Advent is a Season to Believe

1. Read passage - 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.

2. Background

Nazareth in Galilee. It is possible this nondescript village would have been lost in history without the Biblical narrative. Not on any major highways, not near any major cities, not mentioned in any Old Testament book or prophecy. The main daily activities centered around farming, shepherding, building, cooking, cleaning, raising children. In other words - life. Think of McNeil or, even better, Harwood. Important to the people that live there now but in 100, 500, 2,000 years will anyone know those places existed?

Then you have Mary, a young teen girl who is “betrothed” - a similar concept to our “engagement” but much stricter. It is as if she was already married but not living with her husband yet. Her world revolves around helping mother at home and preparing for the upcoming marriage ceremony and then starting a family of her own. I’m sure an angel showing up with his startling announcement never entered her mind at any point.

3. Greeting – Read Luke 1:28-29

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.

We don’t know where Mary was when the angel Gabriel appeared but we can assume it was a disconcerting encounter. Put yourself in her place, if you can. Going about your daily chores, dreaming of your new life as a wife and mother, and then, Gabriel is there telling you you are favored and God is with you. Is there any wonder why she was troubled?

Think about the sermon last week. If you were a devout Jew in the land of Israel in the first century an angel appearing in the Temple to a priest may be out of the ordinary but it would be understandable. An angel appearing to an unmarried teen girl in a remote village - even today that just doesn’t compute. Then you are told you are favored and God is with you. You would rightfully begin thinking you were hallucinating or worse. Of course Mary was troubled.

Gabriel goes on to offer words of comfort to Mary and then to further explain his greeting.

4. God “Without” - Read Luke 1:30-33

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.”

I don’t know that it helped calm Mary. How would you handle being told you were going to give birth to the Son of God? The one saving grace for Mary is the phrase “God is with you.” “With” is such a small word but that one word encompasses the entire historical trajectory of God’s plan of salvation. God has always been with his people and will always be with his people.

God was with Adam and Eve in the Garden but they separated themselves from God through sin – Genesis 1:8 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

The remainder of Genesis is the story of God preparing a people for himself. In Exodus, God rescued his people from slavery by using a mediator (a go-between), Moses. God was still with his people and lead his people. – Exodus 13:21-22 And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.

But God was still separated from his people by their sin. God would speak to Moses who would speak to the people and then Moses would give God the people’s response.

Once the Tabernacle was built God was with his people – Exodus 40:34-38 - Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the LORD was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys.

But, again, he was still separated from them by their sin and now, multiple mediators, Moses and the priests.

Later in their history, Solomon built a temple for God. Yet, the pattern continues. God is with his people but separated from them by their sin and depending on mediators to communicate with his people. - Kings 8:6-11 - Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the LORD to its place in the inner sanctuary of the house, in the Most Holy Place, underneath the wings of the cherubim. For the cherubim spread out their wings over the place of the ark, so that the cherubim overshadowed the ark and its poles. And the poles were so long that the ends of the poles were seen from the Holy Place before the inner sanctuary; but they could not be seen from outside. And they are there to this day. There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone that Moses put there at Horeb, where the LORD made a covenant with the people of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt. And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD.

Through the remainder of the Old Testament we have the God who is with His people but separated from them by their sin and dependent on mediators to reach them. Now Gabriel appears to Mary to announce that the God will become one of us and become our mediator himself.

5. God “With” – Read Luke 1:34-37 - 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.”

Jesus, God incarnate, becomes the one that is able to be the mediator we could never provide. He becomes the man who is able to fulfill the righteous law that we never could. God himself mediates between man and God as both man and God.

God becomes human to know what it means to be human. He learns what it means to be hungry, to be tired, to hurt - in other words he understands our physical limitations and plight. He experiences joy, grief, sadness, anger - he know our emotional needs and letdowns. He will not only know what it means to be human in a world broken by sin, he will know it perfectly. He will know and understand it in a way we never can.

Furthermore, he becomes the perfect Moses. – Hebrews 3:1-6a – Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.

Moses led the Israelites out of captivity to Egypt to the earthly promised land. Jesus leads us out of captivity to sin to the eternal promised land.

He is the perfect High Priest offering the perfect sacrifice that none of the Temple priest could ever offer. – Hebrews 4:14-5:10 – Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people. And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”; as he says also in another place, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.” In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Gabriel’s explanation is the fulcrum of history – the history of God with his people in the OT, God with his people at this point, and God with his people in the future.

6. God “Within” – Read Luke 1:38 - 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.

Jesus, as the Incarnate God, wasn’t simply born to understand what it meant to be human in life. He also had to understand what it was to be human in death. Up to this point it was a death with seemingly no future. Through his death, burial, and resurrection Jesus fulfilled the promise that all OT saints hoped in. The incarnation is captured succinctly in the Nicene Creed - “…who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died, and was buried; and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven,...”

Had the story ended with the resurrection then Jesus would be the only human to be able to enjoy eternal fellowship with God. But, to quote Paul Harvey, “Now, for the rest of the story.”

When Jesus ascended the Holy Spirit was sent as promised. John 14:18-26 - “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

We now can have God “within.” The Holy Spirit, promised by Jesus, is at work in the world and lives in the hearts of those who believe.

Romans 8:1-14 - There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

Ultimately, those who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit will live eternally with God in the restored creation. Revelation 21:1-7 - Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.

All of this, and much more, were contained in Gabriel’s short greeting and explanation. Jesus is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and the foundation of the New Covenant God has decreed.

Where does all this land? I think it lands in this one sentence. God without was born God with to be God within that we may be with God eternally.

7. Application

What does it take for us to be able to live eternally in the presence of God?The answer in one word is “faith.” Mary heard what Gabriel said but did she completely understand everything it meant? No, not any more than we understand everything it means. Faced with more questions than answers Mary’s response was the proper response. She responded in faith. Faith that whatever happened God was with her. Faith that agrees with God even though she didn’t fully understand. Faith in a God who is who he says he is, who loves us in spite of our sin, and who desires reconciliation at the cost of his only Son.

The same applies to us – we must respond to the words we have heard in faith.

Advent is truly the season to Believe.