People of the Word-- The Virgin

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,

and they shall call his name Immanuel”

(which means, God with us).

“It is written...” versus “I really believe...”

We are people of the Word.

We are people of the Word, although we seem to want to give that up.

Have you noticed a shift in the way that we talk about what we believe? When we are discussing a certain point about God, instead of saying, “the Bible tells us...” or citing a passage of scripture to back up our understanding we say, “Well, I really believe....” Somehow our convictions are given at least as much authority authority as God’s Word, itself. It’s not the Word that we base our faith upon, but what seems good or right to us. As others have pointed out, we really have stopped following Jesus Christ and started following ourselves.

There’s a shift that I’m noticing more and more. I don’t have any scientific studies to back it up— it’s really just been my experience— but it’s common enough that it seems fair to say that there’s a wider trend. It has to do with the way we as a society talk about what we believe. When we are discussing a certain point about God, instead of saying, “the Bible tells us...” or citing a passage of scripture to back up their understanding you’ll hear people say, “Well, I really believe....” And their convictions are somehow given authority— even more authority than God’s Word, itself. As others have pointed out, they’re not following Christ, they’re following themselves.

As others have pointed out, they’re not following Christ, they’re following themselves.

We are people of the Word, although we seem to want to give that up.

We are people of the Word, although you wouldn’t know it.

You wouldn’t know it because we don’t know it. George Gallup, Jr., who conducts polls on a variety of topics related to religion, writes:

Americans revere the Bible—but, by and large, they don’t read it. And because they don’t read it, they have become a nation of biblical illiterates. . . . This lack of Bible-reading explains why Americans know so little about the Bible that is the basis of the faith of most of them. For example, eight in ten Americans say they are Christians, but only four in ten know that Jesus, according to the Bible, delivered the Sermon on the Mount.

Fewer than half of all adults can name Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as the four Gospels of the New Testament, while many do not know that Jesus had twelve disciples or that he was born in Bethlehem. In addition, a large majority of Americans believe that the Ten Commandments are still valid rules for living today, but they have a tough time recalling exactly what those rules are.” (George Gallup, Jr., and Jim Castelli, The People’s Religion: American Faith in the 90s (New York: Macmillan, 1989), 60.)

You wouldn’t know it because we hardly have time for it. There are certainly ample reasons that you and I give for why we can’t spend time reading, studying, hearing God’s Word. You have a lot of demands upon your time. You are juggling a number of different priorities.

Let’s grant for the sake of discussion that the exact balance of priorities will vary somewhat from person to person. Does this mean that we can weight our priorities any way we want? Absolutely not. “Meditating day and night” on God’s Word is something that [every Christian is called to]. It is basic to the Christian life. It seems to me, then, that in any weighting of priorities the following scenarios are out of bounds:

- More time watching television than reading/studying/memorizing God’s Word

- More time on social networking sites than reading God’s Word

- More time playing video games than reading God’s Word

(Berding, Kenneth. “The Crisis of Biblical Illiteracy & What We Can Do About It.” http://magazine.biola.edu/article/14-spring/the-crisis-of-biblical-illiteracy/)

We are people of the Word, although you wouldn’t know it.

We are people of the word.

We are people of the word, although we don’t seem to trust it.

When we really want to put on a push to bring in new members, to what do we turn? Clever programs? Classes on how to be more welcoming? Some churches have actually used giveaways-- come to church and someone will win a new car. (I wish I was joking about that. I’m not. It gets worse: the car was provided by their “service sponsor,” the local Chevrolet dealership.) Before you and I shake our heads, we keep coming back to that discussion, too. What do we need to do to bring the young people back? And what do we immediately go to? For answers, we go to the music, the liturgy, the church organization, sometimes the church leadership. But the real question is: have you taught your children how important God’s Word is? Where does it rank for your family? How many things do you allow to take priority over hearing God’s Word read and preached and taught? Is it any surprise that they treat it with the value that you’ve taught them to put on it?

We don’t seem to trust it, but we are people of the Word.

Trust the Word.

And it is this same creative Word that, incomprehensibly, also became flesh () [when the virgin conceived and gave birth to a son— “The Word became flesh...”]. ...[F]or Luther, the primary sense of “the Word of God” [taking on flesh means that] Jesus was a preacher; this was not accidental or incidental. It was the crucial core of how God deals with his people:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (; ESV).

