Mercy In The Mess

The Wondrous Gift of God’s Unexpected Favor

12.22.24 [Luke 1:39-55] River of Life (4th Sunday of Advent)

Greetings to you who are highly favored, who believe that the Lord has, is, and will continue to fulfill all his promises to you. Amen.

Christmas is the season for gift giving. Are you ready? Have you gotten all your gifts? Have you checked everyone off your list, yet?

Getting gifts for other people isn’t easy. You really have to spend some time thinking about the individual—what they do for work or fun, what they would make their lives easier, better, or more enjoyable. Every once in a while we have those strokes of gift-giving genius. We run across some thing that’s just perfect for that person on our list.

Have you ever bought a Christmas gift like that? It’s the best, isn't it? It’s one of those moments when we begin to appreciate what the Bible is talking about when it says Acts 20:35 it is better to give than to receive. When you get someone a great gift like that, you want to give it to them in person, don’t you? You want to see their face as they open it up. You want to experience the joy of your great gift together. When they’re unwrapping it, you’re more giddy than they are.

When you have the perfect gift, have you ever been let down as the gift giver? You’re excited about the gift. You’ve been hyping it up for them. You get the phone out and you’re recording because you want to capture the whole scene and enjoy it over and over again.

Then they open it up, and it’s not what they expected. It’s not the response you were hoping for either. They don’t love it as much as you told them they were going to. It’s all over their face. Best case scenario, they don’t understand what you got them. Then maybe you can explain it and they’ll get excited. Worst case scenario, you took a big swing and missed badly. That’s a tough scene, isn't it?

Have you ever been there? Probably at some point, right? So what do you do the next Christmas for that person? For the most stubborn among us, we try harder. Redouble our efforts. And maybe get doubly disappointed. The rest of us, just ask them what they want. We consult their list so that we don’t have to go through that pain again.

Originally, Christmas was a season of gift giving, but it has changed a little bit over the years. Christmas has become a season of list making. We make lists of all the people we need to get gifts for and then we make lists about what we want for Christmas for all the people who need to get us gifts.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with celebrating Christmas with an exchange of gifts. But I bet you miss those Christmases when making and marking off lists wasn’t the norm. And that’s what God wants for you this Christmas season. A celebration of the wondrous gift.

That’s what’s happening in our reading from Luke 1. Mary has just been visited by the angel Gabriel. She has just been told that Lk. 1:35 the power of the Most High would overshadow her and that the holy child she would bear would rightly be called the Son of God.

As a sign of God’s power to miraculously bring life into this world, the angel Gabriel told Mary that her past her prime relative Elizabeth was not only pregnant but six months along. Just as God had given his word to Elizabeth, he had given his word to Mary and both women were to become first time mothers in the very near future.

So Mary made the 90+ mile journey to Zechariah & Elizabeth’s home. Along the way she must have been thinking about what the angel had just told her and what she would tell everyone else. How do you tell people that you’re carrying the Son of God? How do you explain a miracle?

But she didn’t have to figure out a way to tell Elizabeth. As soon as she heard Mary’s greeting in her home, Elizabeth’s baby—the one we know today as John the Baptist—leaped for joy in her belly and she was filled with the Holy Spirit and praised God and blessed Mary. Lk. 1:42-43 Blessed are you among women and blessed is the child you will bear. But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

Do you understand how incredible it is that Elizabeth says this? It’s not a stretch to imagine that Zechariah and Elizabeth had been praying for a child for many years. It’s not unthinkable that their hopes had been dashed more than a time or two in those many years. And then finally after all that praying, and hoping, and waiting, God gave her what was on her list—a child of her very own. But that’s not what she’s praising God for here, is it? The wondrous gift of God’s unexpected favor in Mary’s womb was not the answer to those prayers or the gift of her own child. It’s her Lord. And it brings her joy!

God has given you this same wondrous gift. I know that you know that. I know that you know the greatest gift anyone can receive this season is their Savior, Jesus. But each year, when you open that gift again do your eyes light up? Or do they glaze over?

