Highly Favored Series

This morning I want you to think back to your teen years. I realize that might be easier for some of us than others, but I want you to think back what you were doing around the age of 14. Did you live on a farm? Or in town? Where were you going to school? Maybe for some of you, you were not even going to school at the time. Who were your friends? Did you have a boyfriend or girlfriend? What was going on in your life when you were a teenager? I just want you to get a mental image of your circumstances when you were 14 or 15 years old. Once you have that mental image, I want you to think about what your dreams and goals were. Did you want to go to college? Were you longing to leave home, or were you content with growing up and living your life right near you grew up? I am guessing if you were like me at the age of 14, you had, well thought you had life all figured out. You probably resented any adult who told you that your outlook on life was idealistic, or that your future plans would never happen? I mean what do adults know? How dare them try to tell you that the very mature age of 14 what you should be doing and/or thinking about? That is the attitude of most 14-year-olds right? Now, imagine that an angel of God shows up and tells you that you are highly favored, and God has chosen you for a special assignment that would totally change life as you know it. What would you reaction be? Let’s assume you say yes to God’s plan, because let’s face it saying no to God never works out. What are you going to tell you parents? The rest of your family? Your boyfriend or your girlfriend? The rest of your friends? Will they believe you? What if they don’t? What if saying yes to God means losing everybody and everything you know? Are you still going to say yes? Like I said, saying no to God never works out, but you could take your chances and say no. Sounds like an impossible situation? Maybe. Aren’t you glad that you are just a regular person which means God would never put you in that situation? Or would he?

On this fourth and final Sunday of Advent, we take a close look at Mary the mother of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. We actually do not know a whole lot about Mary. We are told that she was a virgin who was engaged to man named Joseph. We learned about Joseph last week. As we all know Joseph was a Carpenter. Carpenters were businessmen who would be considered part of the middle class today. In the first century, it was common for Jews to marry within their own social economic class. This tells us that Mary’s father was probably a businessman, but we do not know that for sure. We are not told Mary’s age, but as I said last week when I was talking about first century Jewish engagements, it was common for girls to marry around the age of 14. Since Mary was engaged at the time that she became pregnant with Jesus through the Holy Spirit, it is widely assumed that she was around 14 years old when she was visited by the angel Gabriel. Gabriel is the same angel that, as you may recall, announced the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah.

Our Gospel lesson this morning begins with the angel Gabriel appearing to this simple ordinary girl named Mary and saying “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you!” Of course, fourteen-year-old Mary was taken aback at the greeting, and wondered what was going on. Gabriel tells Mary that she is going to give birth to a baby boy, and she was to give him the name Jesus. Luke records Gabriel’s description of Jesus is Luke 1:33 and 34 by writing “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” Of course, Mary wondered how this could happened since she was a virgin. Gabriel explains to Mary that the Holy Spirit would come over her, and that her baby would be called the son of God. Gabriel’s description of Jesus seems to refer to 2 Samuel 7 which is the story of God making a promise to David that his house would reign forever. As part of that promise God tells the prophet Nathan to tell David he would raise up an offspring of David to establish a kingdom that will never end. And, of course, the virgin birth is the fulfillment of our old testament reading this morning from the 7th chapter of Isaiah. Isaiah 7:14 says “Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel.