Luke 1:26-38
Our gospel lesson for this morning begins with a virgin named Mary who is visited by an angel. The angel is Gabriel, whose name means God is our strength.
Gabriel, as is true whenever God sends an angel, because the word angel means messenger, has a sermon to preach. That’s what angels do: preach. Not all preachers on this earth are angels; but all angels are preachers.
Only one part of the sermon is for Mary alone though: Mary, though a virgin, will give birth to a son. Understandably, this is the part of the sermon Mary is troubled by. How, she wonders, am I going to become pregnant when I have never been with a man?
To assure Mary that, in the pursuit of His good ends, God can do what otherwise would be impossible, Gabriel gives Mary a sign. The sign is this: He tells her that six months earlier, her relative Elizabeth, who had always been unable to conceive, became pregnant.
But, you know, while miraculous signs from God may strengthen our faith or point us toward faith, signs in themselves cannot give us saving faith in the God revealed to us in Jesus.
Less than twenty-four hours after Jesus had fed them with a few fish and pieces of bread, you’ll remember, a crowd asked Jesus to show them some sign that He was the Messiah and God; then, they said, they would believe in Jesus. Signs don’t create faith.
And I have known people who have been given miracles from God, but never believed.
A man once told me how happy he was that I’d given him a tip to pray regularly because all of his relationships were falling apart. I asked him, “Have you thought of praying about it?” He later told me, “I started praying and my relationship with my boss has completely changed.” But months later, he told me he didn’t believe in God or Jesus’ resurrection or eternity. The man had been given a seemingly miraculous sign, but signs in themselves don’t create faith.
Only the Word of God can give us saving faith in Christ. That’s why you and I are called to preach Christ. The apostle Paul says, “Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified…” (1 Corinthians 1:22-23) Only the Word about Jesus crucified, risen, ascended, and, one day, returning to the world to judge the living and the dead and establish His kingdom, will give us saving faith in Jesus!
To give both Mary and you faith in Jesus Christ, Gabriel preaches God’s Word to us today.
In our lesson, he’s going to tell Mary that God is about to fulfill the promises He made directly and through His prophets of the Messiah, God in the flesh, come to reconcile us to God and to save us from sin and death. But before he speaks that Word, Gabriel speaks five words from God that God wants to speak to you today in our gospel lesson.
First, Gabriel preaches: “Greetings!” This is not as bland a salutation as our translation makes it out to be. The word translated here as “Greetings!” is, in the Greek in which the New Testament was originally written, Χαῖρε. It means, “Rejoice! Be glad! I’m bringing you news that will be cause for you to celebrate!” Gabriel is telling Mary and you that God’s promises of a Savior Who would negate the power of sin, death, and darkness over our lives is about to arrive. “Watch out!” Gabriel is saying, “Eternal joy is coming your way!”
Next, Gabriel calls Mary, “O favored one.” This title doesn’t apply to Mary only. The word translated as “favored one” is κεχαριτωμένη. This means that Mary and all sinners are ones on whom God chooses to give and to keep giving His grace.
In the months and years that followed in Mary’s life, when the tongues of gossips wagged, implying that she couldn’t have been a virgin when she conceived Jesus or when she watched her first-born suffer the agony of the cross, Mary may have wondered how much grace God was actually giving her.
When suffering comes to us or when we’re assailed by doubt, we too may wonder whether we, even though we believe in Jesus, are under His grace.
This is why it’s so important for us not only to come to God in prayers of confession, but also to confess our sins in worship or in private times of confession and absolution with a pastor, so that we can once more hear from pastors and worship leaders: “In the name of Jesus Christ, all your sins are forgiven.”
God favors repentant believers with His grace, even in dark and difficult times!
Gabriel also tells Mary and us, “The Lord is with you!” The God we know in Jesus Christ doesn’t stand far off, like a rubbernecker observing an accident on the freeway.
He enters our lives.
He celebrates with us.
He weeps with us.
Jesus, God the Son, is truly God and truly human. So, one of His titles is Emmanuel, God with us.
The Bible tells us that even when we are tempted, Jesus is with and He understands: “We do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)
Whatever you go through in this life, Jesus has gone through it before you and He goes through it with you.
