Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Anticipating the King

What are you looking forward to at the moment?

At this time of year many of us are hanging out for the Christmas break, or time with the family, perhaps the gifts and traditions of Christmas.

Maybe you’re just anticipating that Christmas ham or Christmas pudding next Sunday!

But most of us will have greater longings than just the fleeting joys of the holiday season, many of use have longings and hopes for a better life and a better world.

Perhaps next year will be the year that things improve for me and my family?

Perhaps next year we’ll finally see positive change in the political sphere?

Perhaps next year our society will change it’s self-destructive ways?

The many troubles of today, perhaps the latest of many years of difficulty, mean that some of us have lost hope for a better future.

Yet, despite the difficulties that we face, some of us remain hopeful for what might come.

It is possible that things might change.

We don’t need to despair.

There is yet hope for a better future!

The times we live in right now remind me of the last days of the BC era in Palestine.

Before the beginning of the New Testament.

Here was what remained of the once great Israel nation:- Back in the Day under King David and Solomon they were a regional powerhouse.

They were prosperous people, they had military victories, they were deeply religious and they were well respected.

But it all went bad over the years...

Israel was split into two countries due to political unrest.

They lost their prosperity.

They lost the respect of others.

The lost their religious distinctiveness.

They became very militarily weak, so that first one, then the other of these nations came under the influence of foreign powers.

Many died, many were exiled, many lost their cultural identity and just blended in to avoid trouble.

They kind of regained their independence, for a bit, but then they were conquered by some other superpower.

By the time of the New Testament, that is the back half of the Bible, Israel itself didn’t really exist.

Only 2.5 of the tribes of Israel were left, Judah, Benjamin and some Levites.

Judah was the majority, so they all were lumped in together and called “Jews”.

They lived primarily in the provinces of Judea and Galillee under the thumb of the Roman Empire.

Their hey-day was long gone.

Their country was a shadow of it’s former self.

It seemed futile to dream of going back to the old-days when things were better.

Many took the pragmatic rout, and they went along to get along with the Roman overlords and Greek influence of the culture.

But not all were ready to give up...

You see, over the course of Israel’s history they had many prophets, these apparently received messages from God for the people.

These messages included instructions about how to live the good life, how to please God, and what was going to happen in the future.

It also included lots of promises and predictions about a return to the glory days.

God promised that he wouldn’t leave his people languishing forever.

God promised that he would restore the throne of David, the dynasty would continue.

God promised that he would personally come and sort things our for them, because they had no hope of doing it under their own steam.

There were many people who still held out hope that these promises would be fulfilled.

They longed for the prophesies to come true.

They lived in expectation and anticipation that God would do something, despite the poor circumstances around them.

Some tried to take these matters into their own hands, with violent extremism, trying to force the promises into realty.

But they made no ground.

So the people were just left to wait.

To hope.

The live in expectation of God’s future work.

It was in this world that Joseph and Mary lived.

Two ordinary Jewish people going about their lives.

While they had hope for God to restore their country, they were also just living regular lives.

Joseph was a tradie, working hard to make a living.

They had dreams and plans.

They were going to get married, have kids, raise a family.

It was into these ordinary lives that their long expected King Was Coming!

Heralding the King’s is Arrival (v26-30)

God heralded the coming of this king to these two ordinary Jews!

The long awaited king who would fulfill the prophesies, make the promises reality and restore God’s people Israel.

These two passages that are our focus today tell us about the imminent arrival of the King that the people were anticipating.

We’re mainly going to focus on the Luke passage, but when you put the Matthew and Luke passages side by side you get a more rounded picture of how Joseph and Mary received the news.

God was going to change their lives, and use them to bring the king into the world.

But before God does this, he sends an angel to announce the news.

Remember Angel literally means “messenger” - this was a divine messenger.

We’re not looking at the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth here, read about that in Luke later!

But suffice to say God was also going to work through a relative’s son to prime the pump for the coming king.

When that ball was rolling Gabriel came to Mary with that amazing message.

But who was Gabriel?

This was no ordinary messenger, he stood in the presence of God!

He was the interpreter of the prophet Daniel’s visions!

Yet this messenger of great importance is sent to a lowly girl, probably a teenager, in the backwaters of the Roman empire, a little town called Nazareth.

This girl is a virgin we’re told, and the importance of this will become apparent soon...

But interestingly, this woman Mary is about to marry a descendant of King David of old.

Now King David had many wives, as did King Solomon his son.

In some respects this may be as unremarkable as saying “I’m descended from Gengis Khan” - he sired so many children that there is an estimated 16 million men alive today who are descended from him.

Yet, despite the fact that King David probably had a bunch of kids, there are so few of the Israelites left that being related to David is a significant fact.

There are a two different genealogies recorded in the Gospels, both lead back to David but by different routes.

This leads some to believe that this expected king was related to King David of old both via Mary the mother, and through Joseph the adoptive father.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, this note, that Joseph is descended from David, is cluing us into the fact that this message has something to do with the promises to restore the throne of David and save God’s people from their plight.

Lets read on...

As usual, people have a hard time speaking to angels.

They are otherworldly and terrifying, yet he speaks to reassure Mary.

Marry is wondering why she is being told specifically that she is “highly favored” and “the Lord” is with her.

We’ll soon find out, because she is about to find out some amazing news!

The King’s Nameand Office (v31-33)

That news will include the announcement of the coming king, including details about what his name and what he will do.

The angel gets straight to the content of his message:

Wow, a lot packed into this, lets break it down...

Conceive and have a son.

Ordinary enough, except she’s still a virgin!

Mary is to call the son Jesus.

A relatively common Jewish name.

But what is uncommon is that he is Son of the Most High God!

Not only that, he as a descendant of David is heir to the throne, and the LORD God will ensure that he takes his seat on that throne!

Forever!

There will be no end!

He’ll never be overthrown.

He’ll never need to pass it on!

Here’s the Coming King who will bring back the glory days.

He’ll bring back victory and prosperity to God’s people!