Our text says “This took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel,’ which means ‘God with us.’” This verse calls on you to remember the faithfulness and the power of God’s Word.

God’s Word was, first of all, the... Word of creation that brought into being all things from nothing: “and God said, ‘Let there be’ … and there was.” Yet this Word of creation was not simply a thing from the ancient past but continued to sound throughout the creation, sustaining [it]. Not just “God has made the heavens and the earth,” but “God has made [you and all creatures, He has given you your body and soul, your] eyes and ears and all [your members, your reason and all your] senses” (Small Catechism).

Our text

And it is this same creative Word that, incomprehensibly, also became flesh () [when the virgin conceived and gave birth to a son. (Hermann, Erik. “Luther: ‘The Word Did Everything’, https://www.csl.edu/2017/03/luther-the-word-did-everything/, March 21, 2017.)

This text calls on you to remember the faithfulness and power of God’s Word because the Word that He spoke was and is still just as powerful as it was when it said, “Let there be light.” It was powerful enough that the Word of God spoken by the angel to the Virgin Mary was able to conceive life within her. It’s said that Mary conceived through her ears. When the angel said that the she would conceive when the Holy Spirit came upon her and overshadowed her, it wasn’t some mystical, invisible event. It happened when the Word of God was preached to her by the angel. The Holy Spirit worked through that Word, as He always does, and did exactly what the Word said He would do.

In fact, we can actually go a step further.

...[F]or Luther, the primary sense of “the Word of God” [taking on flesh means that] Jesus was a preacher; this was not ...incidental [to why He came]. It was the crucial core of how God deals with his people.... (Hermann, Erik. “Luther: ‘The Word Did Everything’, https://www.csl.edu/2017/03/luther-the-word-did-everything/, March 21, 2017.)

He said to the deaf man, “Be opened,” and his ears were opened. He said to the paralyzed man, “Get up and walk,” and he got up, picked up his mat, and walked— probably danced— away. He stood at the tomb of His dear friend Lazarus and said, “Lazarus, come out!” And the only thing holding Lazarus back were the grave clothes wrapped around him.

Jesus, Himself, said that that is what He had come for:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (; ESV).

(Hermann, Erik. “Luther: ‘The Word Did Everything’, https://www.csl.edu/2017/03/luther-the-word-did-everything/, March 21, 2017.)

He came to declare that, “God so loved the Word that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” He came to declare, “It is finished.” He came so that He could declare, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

He said to the deaf man, “Be opened,” and his ears were opened.

Trust the Word.

Treasure the Word.

You and I cannot go back to the manger and see the virgin and her newborn Son and worship Him there. But, as Luther said, in the scriptures:

Luther’s Works, Volume 35 Prefaces to the Old Testament

you will find the swaddling cloths and the manger in which Christ lies, and to which the angel points the shepherds [Luke 2:12]. Simple and lowly are these swaddling cloths, but dear is the treasure, Christ, who lies in them.

[It] is not so much a book, as we are accustomed to think[,]... it is first and foremost a divine promise. [It] is God’s promise to save humankind from its own destructive path — a promise that stretches back to Eden and runs through the lives of the patriarchs, prophets and kings until its fulfillment arrives in Christ. (Hermann, Erik. “Luther: ‘The Word Did Everything’, https://www.csl.edu/2017/03/luther-the-word-did-everything/, March 21, 2017.)

[It] is not so much a book, as we are accustomed to think[,]... it is first and foremost a divine promise. The New Testament is God’s promise to save humankind from its own destructive path — a promise that stretches back to Eden and runs through the lives of the patriarchs, prophets and kings until its fulfillment arrives in Christ. (Hermann, Erik. “Luther: ‘The Word Did Everything’, https://www.csl.edu/2017/03/luther-the-word-did-everything/, March 21, 2017.)

He has sent out His apostles to declare to the ends of the earth that that promise is for you. Your sins are forgiven. You are holy, You are a new creation in Jesus Christ, because the Holy Spirit is still working through His Word, doing exactly what the Word says— giving you faith to receive those gifts.

