A Season of Anxiety

The Announcement of Jesus's Coming Was To Bring You Peace. Luke 1:26-38

Introduction Today, we kick off our Christmas season series, A Weary World Rejoices. That clearly is the state of the world right now, weary. We no longer live with the threats of wars, strife, division, and violence, it is an everyday reality.  Multiple wars are ongoing. Our country is on the brink of either political or financial ruin, depending on what day of the week it is. Political violence rising. Mental illness skyrocketing. The world is weary, to say the least. And all of this fills us with never-ending anxiety.

Everyone knows something is wrong with humankind. Your philosophy or belief system doesn't matter. Your religion or background doesn’t matter. There is a longing in us to get our lives right. This longing to be made right can cause us a lot of anxiety.

We are constantly feeling like there is something we can attain that we have not yet attained. There is a type of gnawing in us for greater beauty, for a greater life experience, for depth of life we feel like we can’t seem to get to. Everybody knows something is broken with us, and we’re eager to fix it. But we seem lost on how to fix it. The easiest place to see that is in Barnes & Noble. We could all load up right now and head down to Barnes & Noble just down the road. When we get there, you can order your $9 coffee, your caramel frappe with extra espresso, or whatever. Then we could go look at books. The largest section of books in any bookstore is.… What? Self-help. What is self-help except, “Hey, we know what is wrong with you. For $29.95, we’ll tell you and help you solve it.” You go to the self-help section of books, and there are all kinds of self-help books. There is financial peace. If you could just get to a certain spot financially, if you could just do these nine things, could shift to a cash system where you used envelopes, if you could have good debt and not bad debt, if you could just use credit cards this way or never.… Right? There is a whole list of things. “Do this thing, and that will solve your financial ills.”

Then there is another section of books that is more on the physical side of things, all about smoothies and kale and superfoods and doing the right kind of stretching and getting core strength. “If you get healthier, you’ll feel better, and that will solve what's wrong in you." Then you have that kind of nebulous, over-spiritual section of books. Some would call these the Oprah Winfrey books. It’s stuff that sounds good, but you’re not quite sure what to do with it because it doesn't really say anything. These are books with 50K words but no meaning.

Then you have the relationship books. Good Lord. Aisles and aisles and aisles of relationship books. “Men are from Mars. If you're a woman, you have to figure that out. I’ve been married to this dude for 15 years, and he can’t put the seat down. I have to figure something out here.” Right? If you're a man, “My wife is crazy. I can’t figure this out. She’s from Venus. This book will help me figure this out.” Row upon row upon row of relationship books. Is that not what you see around you as probably the number one felt need of men and women trying to figure out and navigate relationships? The church has not helped. We have kind of jumped on this bandwagon ourselves at times. “Here are six ways to remove all your doubt.” We are constantly trying to solve what's wrong with us.

What’s really wrong with you and what’s really wrong with me, according to the Bible, is not our finances or our relationships or our physical bodies. Now, those might be symptomatic, but they’re not the disease. They’re symptoms of a greater disorder within us. And all this disorder, all these global conflicts, all this political upheaval, and violence has our entire world on edge and anxious. We are living in a never-ending season of anxiety, it seems. We are on edge and consumed with anxiety. God, of course, sees this, and in His great mercy and grace, He responded. Luke 1:26-38

Luke 1:26–38 ESV

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 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, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” 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. 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. For nothing will be impossible with God.” 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.

Scriptural Analysis Verses 26-27 Luke 1 identifies the divine messenger as Gabriel, the same angel who came to the priest Zacharias a few months earlier with news about John the Baptist’s birth. Gabriel is one of only two angels who are actually named in the Bible. The other one, Michael, is associated with assignments requiring power and strength. Gabriel is God’s supreme messenger, who brought great, glorious, and crucial announcements from heaven.

One of the remarkable facts about Galilee’s role in the story of Jesus’ birth is that the region was not the center of Jewish culture and religion. In fact, it tended to be more Gentile in its orientation, with a significant non-Jewish population surrounding the area. God bypassed Judea, Jerusalem, and the temple and came to a despised country, a despised town, and a humble woman.

Luke clearly emphasized that Mary was a virgin both before and after conception. Luke, being a doctor who, at the beginning of his book, said he set out to record an accurate recording of these events concerning Jesus, would be sure and accurate of the medical aspects of the story. He investigated and then reported.

