Sermon – Luke 1:26-38 - Who Was Conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard

Pitts Creek and Beaver Dam Churches

Sermon – Luke 1:26-38 - Who Was Conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary

Lent 5

March 17, 2013

Since the beginning of Lent we have been carefully studying the Apostles Creed. This is a statement of what the church believes and is passed on generation after generation as a training tool for those preparing for baptism or confirmation. It calls us to believe in God who created and governs the physical and spiritual worlds. It also calls us to believe in Jesus, our anointed prophet, priest and king who is God's only son and our Lord. Today we will see that this Jesus we believe in was born in a truly extraordinary way. But first, let's pray.

“Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)

Luke 1:26-38 ²⁶ In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, ²⁷ to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. ²⁸ The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." ²⁹ Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. ³⁰ But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. ³¹ You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, ³³ and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." ³⁴ "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" ³⁵ The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. ³⁶ Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. ³⁷ For nothing is impossible with God." ³⁸ "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her.

You are probably wondering right now why the pastor is preaching about Christmas in March. These are things that we usually talk about in December when we are preparing for Christmas. Of course you are right. The church does talk about the birth of Jesus every year during the season of Advent. We do this because the birth of Jesus is an important part of our faith. And so it is included in the Apostles Creed because new initiates to the faith need to know exactly who the Jesus is that we worship.

The first Christians had to try to understand who Jesus Christ is. They had the experience of serving as his disciple during his ministry so they knew him personally and were familiar with his preaching and teaching. They had also experienced Jesus' resurrection from the dead. In addition to this direct experience they had the Hebrew Bible, translated into Greek, our Old Testament. They used all of this to come to an understanding of who Jesus is, and their conclusion was startling. Jesus is both man and God. When you hear something extraordinary like that you immediately want some kind of explanation. How can Jesus be both human and divine?

Two weeks ago we talked about the second century gnostics and a Christian teacher named Marcion. Marcion believe that the spiritual world was good and the physical world was bad. It was inconceivable to him tht God, the perfect spirit, would come into the world as a physical man. So he taught that Jesus was God, but he only appeared to be a man. Marcion said that Jesus did not really have flesh and blood and that is why he never really died. But the church disagreed with Marcion. They had known Jesus as a real live man. They had seen him get tired and hungry. They watched him walk from village to village. They saw him eat and sleep. There was no question in their minds that Jesus was really a man.

There were others who said that Jesus was certainly a physical man, but he was no God. He walked and ate and was a great teacher, but he was not God. This contradicted Jesus' own words and the testimony of the Holy Spirit that Jesus and God are one. An attempt to reconcile these differences was made. Some said that Jesus has been born as an ordinary man but became God at his baptism when the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and God proclaimed Jesus as His Son whom He loves. But the church rejected this as well. Jesus was not just a man who was filled with the Holy Spirit at his baptism. Jesus was always both man and God.

For this reason the church focused it's attention on the certain aspects of Jesus birth. First of all Jesus had a mother, Mary. Since he was born of a human mother, he must be human. So Marcion must be wrong. Jesus did not appear like to be man, Jesus was a man. But Jesus' mother Mary was a virgin. Mary knew this already. An angel was dispatched from God to assure Joseph, her fiancée, that she was a virgin. And all this fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that a virgin would conceive and bear a son. And so even though Jesus was born in the ordinary way of a human mother his conception was truly extraordinary. Both Mary and Joesph were independently told that Jesus' conception was the work of God's Holy Spirit. And so Jesus was God too from the moment he was conceived. The church concluded from all this that Jesus was always fully God and fully human. This is very important for us because Jesus must be both God and man if he is to reconcile us with God.

Suppose that there are two people who used to be friends, but now refuse to even talk with each other. Something happened, it doesn't matter what, to pull these two apart. Let's give them names, Mark and Lisa. Mark and Lisa have not talked with each other for years. They use to be very close, but them something happened. Someone told Lisa what Mark had done and she became hurt and angry. Mark refused to admit that what he had done was wrong. So they stopped speaking to each other. Let's suppose that you want to help Lisa and Mark reconcile with each other. If you are Mark's friend but barely know Lisa there is no way for you to help them reconcile because even though Mark may trust you, Lisa would not. Or if you are Lisa's good friend but you hardly know Mark you can't help them reconcile because Mark doesn't trust you. The only way you can help these two be reconciled is if both of them trust you. So you would have to be friends with both Mark and Lisa and when you have developed sufficient trust with both of them then and only then can you help them reconcile.

Jesus came to reconcile us with God. Our relationship with God has been disrupted for thousands of years. Our willful disobedience of His commands, sin, has caused this breakup. As a result both our own lives and the world we live in are completely messed up. We can see this right here in Pocomoke where single women are trying to raise numerous children without fathers because their husbands and boyfriends are all in jail because of drugs and drug violence. This mess has been going on for several generations and will continue until God does something about it.

What God did do was to send his Son into the world to begin the process of reconciliation. God needed someone he could trust. So he sent his only Son. We needed one of our own to trust. We needed a human being we could relate to. God sent his Spirit so that Jesus would be both fully human and fully divine someone both we and God could trust. This was the only way God could reconcile himself to us. If we believe in Jesus, trust him with our lives, then the work of reconciliation can begin and sin purged from the world. This is the work of the church. We are here so that people will come to know Jesus and develop trust in him. It is only by trusting Jesus that we open ourselves to be reconciled with God.

So as a church of people who trust Jesus and are reconciled to God in obedience what should we now do. The only hope for our world is that everyone should learn to trust Jesus. People develop this trust through relationship. And relationship takes time. So what we do is to bring the love of Jesus to everyone we meet. Treat everyone, even welfare moms, like they are children of God. Act like you are on the leading edge of the Kingdom of God. Be Ambassadors for Christ to the world you live in. When people learn to trust you they will be open to trust the God you worship. Do these things and God's people will learn to trust Jesus and will be reconciled with their creator. Let us pray.

Father in Heaven we thank you for sending Jesus into this world to reconcile us to you. We thank you for coming into this world as a man we could trust. Turn us into people others can trust so that we can reconcile them to you through Jesus Christ. This we pray in the name of one fully human and fully divine. Amen.