“...the Church [is] born and sustained solely by the Word — preached, heard, read, sung and believed....” (Hermann, Erik. “Luther: ‘The Word Did Everything’, https://www.csl.edu/2017/03/luther-the-word-did-everything/, March 21, 2017.)

Treasure the Word.

Hold firmly to the Word.

The Word of God is the lifeblood of the Church. Mary is now a picture of the Church. The Church is the Virgin Bride of Christ and she is found to be with child, conceiving and bearing children through the hearing of God’s Word. God’s Word is living and active. It is the very power of God for salvation. One of Luther’s greatest gifts to the church is the reminder that

God’s Word is living and active. It is the very power of God for salvation. One of Luther’s greatest gifts to the church is the reminder that

“...the Church [is] born and sustained solely by the Word — preached, heard, read, sung and believed....”

[Now, the means through which God’s Word comes to you are certainly humble and lowly.] The “swaddling cloths”... are “shabby and poor, yet precious is the treasure wrapped in them for it is Christ.”

It came to you, very humbly, in baptism. And yet, wrapped in that water, was Jesus Christ. It was the word, attached to the water of baptism, that gave you new birth as a child of God and, with that new identity, the full inheritance of heaven.

It

It comes to you very humbly, in bread and wine. And yet, wrapped in that bread and wine, is Jesus Christ. It is the word, attached to bread and wine, that makes it the very bread of heaven— the body and blood of Christ, given so that you may eat of it and never die.

The preacher, too, is just one sinner among many — a clay vessel carrying this same treasure. God’s Word [doesn’t come to you in clever words or some secret,] divine language, but clothes itself in what seems all too human and too foolish to accomplish such great things. Nevertheless, both prophet and apostle profess the same [thing]: the Word of God endures forever. (Hermann, Erik. “Luther: ‘The Word Did Everything’, https://www.csl.edu/2017/03/luther-the-word-did-everything/, March 21, 2017.)

And this promise is for you and for your children, for all who are far off. Is there anything more precious, as a parent, than thinking back to the day that your son or daughter was baptized and to meditate upon what God gave to him there? It is for good reason that we celebrate their confirmation day, as they make a public profession of faith after instruction in God’s Word and receive the body and blood of Christ and, with it, everything else promised and delivered by Gods Word. And you have the opportunity to take that same Word with you and have it and all its blessings fill your home, as well.

In fact, we can actually go a step further.

You are people of the Word.

...[F]or Luther, the primary sense of “the Word of God” [taking on flesh means that] Jesus was a preacher; this was not ...incidental [to why He came]. It was the crucial core of how God deals with his people:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (; ESV).

Allow me to remind you of that fact.

(Hermann, Erik. “Luther: ‘The Word Did Everything’, https://www.csl.edu/2017/03/luther-the-word-did-everything/, March 21, 2017.)

You are people of the Word.

Our text says “This took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel,’ which means ‘God with us.’” It’s a reminder of the faithfulness of God’s Word and it’s a reminder of the power of God’s Word. The prophet had spoken roughly 700 years earlier. But it was fulfilled. When the time had come, the virgin Mary, as many have pointed out, conceived through her ears. The Holy Spirit overshadowed her through the angel’s preaching of God’s Word. And that Word, itself, conceived the child within her.

Luther’s Works, Volume 35 Prefaces to the Old Testament

you will find the swaddling cloths and the manger in which Christ lies, and to which the angel points the shepherds [Luke 2:12]. Simple and lowly are these swaddling cloths, but dear is the treasure, Christ, who lies in them.

You are people of the Word because that Word

[It] is not so much a book, as we are accustomed to think[,]... it is first and foremost a divine promise. The New Testament is God’s promise to save humankind from its own destructive path — a promise that stretches back to Eden and runs through the lives of the patriarchs, prophets and kings until its fulfillment arrives in Christ. (Hermann, Erik. “Luther: ‘The Word Did Everything’, https://www.csl.edu/2017/03/luther-the-word-did-everything/, March 21, 2017.)

