Advent 4 C
Happy Mothers Day
St. Luke 1:39-56
20 December 2015 – Redeemer
The Fourth Sunday in Advent ought to be called Mother’s Day, for almost every year the Gospel reading is about a mother, Mary, the mother of our Lord. Mary is an example – not only to mothers, but to all of us – an example of faith, of receiving the gifts God gives in Christ.
The delivery of Jesus to the world could be told using the mothers of the Bible. You would need to start with Eve, the mother of us all, who by her sin brought death to her children. Eve was promised that one her sons would crush the head of that slithering serpent of sin named Satan. And when her first boy Cain was born she exclaimed, “I’ve gotten a man, the Lord.” Unfortunately Cain wasn’t the one, but Eve believed. Then you would need to visit Sarah, Abraham’s wife. She could not have children, but God promised her a son. She laughed in unbelief, but God delivered laughter into her life – a son at age 90, Isaac. Who’s laughing now Sarah? You would need to know about Leah, who wasn’t Jacob’s favorite wife, but through whom God gave six sons to Israel, the fourth son’s name was Judah. (You know he is important because Micah the Prophet told us today that the Ruler of Israel, the Ancient of Day, would come to the little town of Bethlehem, born among the clans of Judah). You would also need to visit Hannah – Hannah also could have no children, but one year at the Temple she prayed for a son and promised he would belong to the Lord. The Lord delivered Samuel to Hannah and her husband Elkannah. You need to know Hannah because Mary sang her song based on Hannah’s prayer – the New Testament song of Mary is built upon the Old Testament prayer of Hannah.
Motherhood is tough. Eve’s first son murdered her second son. Sarah was old and without a child. Hannah was young and without a child. Leah wasn’t loved by her husband and her boys didn’t grow up to be the best of brothers. All of you mothers know the burden of motherhood – you’ve cried for your children, you’ve prayed for your children, even before they were born, some of you have buried your children. You have wept the bitter tears and felt the sting of sin. That great gift which God has given to you women alone, to have a child created in your womb and bring life into this world, even that is ruined by sin.
Is it any wonder then that John the Baptist cannot contain himself when his mother Elizabeth gets near to Mary, for there in the womb of Mary, is the Son of the promise – there is Cain’s redeemer and Abel’s resurrection, and Eve’s serpent crusher, there is Sarah and Hannah’s comfort, there is laughter for Isaac for all eternity, there is Leah’s true husband who loves her to loveliness before His Father, there in the womb of Mary is the Lion of Judah.
The first miracle of the text is that God would actually come to do this. Eve disobeyed God’s Word, chose the fruit of the tree over the love of her Father. Death came to Eve and to her boys, but life came through Eve according to God’s own promise. Sarah laughed at God. Abraham worshiped the Moon God and lied about his marriage more than once – forcing his wife into adultery – but God kept His Word, delivering Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and Jesus.
Mary confesses in her song that this is the way God works. He doesn’t work like Eve or Cain or Abraham or Judah. He is merciful and compassionate. He doesn’t work like them, but He works through them and for them, and in that way He turn things upside down. A virgin is pregnant. God becomes a man. The Author of Life has come to die. The Great Shepherd of the Sheep becomes the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The Creator becomes a Creature. The High Priest of God becomes the Sacrifice and offers Himself.
But the greater miracle, even more than God coming Himself, is that Mary believed He came for her. “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” The greatest and most wonderful miracle in this text is faith. Mary believed God did this for her.
Mary wasn’t some Cosmopolitan cover girl who was known all over the world. Her parents were probably dead and she was a poor orphan from the rural Benton County of the promised land. Her last and greatest hope until this point was that Joseph was actually willing to marry her. But this is how God works to show His love and His grace – “… God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,” (1 Corinthians 1:27–28, ESV). Mary receives everything God gives her – she is a virgin who receives pregnancy, she is betrothed to Joseph, but is overshadowed by the Holy Spirit to conceive Jesus, she is an unmarried teenager who becomes the Mother of God.
This is faith, to receive into your nothingness the gifts which God speaks and delivers in Jesus. The greatest miracle is to believe that God sent this Son of Mary for you. The challenges of faith are twofold – one is that you’re so full of yourself there’s no room for Jesus. If you’ve got all the answers and believe you can make your way through life – then Jesus has nothing for you. The mighty of Mary’s day had no time for Jesus – Pharisees rejected him. Priests conspired against Him. Politicians killed Him. And unless they repented they have been brought down from their thrones and sent away into hell empty of God.
The other challenge of faith is to be so low that you cannot believe God could love and favor and chose to deliver one like you. Remember the question Mary asked of Gabriel, “How can this be?” Elizabeth asks the same question in the text, “Why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” It makes no sense, and that is why God’s Word comes again and again and again, because faith is worked by the Holy Spirit and the Spirit comes through the Word. How do you think John the Baptist knew, in the womb, that that the week old Jesus in Mary’s womb, tinier than a poppy seed, was the Lord Himself? He knew by faith, worked by the Holy Spirit.
The miracle of faith is worked by God through His Word. God spoke His Word to Eve after she sinned and she believed. God spoke His Word to Sarah, many times, and in spite of her husband and her age, she believed. God spoke His Word to Hannah, through the Priest Eli, and she believed. The Angel Gabriel spoke to Mary and she believed. The angel spoke to Joseph and he believed. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she spoke the Word confirming what Mary believed, and for an added sign – John the Baptist did a couple of somersaults in her womb.
To these women God came Himself. They buried children. Their marriages weren’t great. They married men who loved their own lives more than they loved their wives. They were beaten and battered down by this broken world and covered their beds with tears. They wondered if God really cared. God gave them a Word and a Sign – a virgin will conceive and bear a Son and shall call His name Immanuel. The Serpent crusher has come. His heal was bruised, but Satan’s head is crushed and the Son of Eve lives. The Blessing of the World promised to Abraham and Sarah has come to be the curse for us – for cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. Now Jesus lives to bless us with His death and resurrection, with forgiveness for our sins. Hannah’s little Samuel became a prophet whose words tumbled the mighty and raised the lowly – he pointed to Jesus. Leah’s Judah was probably the worst of her sons, but Jesus the only Son of God was born into Judah clan to bear all of Judah’s sins that Judah might be a son of God.
And this is all for you – God came for mothers and sons, for fathers and daughters, for men and women, and boys and girls. He came for you, to forgive you, to rescue you from suffering and death – it’s beyond comprehension – that’s why the Spirit of God must work faith – in Mary, in Elizabeth, in John before he is born, and in you. If you find this hard to believe, join the ranks of all those mothers in the Bible, and hear God’s Word, because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Pr. Bruce Timm
19 December 2015