 1:26-38
Last week we heard how the angel Gabriel stepped into our earthly realm to bring Zacharias the good news that he would have a son, and that his son would prepare the way for the Lord, the King. Today we heard how the holy angel Gabriel stepped for a second time into a world that was unholy, with all its hardship and filth, war and injustice, oppression, poverty, and sin. He only stepped in for a moment, though, to deliver a very important message. Then he stepped back out again. He wasn’t the holy One who was coming to live with us in this dark place. But he did come to announce the birth of that holy One, to a virgin named Mary.
What do we know about Mary? It’s important that we know what the Bible says about her, and what it doesn’t say, so that no one can deceive us into believing things that men have invented about her. For over a thousand years, the devil has been deceiving Christians to believe the wrong things about Mary, to focus their attention on her in a way that God hates and that she herself would have despised. Just two days ago, president Trump joined the Roman Church in celebrating the false belief that Mary was immaculately conceived, that is, conceived without the stain of original sin, a holy girl who was sinless and perfect from birth, who didn’t have to struggle with a sinful flesh like the rest of us, because she had no sinful flesh to begin with. Over the centuries, Mary has been credited with saving our nation, and many nations, from their enemies. She has been called the protector and refuge of the native American tribes (in both continents) and of other nations. She has been credited with one miracle after another, and one apparition after another. She has been called the Queen of heaven and earth, the mother of all Christians, and the one to whom we should pray if we truly want to be saved. She has even been set forth by many as the co-redeemer of the human race. But, I tell you, none of that is taught in Holy Scripture. None of that is consistent with the teaching of Scripture. And, therefore, all of that is blasphemy against God.
Of course, the worship or “hyper-service” that’s given to Mary has gotten so extreme that some have shot, like a rubber band, to the other extreme of ignoring or even badmouthing Mary. But that’s not right, either. The false teachings about Mary are wicked. But Mary herself was far from wicked, and far from insignificant. She was a sinner, like the rest of us, but she is also held up for us as a role model, in many ways, as a believer who was righteous by faith and righteous in the way she put her faith into practice. So let’s consider Gabriel’s words to her that you heard a moment ago, that we may give thanks for Mary rightly, without blaspheming God.
Mary, like Joseph, appears to have been descended from King David. We also know that she lived in Nazareth in Galilee, where Joseph also lived, and that she was somehow related to Elizabeth, Zacharias’ wife, who lived down in Judea. Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but they weren’t married yet, they weren’t living together yet, and they had never slept together, either. Mary was a virgin.
The angel Gabriel startled her with his greeting: Ave, Maria!Hail, Mary! But “Hail” isn’t a term of honor, or of dishonor. It’s just an old form of greeting in English, and Gabriel used the typical word in Greek for saying, “Hello!” or “Greetings!” So, “Hail, Mary!” is okay, but, “Greetings, Mary!” is better. Imagine if all those people who pray the rosary with its “Hail Mary’s” understood that they’re really just saying, “Greetings, Mary!”, which doesn’t even make sense, because Mary isn’t here for anyone to greet.
Greetings, O favored one!, he said or “graced one,” one who has been shown grace. Not “full of grace.” That was always a bad translation. The angel called her “favored one,” one who has been shown grace, who stands in God’s favor, or who has been given a gift of grace. St. Paul uses the same word for all believers in Christ when he writes to the Ephesians in chapter 1, “to the praise of God’s glorious grace, with which he has ‘graced’ or ‘favored’ us in the Beloved,” that is, in Christ. There’s nothing more to the angel’s greeting than that, and nothing less.
The Lord is with you, said the angel, and some Greek manuscripts add the phrase, Blessed are you among women!, which is something you’ll hear Elizabeth say to Mary in next week’s Lesson. To this day we still sometimes refer to Mary as the blessed virgin, not because she has any blessings to give, but because, above all women, she was given a special blessing from God. She would play a unique and special part in His plan to save sinners. Not that she would save or redeem anyone, or have any ongoing role in our salvation, but she would blessed with being entrusted to carry God’s Son in her womb for nine months, give birth to Him, take care of Him until He was an adult, accompany Him at various points of His ministry, accompany Him at the foot of His cross, become an early witness of His resurrection, and find a place among the early disciples in the early Church, who would pass on to the Church all the details we know about Jesus’ early life, now recorded in Matthew and Luke’s Gospels. No other woman in history has had a blessing or a gift like that, and Mary later acknowledged it gratefully.
