Advent Wednesday #1

SERMON - Born Thy People to Deliver!

INI

Text: Luke 1:30-31

Then 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 bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS.

In Christ Jesus, who came according to divine prophecy to deliver us, dear fellow redeemed:

“Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus,” an old and favorite Advent hymn, provides us with our mid-week Advent theme this year and forms our liturgical setting for these special services. As a theme COME, THOU LONG-EXPECTED JESUS points our eyes ahead, while at the same time reminding us of what was said and then longingly anticipated in the past. We look forward to the second coming of Jesus in glory at the end of time, even as we look back with great joy to His first coming as the long-expected Savior promised by the prophets of old and anticipated by Old Testament believers down through the centuries. This evening in the first of our special Advent services we consider the reason why Jesus was first sent by God. He came into this world—He was, as the hymn-writer declares: Born Thy People to Deliver!

Our text is the very familiar Advent account of God’s messenger, Gabriel, informing the virgin Mary of the fact that God had chosen her to be the mother of His Son, the promised Savior. The event took place in the quiet little town of Nazareth in what had become known as “Galilee of the Gentiles” (Isaiah 9:1). That town stood on a hill in south-central Galilee in what is now northern Israel. It overlooks the fertile plain of Jezreel—the thoroughfare of caravans heading from Babylonia to Egypt and back again, and the battlefield of countless ancient empires. It was from near Nazareth that Deborah and Barak would have prepared for battle against Jabin and his blood-thirsty commander, Sisera in the days of the judges. It was just below Nazareth that beloved King Josiah lost his life in a fruitless attempt to prevent the Egyptians from dominating his lands hundreds of years later just prior to the Babylonian Captivity. A few miles to the west lay Mount Carmel, the site of Elijah’s great triumph over the 450 prophets of Baal, while a few miles to the northeast lay the Sea of Galilee, the site of so many of the events in our Savior’s own ministry.

Yes, God’s angel Gabriel was sent to Nazareth to convey a most important message to a young virgin named Mary, whom Luke informs us, in the verses previous to our text, was engaged to a man by the name of Joseph (cf. 1:27). We actually know very little about either of these two children of God. We do know that they were both descendants of King David. How they happen to have moved to Galilee from their ancestral village of Bethlehem remains a complete mystery. One can only assume that the economic necessity of their reduced circumstances—they, after all, were peasants descended from royalty—at some point motivated them or their parents to leave Judea and settle in Galilee.

Joseph had become a carpenter—an important trade of that day and, quite frankly, in every age. How old was he? We do not know. Ancient traditions suggest that he may have been as old as many of our grandfathers, but there is really no biblical reason to suggest such an advanced age apart from the fact that he was no longer living when Jesus began His ministry. He was probably the average age of a Jewish man of that time who sought the company of a bride and who was prepared to establish a home and rear a family—perhaps around thirty.

Concerning Mary we know equally as little. We assume that she was a godly young woman, that she might well have been described as were her priestly relatives, Zacharias and Elizabeth, as righteous and blameless before God (cf. Luke 1:6). How old was she? Again, the biblical text does not tell us, but the Jewish traditions of the day called for girls to marry shortly after reaching the age of being able to bear children. She may have been as young as thirteen, but surely no older than sixteen or seventeen. We do know from our text that she was the object of God’s grace and blessing. She was, as Gabriel initially informed her, “highly favored” by Him (cf. Luke 1:28) and by His grace had been chosen to be the mother of His Son—the Promised Savior. “Do not be afraid, Mary,” he told her, “for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son.”

What a complete surprise this must have been to Mary! Not only would the appearance of an angel have been unsettling—who among us would not have been somewhat terrified—but his message filled her mind with questions, not the least of which was how such a thing would happen. Concerning that, Gabriel would soon inform her of the Holy Spirit’s work, but for now Gabriel focused on answering the question of why. “You will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS.”