God’s Word is living and active. It is the very power of God for salvation. One of Luther’s greatest gifts to the church is the reminder that

In the book of Amos, people who experienced a “famine of hearing the words of the Lord” are portrayed as undergoing divine judgment. Amos paints a picture of people without access to God’s revelation searching for a message from God like desperate people — hungry and dehydrated — in search of food and water (). In Amos they want it, but are not permitted it. In our case, although we have unlimited access, we often don’t want it. (Berding, Kenneth. “The Crisis of Biblical Illiteracy & What We Can Do About It.” http://magazine.biola.edu/article/14-spring/the-crisis-of-biblical-illiteracy/)

When we do study scripture, it’s often simply “What does this verse mean to me?”

God’s Word is not an ancillary part of the church. It is the authority upon which the Church is founded.

Let’s grant for the sake of discussion that the exact balance of priorities will vary somewhat from person to person. Does this mean that we can weight our priorities any way we want? Absolutely not. “Meditating day and night” on God’s Word is something that everyone must do. It is basic to the Christian life. It seems to me, then, that in any weighting of priorities the following scenarios are out of bounds:

- More time watching television than reading/studying/memorizing God’s Word

- More time on social networking sites than reading God’s Word

- More time playing video games than reading God’s Word

(Berding)

God’s Word is not an ancillary part of the church. It is the authority upon which the Church is founded.

In our desire to try to bring more people in to the church, we dream up all sorts of gimmicks and programs. We turn to just about anything except the actual means that God has given: His Word.

English Standard Version Chapter 8

11 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord GOD,

“when I will send a famine on the land—

not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,

but of hearing the words of the LORD.

12 They shall wander from sea to sea,

and from north to east;

they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the LORD,

but they shall not find it.

Pastors ought to be obeyed when they’re speaking God’s Word.

We gather for worship and

“God’s word usually appears to be hanging on by a thread.”

The power of God’s Word in our lives

“God’s name is kept holy when the Word of God is taught in its truth and purity and we as the children of God also lead holy lives according to it.”

that the Church was born and sustained solely by the Word — preached, heard, read, sung and believed. As we remember Luther and the Reformation 500 years later, we do well to remember clearly that the religious core of his work was his deep love and reverence for the Word of God.

English Standard Version Chapter 7

24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

Hold firmly to the Word.

Our response:

Brothers and sisters in Christ, “This took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel,’ which means ‘God with us.’” This verse calls on you to remember the faithfulness and the power of God’s Word. Trust it. Treasure it. Hold firmly to it. Because you are people of the Word.

Amen!

Confessing God’s Word.

“...the Church [is] born and sustained solely by the Word — preached, heard, read, sung and believed....” (Hermann, Erik. “Luther: ‘The Word Did Everything’, https://www.csl.edu/2017/03/luther-the-word-did-everything/, March 21, 2017.)

Such a view was not in itself unusual in his day. What was unusual, however, was his singular focus on the Word as the source and goal of the Christian life. While the medieval church tended to focus its faith and piety on devotional and liturgical ritual — both priestly and lay — Luther believed that the Church was born and sustained solely by the Word — preached, heard, read, sung and believed. As we remember Luther and the Reformation 500 years later, we do well to remember clearly that the religious core of his work was his deep love and reverence for the Word of God.

...[T]he Bible, ...too [is] the Word of God, ...especially because it [is] a witness to this same Jesus. …[T]he Old Testament [is] like the “swaddling cloths” of Christ, clothing God’s great plan of salvation with age-old acts of judgment and deliverance. The ancient people…, their encounters with God and His Word[,] the range of responses in both faith and unbelief[, ...a]ll of this [points] to God’s definitive act of judgment and deliverance ...in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

And it is this same creative Word that, incomprehensibly, also became flesh () [when the virgin conceived and gave birth to a son— “The Word became flesh...”]. ...[F]or Luther, the primary sense of “the Word of God” [taking on flesh means that] Jesus was a preacher; this was not accidental or incidental. It was the crucial core of how God deals with his people:

[Which verse did He later say

This means that the very life and light of creation became inseparable from Jesus who embodied and proclaimed this creative, Spirit-filled Word to a broken, dark and chaotic world. This was, for Luther, the primary sense of “the Word of God.” Jesus was a preacher; this was not accidental or incidental. It was the crucial core of how God deals with his people:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (; ESV).