Of course, Mary knew none of what was to come at this moment. She was confused and frightened by Gabriel’s greeting and by the very sight of an angel. But Gabriel quickly explained: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” (Which is just another way of explaining what “favored one” means.) What does it mean that Mary “found favor with God”?
First, it tells us that Mary was one of those believers in the God of Israel and in His promise to send a Savior, the Christ, to redeem Israel. Many of the Jews had given up waiting for the Christ by that time. But Mary hadn’t. She had faith in God; she trusted in God, “her Savior,” as she would later sing in the Magnificat. And by faith in Him, she had received grace and favor and the forgiveness of her sins.
That faith had also produced in her a willingness to submit to God’s Word and to God’s will. That’s already demonstrated in her proper behavior with Joseph, her “fiancé.” She is engaged to a man, but doesn’t come together with him, or with any man, until after they’re married (until after Jesus is born). Seems so simple, and yet the rest of the world outside of Israel was just as promiscuous as our world has become, and even within Israel there was plenty of adultery going on. So we shouldn’t dismiss Mary’s chastity. She is held up for all young women (and young men) as an example to be followed, an example of faith, humble obedience to God, and chastity. And just to be clear, Mary’s chastity, including her celibacy, mattered until Jesus was born. After that, it’s useless and potentially harmful to claim that Mary remained a virgin for the rest of her life, because it can’t be established from Scripture, it would have no effect whatsoever on our salvation, and it turns into another one of those pointless distractions and into an unhealthy infatuation with Mary’s private life, which God chose not to reveal to us.
Then the angel told Mary the amazing plan God had for her: And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 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, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.
This is the wonder that Isaiah had prophesied: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son and will call His name Immanuel.” Note several things about Him. He would be the Son of God as well as the Son of Man. He would be born with a pre-determined name that would characterize His entire life: Jesus, Savior. He would be a “King,” the Son of David, but His kingdom would be so much bigger than David’s kingdom ever was. David reigned over the physical nation of Israel. Jesus would reign over the true “house of Jacob,” the Holy Christian Church, made up of both Jews and Gentiles, whom He would bring into His kingdom through faith. And, unlike David’s kingdom, the kingdom of Mary’s Son would have no end, either in extent or in time. It would stretch throughout the universe, and it would last forever and ever.
Mary then asked the obvious question: How will this be, since I do not know a man? Now, unlike Zacharias’ defiant question to Gabriel, for which he was scolded, Mary asks in all honesty, “How will this be?” The idea may have even occurred to her that God wanted her to do something about becoming pregnant. Because otherwise what the angel had told her was humanly impossible.
Ah, but it was not divinely impossible. Nothing is impossible with God, the angel said. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore also the holy child that will be born of you will be called the Son of God.
Here we see the proper role of the Holy Spirit: He is the Bringer of God’s Word to the world. He did it first in creation. He did it through the words of the prophets. But now He will bring the very Word who was in the beginning with God, and who was God, into the world through a great miracle, causing the eternal person of the Word to take on human flesh in Mary’s womb, so that He is truly the Son of God and the Son of Man in one united Person. And holy, because unlike every other human being born into the world, this one would be “immaculately conceived.” The Roman Church blasphemously claims that for Mary, but it truly belongs only to Jesus. He is the “immaculate conception.”
And so, yes, Mary is the “Mother of God.” Not the mother of God the Father, or of the Holy Spirit, but of the Son of God, who is also true God, and therefore, if the focus is on Jesus, Mary is rightly called the Mother of God. But if the focus of that title is on Mary, as if being the mother of God gave her some kind of authority or position of honor between Jesus and the rest of us, then the same title that is true in and of itself becomes another example of blasphemy against God.
But Mary doesn’t exalt herself at all. She gives us another beautiful example of humble submission to God’s will: Here I am, the Lord’s servant. May it be done to me as you have said. She could only begin to imagine the hardships such a pregnancy would create in her life, how it would change every plan she had ever made. But whatever would come, whatever the Lord’s will was for her, she was ready to accept it. And for that, we give thanks to God, who worked in Mary “both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (cf. Phil. 213). Her words are a model for all Christians of all times of what it looks like to simply believe the seemingly unbelievable promises of God, and to hand one’s life over to Him completely. If you remember Mary like this, then you will remember her well, and do well to remember her, and the blessed role God gave her in bringing His beloved Son into the world! Amen.
