Sunday, December 15, 2013

Sermon on Luke 1:26-38 for December 15, 2013

Luke 1:26-38

  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.


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How many of you have ever watched someone try and do something that you were certain they were unqualified for? Have you ever sat back and known how it was all going to end, because you just knew they couldn't cut it? (How many of you are thinking that right now?) I grew up as a Cincinnati Bengals fan, and if you know anything about professional football, you know that the Cincinnati Bengals are in the middle of a 20 year rough patch. No franchise in football has gone longer without winning a playoff game. It's not been their millennium so far, but things are looking up, in their defense.
Well, growing up as a Bengals fan, they always got very good draft picks, because of how bad they were. And they would draft players that you could tell, from the very start, were simply over their head. They never had a chance. I felt sorry for a few of them—they just got swallowed up by the enormity of the task before them. This happened to coaches, too. The franchise just tended to chew up people and spit them out. Even from afar, you could tell they were in over their head.

Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt like you were in over your head? Have you ever signed up for something, or perhaps had someone else sign you up for something, and you immediately felt like you were way, way out of your league?
When I played soccer as a kid, one year our coach decided it would be great to challenge us, so he signed us up to play a year over our current age bracket. He apparently felt we needed a challenge. Well, somewhere around the first game, in which we were losing by double digits, we realized that it was going to be a long season. We were in way over our heads.

Well, what if I told you that you had an integral part to play in the restoration and redemption of the entire universe? What if I told you that you were called to be a part of God's ongoing project of renewing the whole world? How would you feel? A bit under-qualified, perhaps?

If you answered yes, you're not alone. Throughout the Bible, we have instances where individuals chosen by God feel vastly inadequate to perform the tasks to which they are called. Moses argued with God when God revealed that he had chosen Moses to lead God's people out of slavery. Several people basically laughed at God when they found out they were going to have children at advanced ages. When God revealed himself to Isaiah, Isaiah assumed that he would die because of his unworthiness. Peter told Jesus to get away from him, because Peter felt unworthy to even be near Jesus. Paul considered himself the chief of all sinners and the least of the apostles. It's a long list of Biblical characters who considered themselves unworthy. They felt inadequate for the calling.

So it's somewhat surprising when Mary, a 13 year old girl, a virgin engaged to Joseph, reacts with simple trust when she is given the news that she will carry, within her womb, the son of the living God. She simply trusts God, and she accepts the role that she was given to play. She does her part within the plan of God's salvation.

Now, Mary had every possible reason to say no. Here she was, a young girl with her life in front of her, engaged to Joseph, and suddenly she is asked to put everything on the line. A young, single girl getting pregnant in these days is not a good thing. Back in Mary's day, it was a matter of life and death. Back in Mary's day, this could have cost her everything. She could have been stoned to death for this. At the very least, Joseph would have cut off the engagement, which he was prepared to do had God not intervened with an angelic visit. Mary would have been disgraced, cut off and alone, and that was in the best of circumstances.
And yet, she had such trust in God that she said yes. She accepted God's call upon her life, and the world, the entire history of the world, is better because of it.
Now, I believe that if Mary had said No, God wouldn't have just given up. God would have found another way to bring salvation into the world. It all didn't depend on Mary. But, because of her willingness to serve God in the manner in which she was invited, human history is different.

Now, we all would like to serve as faithfully as Mary, right? We'd all like to be able to completely trust God with our hearts and lives. We'd all love to be able to turn to God and follow his call into whatever he has in store for us.

The first thing I want to say is this: We all don't have to serve exactly like Mary did. We get the idea into our heads that each and every one of our walks of discipleship should look the same. We watch how one person serves the Lord and we convince ourselves that we need to do the same thing. We feel like we don't measure up because our life looks different than someone else's. Let me be very clear: we are all called in different ways to serve with different gifts. It's all for the same purpose, but we don't have to compare our lives. We can compare our attitudes or our willingness to serve, but our tasks are different.
I, for example, am not called to give birth to the Savior of the world. Mary was, and she did it very, very well. I'm not even called to give birth to anything. Rachel has done that twice, and she's done it much, much better than I could have. She's told me that since she has carried the first two babies, I am supposed to carry the next two, but we all can admit that I'm way, way too much of a wimp for that.
So since I can't give birth, am I less of a disciple than Mary? No. I have my own gifts and callings. But the pattern of discipleship is the same, and often, so is our response. I want to wander through this passage and talk about the rhythm and pattern of call and resistance.

First of all, God loves you. God believes that you are special. He has affection in his eyes for you. This is so, so important for us all to hear, but we struggle against this. When the angel shows up and tells Mary that God has found favor with her, she is troubled by this and tries to figure it out. She gets wrapped up trying to hear what it means rather than just accepting it.
We tend to do this, too. God loves you. God died on the cross for you, and if you had been the only person in the entire world, God still would have done so. God didn't die for someone really special and get you thrown into the mix, like a player-to-be-named later in a trade. No—you are special and treasured by God.
Often, we think of all the reasons God shouldn't love us. We think of how unworthy we are. We wonder why God loves us.
Stop. Stop with all the obstacles, with all the excuses, with all the hesitations. God loves you. If we can learn to accept that for what it is, it will radically change our hearts. I promise you that.

Next, the angel moves on to the details. God is calling Mary to a very special role—she is going to give birth to a Savior.
Mary's first question is to ask how this can be, since she is still a virgin.
It's a fair question. In her heart, she knows how the world works. She doesn't see how God will overcome such an obstacle. She forgets all the amazing things God has done in the past.
Often, when we're called into a certain mode of discipleship, we spend time figuring out all the reasons why we can't do it. We wonder how God will use us, and if we're really prepared for the job. We start to believe that we are not good enough, not equipped, and generally unworthy for the task. We wonder why God doesn't send someone else. We question our self-worth.
Friends, throughout human history, God has been using unworthy people to do amazing things. God chose Moses to free his people, God chose David to be king, God chose Peter to lead the church. None of them were qualified. None of them were ready. All of them were used for amazing things. God wants to use you, too, but if you're too busy looking at yourself and not busy enough looking at God, all you'll come up with are reasons why God's plan will never work. God exists outside of time and space, and God created time and space, so when God calls you into something, trust in him to be able to bring it to completion. God didn't call you into a life of discipleship to see you get overwhelmed and killed because you don't have the gifts—God will give you what you need, often miraculously. Stop worrying about yourself and focus on God.

Finally, when God assures Mary that things will be handled supernaturally, Mary assents. She tells God that she is a servant and will submit to his will. It's the same prayer Jesus prayed in the Garden, and it's the same prayer we each need to pray today. To trust fully in God's will, to let our own questions and hesitations get lost in the background noise so that our hearts will worship and our lives will submit to Christ, no matter what Christ wants us to do. Friends, believe the Good News—Christ wants to use you to change the world, and while you may not feel worthy of that, you don't have to worry about yourself—you have been called by name, bought with a price, redeemed by the blood of Christ and prepared for eternal life. God can and will use you for miraculous purposes if you trust him enough to submit to his Lordship in all of life.


Let us pray

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