The answer to the question of why this was all happening lay in the meaning of the name to be given Mary’s son—Jesus. Jesus means “Savior.” Jesus was born, as Gabriel would later inform Joseph as he pondered how to react to Mary’s unexpected pregnancy, to “save His people from their sins” (cf. Matthew 1:21). Jesus was, as our hymn-writer states—born Thy people to deliver! More personally, He was born to deliver us from the clutches of Satan, from the slavery of sin, and from its inevitable consequences—death and eternal destruction! Jesus’ birth could serve no greater purpose! Yet, the tragedy for so many is that this vital purpose can be so easily lost and overlooked.

As many of you know Sara and I were privileged over the Thanksgiving holiday to travel to Branson, Missouri for a brief family reunion with my sisters and a cousin. While there we attended several Christmas shows, among them one presented by Tony Orlando and the Lennon Sisters. The show was held at the Welk Theater and Convention Center and the stage was decorated beautifully with numerous Christmas trees and innumerable lights. It was incredibly gorgeous to say the least. As one might expect one of Tony’s holiday guests was Santa Claus, who joined him in a number of secular holiday carols and a rap rendition of his famous hit from the 70’s—“Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree.” At the end of the show, however, Santa very seriously took Tony to task for the set. He commented that while the set was indeed gorgeous it lacked any reference to that which was most important to the Christmas Season—the birth of Christ. He then presented Tony with a beautifully carved manger scene. Tony feinted embarrassment for having forgotten, but then used the moment to ask Santa where the crèche should be placed. Santa told him, “It should be placed where everyone will see it, so that the reason for this season might never be forgotten.” The crèche was, therefore placed front and center and the conclusion of the concert was dedicated to the old, familiar Christmas carols, which speak so directly to the reason why Jesus was sent by God and born of the virgin Mary—to deliver us from sin, Satan, death, and hell!

My dear friends, there are many of us, myself included, who worry that the real reason for Christmas can be so easily lost and overlooked in the midst of the general busyness of December and the crass commercialization of the Christmas Season. However, the problem goes much deeper than that! The problem is not simply business. The real problem lies in the human heart, which does not want to accept responsibility for sin, and which even when confronted by sin still does not feel the need for a Savior! We are not unlike Adam and Eve, who when confronted by God with their sin tried to blame others instead of accepting personal responsibility themselves. How often do we not find excuses for ourselves by finding fault with others, rather than simply confessing our own utter unworthiness? How often do we not tend to compare ourselves to others, attempting to justify ourselves and demonstrate our relative innocence, thinking at times perhaps even unconsciously that God will surely overlook our small indiscretions in view of our overall goodness? How often are we confronted by the reality and appalling nature of sin, only to walk away determined to push away all thought of such tragedies and simply mind our own business?

Yet the Scriptures are clear! We cannot escape sin, nor can we avoid the consequences of sin. We have all sinned and fallen short of God’s demand for perfection. Any sin—no matter how small in our own eyes—condemns eternally! Our first reaction to that spiritual and moral fact, may well be, “But, that is unfair,” which is in itself a sin, for it casts false aspersions upon God. No, my friends, we must confess, as we did once again today, that we have often sinned in thought, word, and deed. We have sinned by what we do wrong and by what we fail to do right. We must confess that we are worthy of God’s judgment, for we are. Our own sin and the sins we see around us throughout our society should drive us to our knees before God with sorrowing and repentant hearts. Yet, as we kneel before our God we can with joy confess as well a faith in His forgiving love revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. God sent Jesus to deliver you and me—to set us free from the desperation that can afflict our souls in view of sin! He sent Jesus to instill within us a profound sense of joy and a solid feeling of confidence, as we live our lives in the certain hope of our final redemption! So we pray: COME, THOU LONG-EXPECTED JESUS, born Thy people to deliver! Hallelujah and amen!

—Pastor Paul D. Nolting
Soli Gloria Deo!