...[T]he Bible, ...too [is] the Word of God, ...especially because it [is] a witness to this same Jesus. …[T]he Old Testament [is] like the “swaddling cloths” of Christ, clothing God’s great plan of salvation with age-old acts of judgment and deliverance. The ancient people…, their encounters with God and His Word[,] the range of responses in both faith and unbelief[, ...a]ll of this [points] to God’s definitive act of judgment and deliverance ...in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

…[T]he New Testament is not so much a book, as we are accustomed to think[,]... it is first and foremost a divine promise. The New Testament is God’s promise to save humankind from its own destructive path — a promise that stretches back to Eden and runs through the lives of the patriarchs, prophets and kings until its fulfillment arrives in Christ.

...Through the proclamation of the Word — whether publicly by a pastor or by any brother or sister baptized into Christ — God continues to destroy our presumptions, idols and false pieties in order to create new hearts that cling to “the one thing needful” (). Through hearing the Word, we are brought to repentance, receive forgiveness and find reconciliation to God in Christ and with one another. ...

At its heart, then, the New Testament is not only a set of writings but God’s faithful fulfillment of a promise, a declaration of grace, an announcement of good news — that God has reconciled us in His Son: “It is the manner of the New Testament and the Gospel that it must be preached and performed by word of mouth and a living voice. Christ Himself has not written anything, nor has He ordered anything to be written, but rather to be preached by word of mouth.”

📷

It is perhaps not surprising, then, that Luther’s dealings with the New Testament books are largely in his sermons rather than lectures or commentaries. In the sermon, the living voice of the New Testament finds its home, that is, in the faith of the one who hears. The promise that was fulfilled in Christ spills over and is fulfilled again and again in the hearts of those that believe. Consider this excerpt from Luther’s Advent sermon in 1522:

[Christ’s] taking upon himself of humanity would have profited no one had it not meant the proclamation of the Gospel. The Gospel was to present him to the whole world, revealing the fact that he became man for the sake of imparting the blessing to all who, accepting the Gospel, should believe in him. Paul tells us the Gospel was promised of God; from which we may infer God placed more emphasis upon the Gospel, the public revelation of Christ through the Word, than upon his physical birth, his advent in human form. God’s purpose was concerning the Gospel and our faith, and he permitted his Son to assume humanity for the sake of making possible the preaching of the Gospel of Christ; that through the revealed Word salvation in Christ might be brought near — might come — to all the world. … How can Christ profit us unless he be embraced by faith? But how can he be embraced by faith where the Gospel is not preached?

Preaching, then — when it rightly proclaims Christ — is every bit as much the Word of God as the Bible or that which brought the world into existence. Through the proclamation of the Word — whether publicly by a pastor or by any brother or sister baptized into Christ — God continues to destroy our presumptions, idols and false pieties in order to create new hearts that cling to “the one thing needful” (). Through hearing the Word, we are brought to repentance, receive forgiveness and find reconciliation to God in Christ and with one another. Even the Sacraments are such a proclamation of the Word, bringing the faithful into a new world and new kingdom in which the Savior’s supper and story are celebrated until He comes again.

[Now, the means through which God’s Word comes to you are certainly humble and lowly.] The “swaddling cloths”... are “shabby and poor, yet precious is the treasure wrapped in them for it is Christ.” The preacher, too, is just one sinner among many — a clay vessel carrying this same treasure. God’s Word takes up no uniquely divine language, but clothes itself in what seems all too human and too foolish to accomplish such great things. Nevertheless, both prophet and apostle profess the same: the Word of God endures forever.

[That’s why Luther was able to say, in all sincerity,] … I simply taught, preached, wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philip and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything. (Hermann, Erik. “Luther: ‘The Word Did Everything’, https://www.csl.edu/2017/03/luther-the-word-did-everything/, March 21, 2017.)

What is Luther? The teaching is not mine. Nor was I crucified for anyone … How did I, poor stinking bag of maggots that I am, come to the point where people call the children of Christ by my evil name? … I simply taught, preached, wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philip and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything. (Hermann, Erik. “Luther: ‘The Word Did Everything’, https://www.csl.edu/2017/03/luther-the-word-did-everything/, March 21, 2017.)