Mid-Advent 3
Lk
1:26-38
12/18/19
As you push your shopping cart
through the checkout area at the grocery store, it is impossible to miss the
English Royal family. Whenever there is
something happening amongst them, there they are looking out at us from the
magazine covers.
Most recently it was about the
marriage of Prince Harry to the American actress Meghan Markle, and then the
birth of their baby. Now it seems
strange that so much attention is allotted in the United States to a man who is
sixth in line of succession to a throne that has no actual power. But such is the fascination that the public
apparently has with this royal family.
The English royal family may get all
the attention from American press, but it is not alone. In fact, there are
twenty five other royal families around the world in places as diverse as Saudi
Arabia, Swaziland, Liechtenstein, Tonga and Bhutan. Some of these royal
families actually rule their nation, such as in Saudi Arabia. I should add that strangely enough, in
looking into this a little I was not able to find any evidence of the royal
families that rule the quaint little European kingdoms that constantly appear
in Hallmark movies.
In tonight’s text, a royal family
plays a key role. In fact we see that
while in the miracle of the incarnation Mary bears the incarnate Son of God
within her – the seed of the woman who will crush the serpent’s head – it is
not possible for this to happen in fulfillment of God’s promises without
Joseph. Jesus is true God and true
man. He is also the Christ, the
descendant of King David who fulfills all of God’s promises to Israel in the
Old Testament.
Our text begins by saying: “In the sixth month the
angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee
named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was
Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary.” Six months
after Elizabeth had become pregnant, God sent the angel Gabriel to Mary, a
virgin who lived in Nazareth.
Nazareth
was a village about twenty miles south west of Capernaum and the Sea of
Galilee. It was a place of no real
importance. The same can be said about Mary.
She was of no real importance. She was undoubtedly a teenager, probably
in her early teens. She was not married,
and so in keeping the Sixth Commandment, she was a virgin.
We
learn that she was betrothed to a man named Joseph who was of the house of
David. Joseph himself was of no real
importance. He was a carpenter. But there was one thing about Joseph that was
crucial for God’s plan of salvation: he was a descendant of King David.
Gabriel
said to Mary: “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” Mary had been chosen by God to be the woman
from whom the seed would be born who would defeat the devil. He had graciously
shown his favor in giving her this role that would forever set her apart from
every other woman.
Angels
did not appear to Mary any more often than they do to you, and so she was
troubled. But Gabriel said: “Do not be
afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 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.”
The
angel told Mary two things. First, she would conceive and bear a son named
Jesus. And second, this son would reign as King David’s heir over an
everlasting kingdom. Gabriel announced
to Mary that she would give birth to the Messiah promised by God.
In
Genesis three God had promised that a seed of the woman would defeat the
devil. Last week we saw how God did the
unexpected by using aged and barren Sarah to provide a son to Abraham – the one
through whom all nations would be blessed.
Between
the time of Sarah and Mary God had been at work fulfilling his promise. Step by step he narrowed the focus of how
this would happen. He said it would be
through Abraham’s son Isaac, and then through his son Jacob. Jacob, whom God gave the name Israel, became
the father of the nation Israel. At the
end of his life Jacob identified his son Judah as the one through whom God
would work when he blessed him and said, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's
staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him
shall be the obedience of the peoples.”
Then, out of
the tribe of Judah, God chose David to be king.
He sent Samuel to anoint him with olive oil and designate him as
king. When David was planning to build
the temple, Yahweh sent Nathan to David with these words: “When your days are
fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your
offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his
kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the
throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be
to me a son.”
And
even though most of the kings descended from David were unfaithful, God
promised a Messiah – an anointed one – who would rule forever and bring peace.
He said through the prophet Isaiah, “For to us a child is born, to us a
son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and
his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty
God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase
of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of
David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice
and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.”
Yahweh
had described the king who descended from David as his “son.” He had already called the nation of Israel
his “son” – son in an adoptive sense. Now
as Israel reduced to one, the Davidic king was also his son. Through marriage
to Joseph, a baby born to Mary would be part of the Davidic line. But this
child would also be God’s Son in his very being – a Son who is one substance
with the Father.
Mary
was betrothed, but was not married. And so she asked Gabriel, “How will this
be, since I am a virgin?” 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. 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.
For nothing will be impossible with God.”
Mary learned
that this child – this seed of the woman – would be like no other. There would be no human father. Instead, the Holy Spirit would cause the
child to be conceived in her womb. The
Son of God, the second person of the Trinity would receive a human nature from
Mary, while remaining true God. He would
be true God and true man at the same time.
When Mary had
been told this she said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be
to me according to your word." And then the angel departed from her. Mary had just been told that her life had
changed forever. She would give birth to
the Son of God. She would be raising the Messiah promised by God – the One who
would bring God’s end time salvation. And her response was one of faithful
acceptance.
Are we as
faithful in the acceptance of the vocations God has given to us? God has made
you a husband or wife; a father or mother; a son or daughter; a member of this
congregation; an employer or an employee.
Do we receive these callings with the same attitude as Mary: “Behold, I
am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” Do we
see ourselves as servants of the Lord in these roles? Do we seek to carry them
out so that they are done according to God’s word?
Often this is
not easy, as Mary herself soon learned. When Jesus had been born and they went
to Jerusalem, they met Simeon. He spoke
the beautiful words that we sing in the Nunc Dimmitis at the end of the Divine
Service, “Lord, now you let your servant go in peace; Your word has been
fulfilled. My own eyes have seen the
salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people.”
Yet Simeon then
went on to say to Mary, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and
rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword
will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may
be revealed.” Some thirty three years
later, Mary learned the full import of these words as she watched herson die on
a Roman cross.
There is
nothing in our text tonight that would lead you to expect this. We learn that
Jesus is the Son of God. We learn that he is the Messiah descended from King
David and promised by God. But the Son
of God entered into our world and took on human flesh in order to bear our
sins. The Davidic Messiah is also the Suffering Servant prophesied
by Isaiah who was wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our
iniquities. When the seed of the woman defeated the devil – it cost him dearly.
Dead and
buried, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day. God the Father raised him up
and vindicated him. His suffering and death had not been weakness and
failure. Instead it had been
faithfulness to the Father’s will. It
had been the victory over sin and death that God had promised all along. The long awaited seed of the woman
accomplished what God had promised.
The fulfillment
of God’s entire saving plan began as the angel Gabriel went to a place of no
real importance and announced news to a young girl of no real importance. Yet
the news about the baby she would bear was the most important thing that has
ever happened. It is what we prepare to
celebrate this Christmas.
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