We can live with the same assurance my dying friend had when she pointed to a crucifix and said, “He’s always with me.”
With David, we can pray, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me…” (Psalm 23:4)
Gabriel then says, “Do not be afraid, Mary…” These words are for you too!
In one of his Christmas sermons, Martin Luther, considering how the angels, on the night of Jesus’ birth, told the shepherds not to fear, confesses, “I fear death, the judgment of God, the world, hunger and the like. The angel announces a Savior who will free us from fear. Not a word is said about our merits and works, but only of the gift we are to receive.”
Jesus and the gift of justification by grace through faith in Him alone is the greatest gift we can receive from God!
In this life, our old sinful selves will be tempted to fear. But in Jesus Christ, we have no more reason to fear! Neither sin, death, nor the devil will have the final word over our lives! Because Christ has claimed us in Holy Baptism and given and sustained faith in Christ within us through His Word and Holy Communion, we have nothing to fear. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Gabriel then says, “You have found favor with God.” What he actually says in the Greek in which Luke originally wrote his gospel is: “You have found grace with God.”
Grace is God’s undeserved charity for sinners who deserve nothing but condemnation and hell.
Instead, God has sent Jesus to forgive sinners who, by the power of His Word, turn to Him and, in Him, find God’s charity, His forgiveness, and His new life.
The thief on the cross turned from His sin and asked Jesus to remember him when Jesus established His Kingdom at His second coming. Jesus’ promise to the thief was unconditional and complete: “Today you will be with Me in paradise.” The Word of Jesus, God the Son, brought the thief the grace, the favor of God.
Gabriel’s sermon to Mary is God’s sermon to you today, friends! God is not your enemy and in Jesus, you see, as Luther put it, God’s smiling face.
He graces you.
He favors you.
He is with you.
He gives you nothing to fear.
As you prepare for Christmas, for the living of everyday life, and for eternity itself, you can take up your cross–that is, acknowledge your sin–and follow Jesus–receiving His forgiveness, with confidence and hope, no matter what else may be happening in your life.
You can live the whole year long in all the “comfort and joy” that Christ has come into this world to give to you. This is what God gives to you in His gospel Word.
Amen
Gabriel, as is true whenever God sends an angel, because the word angel means messenger, has a sermon to preach. That’s what angels do: preach. Not all preachers on this earth are angels; but all angels are preachers.
Only one part of the sermon is for Mary alone though: Mary, though a virgin, will give birth to a son. Understandably, this is the part of the sermon Mary is troubled by. How, she wonders, am I going to become pregnant when I have never been with a man?
To assure Mary that, in the pursuit of His good ends, God can do what otherwise would be impossible, Gabriel gives Mary a sign. The sign is this: He tells her that six months earlier, her relative Elizabeth, who had always been unable to conceive, became pregnant.
But, you know, while miraculous signs from God may strengthen our faith or point us toward faith, signs in themselves cannot give us saving faith in the God revealed to us in Jesus.
Less than twenty-four hours after Jesus had fed them with a few fish and pieces of bread, you’ll remember, a crowd asked Jesus to show them some sign that He was the Messiah and God; then, they said, they would believe in Jesus. Signs don’t create faith.
And I have known people who have been given miracles from God, but never believed.
A man once told me how happy he was that I’d given him a tip to pray regularly because all of his relationships were falling apart. I asked him, “Have you thought of praying about it?” He later told me, “I started praying and my relationship with my boss has completely changed.” But months later, he told me he didn’t believe in God or Jesus’ resurrection or eternity. The man had been given a seemingly miraculous sign, but signs in themselves don’t create faith.
Only the Word of God can give us saving faith in Christ. That’s why you and I are called to preach Christ. The apostle Paul says, “Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified…” (1 Corinthians 1:22-23) Only the Word about Jesus crucified, risen, ascended, and, one day, returning to the world to judge the living and the dead and establish His kingdom, will give us saving faith in Jesus!
To give both Mary and you faith in Jesus Christ, Gabriel preaches God’s Word to us today.
In our lesson, he’s going to tell Mary that God is about to fulfill the promises He made directly and through His prophets of the Messiah, God in the flesh, come to reconcile us to God and to save us from sin and death. But before he speaks that Word, Gabriel speaks five words from God that God wants to speak to you today in our gospel lesson.