Mary is pledged to be married. Marriage consists of two distinct stages: engagement, followed by the marriage itself. The engagement involved a formal agreement initiated by a father seeking a wife for his son. The phrase "A descendant of David"  describes who Joseph is, to whom Mary is pledged.

Verse 28-29 The angel says, "You who are highly favored." Mary had been “graced” by God in that she had been chosen to bear God’s Son. She had not been chosen for this task because she possessed a particular piety or holiness of life that merited this privilege. The text, you who are highly favored, suggests no special worthiness on Mary’s part. Mary is the recipient of a special blessing from God. She has experienced God’s undeserved, unmerited grace in a special way. This does not change who Mary is or give her a status beyond other people. It singles her out as a special instrument whom God chose to use in his gracious plan of salvation. The grace Mary received was God’s presence with her.

It says that Mary was greatly troubled. Mary’s surprise was not primarily because it was not customary for a man to greet a woman but because it was not customary for an angel to greet a woman. As both a woman and a young person (perhaps twelve or fourteen years old) not yet married, Mary had virtually no social status. Neither the title (“favored” or “graced one”) nor the promise (“The Lord is with you”) was traditional in greetings, even had she been a person of status. Mary had to be anxious about this entire experience.

The highly favored becomes the greatly troubled. Luke uses a word, the only appearance of that word in the New Testament. It describes something thoroughly stirred up, confused, and perplexed. All of these details reaffirm why, at the start of this passage, Mary is called “highly favored” (v. 28) and one who has “found favor” (v. 30). She is honored by God not because of her own merit or because she has done anything, but simply because she is the chosen vessel for this demonstration of God’s grace and she knew she was undeserving.

Verses 30-33 Again, the angel says, "You have found favor with God." This is to emphasize the point that God is gracious in His choice. The emphasis is always on God’s sovereign choice, not on human acceptability.

Then Luke began a fivefold description of “who” Jesus is. He will be great. This greatness contrasts with the rest of humanity, which is not great. He will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. He will reign over the house of Jacob. His kingdom will never end. The name “Jesus” is the Greek form of the Hebrew “Joshua,” which means “Jehovah is Salvation.” All of this points to the importance of Jesus.

Verse 34-38 Although technically Joseph was Mary’s husband, no intimate consummation had as yet taken place, which is why Mary proclaims I am a virgin. Luke sought to teach that since Jesus’ birth was entirely due to the “overshadowing” of the Holy Spirit, Jesus would be uniquely set aside for God’s service, meaning he would be “holy.” Jesus is conceived by the miraculous act of the Holy Spirit. With God, all things are indeed possible.

In humble submission, Mary was now ready to serve God and follow his will. As pregnancy had lifted Elizabeth’s disgrace for being barren, it would soon bring the virgin Mary disgrace. Mary’s response reveals her character. “Let it be to me as you have said." This was no simple matter. She is being asked to bear a child as a virgin without being married. In standing up for God and his power, she will probably become the object of much doubt and ridicule. There will be ridicule, stress, anxiety, and uncertainty to accept God's call. But Mary knows she is God’s servant, so she will allow God to work through her as he will. He can place her in whatever difficult circumstances he desires, for she knows that God is with her. TODAY'S KEY TRUTH The Announcement of Jesus's Coming Was To Bring You Peace. Application Nazareth was a “non-place.” It was not even mentioned in the Old Testament or in historians Josephus’ writings or in the rabbinical writings. The later prominence of Nazareth is a result of the Christian gospel. Nazareth is a shoddy, corrupt halfway stop between the port cities of Tyre and Sidon. It was overrun by Gentiles and Roman soldiers. When Nathaniel mentioned Nazareth in John 1, he said, “ ‘Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" implying that it was miserably corrupt. Nazareth was not much. So, as we study the announcement of Jesus' birth, we must accept the essential spiritual fact of the announcement: the Lord comes to needy people. With our anxiety today at all time levels, maybe it is time we acknowledge our need for a savior. This announcement was saying a savior is coming to rescue you because you need one.

Every philosophy and religion except Christianity says God is too great to become a single, unique, weak human being. God cannot become a single, weak, unique human being. People say it for different reasons. Humanists resist the idea of Jesus being God because it makes Jesus too central. They resist the centrality of Christ and instead make humanity, the individual, the central character. Judaism and Islam say it for different reasons. They say God is too great to have become limited like that. But this passage tells us what makes God the Most High is he was able to become the Most Low.

