This Week’s Sermon

 

~ December 8, 2024 (Contemporary Worship) ~
~ December 8, 2024 (Traditional Worship) ~

“The Start of Something Big!”

Isaiah 9:1-7, Luke 1:26-38
December 8, 2024

Jesus was born into obscurity.  I said that last week.  It was something I heard years ago.  Jesus was born into obscurity.  And, considering the circumstances and the lack of knowledge of his early life, that’s true.  As I said, we know very little about his life up until about the age of 30.

As I also said last week, Mark begins his Gospel with the story of John the Baptist.  We looked at him last week.  He was the one of whom Malachi said, “Behold my messenger, who I send before me, to prepare the way.”  But Mark tells us nothing about Jesus’ birth or his early life.

John, starts his Gospel with his magnificent “Prologue.”  That’s what his first chapter has been called.  In that prologue he echoes the words of the book of Genesis, saying “In the beginning – was the word.”  And that phrase would not have been lost on his readers!  Then, he goes on to describe the role of Jesus in the whole scheme of the universe and creation and time!  And it’s wonderful!  But, when he actually starts the narrative of Jesus’ life, he too goes right to the story of John the Baptist.

John is also the one who took care to explain, in several places, that Jesus was even more important than John the Baptist.  We talked last week about how important John was to the people then, even that he was the prophet Elijah who had returned!  And in those early days the people had hard time understanding that Jesus was even more important!  So, in his Gospel, John quotes John the Baptist, saying, “One is coming whose sandals I am not worthy to carry!”  In his prologue, John talks about John the Baptist, saying, “He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.”

Well, as obscure a childhood as Jesus had, thankfully Matthew and Luke tell us the stories surrounding his birth.  And though he was born to a poor family, in a small town, in the wilderness of Israel, his birth was anything but obscure or ordinary!  It was, as I’ve chosen to title this sermon, “The start of something Big!”

Today we look at one of the stories that tells us just that!  This is the story of Mary.  And in Luke’s Gospel, it comes right after the story of Zechariah.  Do you remember him?  He was the priest in the Temple who was visited by an angel, who told him he would have a son.  And that son, of course, was John the Baptist.

Well, in our story for today, Mary is also visited by an angel.  And if you compare those two stories for a moment, they’re quite different, in that Zechariah was a priest in the Temple, and Mary was a peasant girl in a small village.  In Zechariah’s story there was the announcement of how his wife, an elderly, barren woman, was going to have a child.  That was clearly a miracle.

But what the angel told Mary was even more momentous!  She would have a baby that would be conceived by the power of God!  “He will be great,” the angel said, “and he will be called the Son of the Most High.  And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.”  That was what the people wanted!!!  A king like David!  Mary’s baby was what it all pointed to!  This was truly the start of something big!

I’m glad we have Mary’s words.  They are “skeptical” words, aren’t they?  They’re the words we would probably have said.  “How can this be?” she asked.  But they are also obedient words.  After hearing the angel’s explanation – an explanation I daresay we would have found very hard to believe, she was able to say, “I am the handmaid of the Lord.  Let it be unto me as you have said.”  If you remember, Zechariah had a slightly different outcome.  When he showed his skepticism, when he doubted the angel’s words, the angel was angered, and he struck Zechariah dumb – until the baby was born!  Imagine that!  Not speaking for nine months!  You don’t want to anger an angel!

But I wonder what Mary was thinking.  And I wonder if she was thinking about Moses.  I’m sure she knew the story.  When Moses was told by God to go to Pharaoh and say, “Let my people go,” he was reluctant.  He was a nobody!  He couldn’t speak well!  He was a wanted man!  He killed an Egyptian!  But then, after hearing all the explanations of how God was going to get around his shortcomings, what was his final exasperated statement?  He said, “Lord, please, send someone else!”

But not Mary!  In contrast to that reaction of Moses, who was perhaps the greatest of the patriarchs, Mary obeyed!  Somehow, Mary was able to recognize – hard as it may have been to accept – that this was the start of something big.  And I wonder what we would have done if we were in her sandals!

In a way, the story of Mary was similar to the story of Moses.  Because both stories show one of the great ways that God tends to work in the lives of the people he calls.  And the way he works is this.  For the most part, God doesn’t call great people to do great things.  No.  God calls ordinary people to do great things!  And because of that, no one can say – we cannot say – “But I’m just an ordinary person, what can I do?”

Paul told the Corinthians that same thing.  In the first chapter of his first letter he said this.  “Consider your call, brethren, not many of you were wise, according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.  But 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.” (I Cor. 1:26-28)  I love those words!

Well, that’s Mary!  She wasn’t wise, but she showed great wisdom.  She wasn’t powerful, but she showed great courage.  She wasn’t of noble birth, although she was from royal lineage.  But still, she was a peasant girl, betrothed to a carpenter!  And scholars have debated since then the social status of such people.  It was not a very high status!  And yet, even being all those things, she became the mother of our Lord!

So, because of her, no one of us can say, “I’m just an ordinary person.  What can I do?”  In two thousand years, and for that matter, for many thousands before, God has called a mighty army of “ordinary people.”  And on that day, the day Jesus was born, that army had a new Captain.  That mighty army is now led by Jesus, the son of this ordinary peasant girl.  And that army includes you, and it includes me!

I hope you see yourself that way today.  I hope you can look at this story and see that indeed it is the start of something big!  And I hope and I pray that you can see this as the start of something big – for you.  If you think about it, Jesus came into Mary’s life – in a literal way!  And because of that, he’s now able to come into our lives in a spiritual way.  And he has called us to be his people, and he has called us into that great company of believers, that “great cloud of witnesses,” as Paul described it in Hebrews.

So, I want you to think about Mary this week.  I want you to take notice of her in all of the depictions that we see of her at this time of year – in manger scenes, and Christmas cards, and whatever.  And I want you to think to yourself that, just like you, she was just an ordinary person.  But!  Her story was the start of something very big.

Prayer

Eternal God, we thank you for your call on our lives.  Help us “ordinary people” to have the strength we need to do extraordinary things for you.  Help us to do amazing acts of love and Grace, in the lives of the people around us.  Help us to be the light of the world as Jesus called us to be.  For we pray in his name, and for the sake of his kingdom, Amen.