First, Gabriel preaches: “Greetings!” This is not as bland a salutation as our translation makes it out to be. The word translated here as “Greetings!” is, in the Greek in which the New Testament was originally written, Χαῖρε. It means, “Rejoice! Be glad! I’m bringing you news that will be cause for you to celebrate!” Gabriel is telling Mary and you that God’s promises of a Savior Who would negate the power of sin, death, and darkness over our lives is about to arrive. “Watch out!” Gabriel is saying, “Eternal joy is coming your way!”
Next, Gabriel calls Mary, “O favored one.” This title doesn’t apply to Mary only. The word translated as “favored one” is κεχαριτωμένη. This means that Mary and all sinners are ones on whom God chooses to give and to keep giving His grace.
In the months and years that followed in Mary’s life, when the tongues of gossips wagged, implying that she couldn’t have been a virgin when she conceived Jesus or when she watched her first-born suffer the agony of the cross, Mary may have wondered how much grace God was actually giving her.
When suffering comes to us or when we’re assailed by doubt, we too may wonder whether we, even though we believe in Jesus, are under His grace.
This is why it’s so important for us not only to come to God in prayers of confession, but also to confess our sins in worship or in private times of confession and absolution with a pastor, so that we can once more hear from pastors and worship leaders: “In the name of Jesus Christ, all your sins are forgiven.”
God favors repentant believers with His grace, even in dark and difficult times!
Gabriel also tells Mary and us, “The Lord is with you!” The God we know in Jesus Christ doesn’t stand far off, like a rubbernecker observing an accident on the freeway.
He enters our lives.
He celebrates with us.
He weeps with us.
Jesus, God the Son, is truly God and truly human. So, one of His titles is Emmanuel, God with us.
The Bible tells us that even when we are tempted, Jesus is with and He understands: “We do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)
Whatever you go through in this life, Jesus has gone through it before you and He goes through it with you.
We can live with the same assurance my dying friend had when she pointed to a crucifix and said, “He’s always with me.”
With David, we can pray, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me…” (Psalm 23:4)
Gabriel then says, “Do not be afraid, Mary…” These words are for you too!
In one of his Christmas sermons, Martin Luther, considering how the angels, on the night of Jesus’ birth, told the shepherds not to fear, confesses, “I fear death, the judgment of God, the world, hunger and the like. The angel announces a Savior who will free us from fear. Not a word is said about our merits and works, but only of the gift we are to receive.”
Jesus and the gift of justification by grace through faith in Him alone is the greatest gift we can receive from God!
In this life, our old sinful selves will be tempted to fear. But in Jesus Christ, we have no more reason to fear! Neither sin, death, nor the devil will have the final word over our lives! Because Christ has claimed us in Holy Baptism and given and sustained faith in Christ within us through His Word and Holy Communion, we have nothing to fear. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Gabriel then says, “You have found favor with God.” What he actually says in the Greek in which Luke originally wrote his gospel is: “You have found grace with God.”
Grace is God’s undeserved charity for sinners who deserve nothing but condemnation and hell.
Instead, God has sent Jesus to forgive sinners who, by the power of His Word, turn to Him and, in Him, find God’s charity, His forgiveness, and His new life.
The thief on the cross turned from His sin and asked Jesus to remember him when Jesus established His Kingdom at His second coming. Jesus’ promise to the thief was unconditional and complete: “Today you will be with Me in paradise.” The Word of Jesus, God the Son, brought the thief the grace, the favor of God.
Gabriel’s sermon to Mary is God’s sermon to you today, friends! God is not your enemy and in Jesus, you see, as Luther put it, God’s smiling face.
He graces you.
He favors you.
He is with you.
He gives you nothing to fear.
As you prepare for Christmas, for the living of everyday life, and for eternity itself, you can take up your cross–that is, acknowledge your sin–and follow Jesus–receiving His forgiveness, with confidence and hope, no matter what else may be happening in your life.
You can live the whole year long in all the “comfort and joy” that Christ has come into this world to give to you. This is what God gives to you in His gospel Word.
Amen
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