The Bible claims our founder is not just a holy man. Jesus is God himself. He is not just a prophet. He is God himself. Therefore, because Jesus is God, you can’t really just respect Jesus but deny his divinity. Do you know that? Jesus can't be a great teacher or guru. Because either he is who he said he is and who the Bible says he is, or he is a liar and or delusional. Therefore, you can’t just respect him because if he is who he said he is, God, then you need to throw everything down and center your whole life around him. If he is not who he said he is, then he is a charlatan. The one thing is you can’t just like Jesus Christ. The Bible says the founder of our faith has to be seen as higher than the founder of any other faith.

On the other hand, the Bible says our God has come lower than any other religion believes God has ever come. God has made himself so vulnerable that he has stripped himself of his honor and glory and become radically vulnerable out of love for us. When you realize what he has done for you, and you sense what kind of love that is, it will give you peace, and it will make you able to become vulnerable to love other people.

Here's why: If you feel fully affirmed in a major way by the creator of the universe, then you can take minor criticisms from a fellow human. If you realize God has done this for you, then that’s major. Any other kind of criticism you get or any other kind of vulnerability you experience is minor by comparison. That divine comfort can diminish your anxiety and stress because you realize you no longer have to perform to receive God's and anyone else's love.

Therefore, if you really understand the kind of love, the divine love God has shown you by becoming vulnerable to you, it will bring you peace. You’ll be emotionally consumed in love. Your emotional tanks will be full enough that you’ll be able to be vulnerable to love other people. Not only that, but when you suffer and when you become oppressed and when you sense how limited you are, how fragile you are, and how much evil and suffering we experience as human beings, you’ll have a resource to face it. That's the peace that transcends all understanding. All this anxiety we struggle with can find peace in the love of God demonstrated in Christ.

The Announcement of Jesus's Coming Was To Bring You Peace. Conclusion In fact, through this announcement, we now know how great God is. The greatness of God is far greater than we ever thought. The Most High has become the Most Low. That’s the first thing this message tells Mary. It’s the first thing it tells all of us. You thought God was great, Mary, Dennis; you have no idea how great. You want to really know what Mary was being told, what we’re being told at Christmas? The message here is God is greater, and we are more sinful than we thought. You say, “Where is that?” That's not the message of the angel to Mary. Oh, but it is.

As wonderful as Christmas gifts are, they all carry a message with them. On Christmas morning, I will open all these gifts under the tree, and they’ll be from people from all around my life. What if the first gift I open up is a book entitled How to Win Friends and Influence People? I put it aside, and the next book is How to Lose Fifty Pounds in this Excellent Diet. I put that aside, and the next one is a year’s supply of Rogaine. I look at these, and I can turn to the people who have given these to me and say, “Thank you,” what I’m really saying is, “Yes, I’m bald, fat, and obnoxious.”

There’s no way to accept certain gifts without admitting something about yourself. Now, think about the angel's messages. Do you know what that means? God became a baby. God emptied himself of power. God emptied himself eventually of life. God emptied himself. God came down. What it’s saying is we are so bad off nothing less than the sacrifice of the Son of God could save us.

The Announcement of Jesus's Coming Was To Bring You Peace.

When you look at the wonderful gift at Christmas of Jesus, you have to look at that and say immediately that's the answer to what's wrong with us. What’s really being said at Christmas when we look at this wonderful gift of a savior is that we need a savior.” All this anxiety, all this internal struggle, is based on the fact that we know something is wrong with us and we need a savior because we can't save ourselves.

The announcement tells us how great God is. He’s greater than you think. The announcement also tells us how sinful we are. You are worse off than you think. You’re in a more serious spiritual condition than you think.  That's the announcement of the gospel. God is greater than you think. It’s not just that God is great; he’s that great. But you’re more sinful than you think. You’re not just a little bit broken. You’re destroyed into little pieces. We need salvation. We don’t just need a little help through self-help. We need a savior.

The Announcement of Jesus's Coming Was To Bring You Peace.

The announcement to Mary is for those who realize that without Jesus, they cannot make it. This announcement is for those who acknowledge their weakness. God has done the most radically loving thing anybody can do. He has chosen to love you forever, come whatever. The answer for all our angst, all our internal conflict, and all our anxiety came when the angel said a savior was on the way.

The Announcement of Jesus's Coming Was To Bring You Peace.