Has the gift of a Redeemer become routine? Are you filled with joy? Or are you a little let down because it doesn’t check off the items on your own list?

As we approach the Christmas season, our list might include a little breathing room financially, a measure of physical or relational healing, relief from the stress of a season filled with so much hustle & bustle. Maybe what you’re hoping for this Christmas is a little bit of time to relax with some special food or in some luxurious setting. Perhaps you want a little time to unwind with family and friends. Maybe you’re looking forward to time off of work or some time to sit down and binge watch all your favorite Christmas movies.

We all have things we’re hoping for. We all have traditions that we keep this time of year. Most of them are fine things—they’re from God who loves us and loves to bless us with good gifts. But they are not to be confused with the wondrous gift of God’s unexpected favor. None of them measure up. None of them change us eternally. Only the wondrous gift of God’s unexpected favor can do that.

When Elizabeth praised God and blessed Mary and the baby in her womb leaped for joy, it was because they understood how monumental this gift really was. Yes, Mary, the mother of our Lord, is rightly called blessed. She had the blessed honor and privilege of carrying the Savior and caring for him as a child. God was mindful of her, despite her humble background. The Mighty One did a great thing for Mary in making her the blessed mother of our Lord.

But the great blessing that Mary received wasn’t that she became the most famous woman in the history of the world. It wasn’t that she was remembered by generations. It was that God had shown her mercy.

He did the same thing for Elizabeth and her baby and you and me. God’s mercy extends to those who fear him from generation to generation. He helps his servants and he remembers to be merciful. God do es for us what we cannot do for ourselves. God gives to us what we desperately need. He doesn’t follow our lists, he gives us the gift we never would have thought of, never would have written down, never would have expected—if he hadn’t told us about it.

God gave us himself. The Mighty One took on fragile flesh and blood. The eternal, all-knowing, all-powerful God became a zygote. The Lord Almighty who fills heaven and earth was tucked away in the belly of a sinful young woman. God did all this because he had a list to check off and a gift to give.

God had given wondrous details about this Christ Child so that the world would recognize him when he came. God gave his Son a righteous calling. Like his name, his thoughts, words, and deeds were holy.

He performed mighty acts that no one less than God could do. He stopped storms dead in their tracks. He raised the dead and gave them back to their parents. He rebuked demons and gave sight to the blind. With his powerful word, he performed mighty & merciful deeds.

But this Mighty One was mindful of the humble state of all sinners. But he knew they needed more than what was on their lists. They could only think in terms of the temporal. Like us, they were fixated on the physical, the political, the financial, the day to day, not the eternal. But the Mighty One came to lift up those who had been humbled by sin. Some were sick and suffering physically. But all fall short of the glory of God and are spiritually dead.

So the Mighty One allowed himself to be lifted up on a cross. He took on our eternal guilt, shame, and iniquities. He extended his arms on the cross to show mercy to those who fear him, to those who believed that the Lord would fulfill even this wondrous promise. Though many proud and powerful and rich and connected people mocked him as he suffered and died, he filled the hungry—people like the thief to his side, or his mother at the foot of the cross—with the goodness of his grace and mercy. Though today, many proud and powerful and rich and respected people dispute his life, mock his death, and flat out deny his resurrection, he has remembered to be merciful to sinners just as he promised. That includes each one of us. The Mighty One has done this great thing for you.

So, like Elizabeth did, we exclaim with a loud voice Why am I so favored? Why has God the Holy Spirit filled my heart and mind with the gift of his faith? Why has the Mighty One made me one of his own? The answer is grace. God’s undeserved, unconditional, and unexpected love. He has done this great thing for each one of us.

So let’s take a cue from Mary and magnify the Lord. Let our souls and spirits rejoice in God our Savior. he has been mindful, he has been merciful, and he is mighty to save. The Mighty One has not taken a cue from our lists, but he has given us the matchless and marvelous gift of his mercy. The Mighty One has done this great thing for us all. Amen.