In Jesus Holy Name December 22, 2024
Text: Luke 1:35-37 Redeemer
“Surprises From God, Remove the Impossible”
Luke chapter 1 tells us the story of two expectant mothers, Elizabeth and Mary. Both of their pregnancies were a surprise. Both are stories of impossibilities. Consider the impossibilities, Zechariah and Elizabeth were long past the child bearing age. They knew only young couples had children. Consider the impossibility Elizabeth faced. She was well past the childbearing age, and yet God says she is going to conceive and bear a child. This impossible news left old Zechariah speechless. Impossible! No way! Won’t happen! But it did.
Mary, her parents and Joseph all got the same big surprise when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, telling her that she would become pregnant with the Son of God! Astonishing, Impossible she thought. Maybe “shocked” is a better word. After all, Mary knew that she was a virgin. She had a logical question “How can this be?” Surprise! God can remove the impossible if it is in His eternal plan.
Later, when Mary visited Elizabeth and the baby in Elizabeth’s womb jumped with joy, when they met. Imagine that meeting – a virgin carrying the Son of God and an older woman unable to conceive carrying John the Baptist! Oh, the surprises of God.
How did the surprise for Zechariah, the priest, and Elizabeth begin?
One day, Zechariah is serving incense in the temple. Don’t pass by that little detail. Historians tell us there were perhaps 20,000 priests in Israel in the first century. They were organized into 24 divisions, each serving twice a year, one week at a time. The highest honor was to bring incense into the Holy Place where it would be sprinkled on the burning coals on the golden altar. It was such a high privilege that a priest would perform that ceremony once in his life.
This was Zechariah’s day. It was not an accident that his number came up. God had a surprise waiting. In that holy moment as he was burning the incense, an angel appears. Gabriel shows up and makes a promise, but Zechariah doubted!
Six months later, Gabriel makes a visit to a teenage girl in Nazareth named Mary. He promised that she would become pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit. The angel surprised her making a series of incredible announcements (Luke 1:31-33):
• You will conceive and bear a son.
• You will call his name Jesus.
• He will be great.
• He will be called the Son of the Most High.
• He will rule over the house of Jacob forever.
• His kingdom will never end.
The angel adds two other facts:
• Remember, your aunt Elizabeth is also pregnant.
• Nothing is impossible with God.
“Expecting” is the word we use when a woman is pregnant. “She’s expecting!” What exactly is she expecting? Joy, and so much more!!! Parents are expecting this new and unique creation. They’re expecting that there will be new duties thrust upon them as parents. They’re expecting a change in the balance of the family system. In short, they’re expecting their whole world to change.
Zechariah wanted proof. Mary wanted understanding. Zechariah knew that young couples have children, old couples do not. Zechariah should have remembered His bible stories, especially the one of Abraham and Sarah. God knows what he is doing. The news was just so unexpected for both families.
Luke tells us that Mary went to visit her Aunt and Uncle in Bethlehem. We are not sure why Mary’s parents decided to have her visit her aunt Elizabeth, but we could guess the conversations. Maybe they were worried about what neighbors would think? More than likely Mary’s parents also knew of the angel’s visit to Zechariah and Elizabeth. Whatever worries Mary’s parents had, it was still a good idea to have her visit relatives in Bethlehem, the proposed marriage to Joseph was still a ways off, and in doubt.
God knows what he is doing, but Joseph did not. Once Joseph discovers the news that Mary is expecting he struggles with the decision to continue with the marriage or give her a divorce. It was then, that Joseph was also surprised by the unexpected. He had a dream about Mary and her expectant child. He puts away the divorce papers and takes Mary as his wife.
From God’s point of view, history is His story, it is the record of God’s dealings with the human race.
Here’s the Reader’s Digest version of what history is all about. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. He then placed Adam and Eve on the earth and made them stewards over the whole planet. When they disobeyed, they surrendered their stewardship into the hands of Satan, the fallen angel. From that day until this, the whole world has been under the influence and power of Satan.
Michael Heiser in his book “The Unseen Realm” notes: “The only perfect Being is God. This is why things could and did go wrong in the Garden of Eden.” (P. 59)
It is still God’s world by creation. It was Satan, the fallen angel, who usurped God’s authority and set up a counter-kingdom to challenge the kingdom of God. From that day until this, the earth has been the central battlefield in a war between those two competing kingdoms. The Apostle John writes in Revelation (12:17) that after Satan failed in his attempt to use King Herod to kill the child of Mary and Joseph, “he went off to make war against those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the teachings of Jesus.”
Whether you read Michal Hieser’s book: The Unseen Realm” or Leonard Sweet’s book “Jesus, A Theophany” they each make the same point that once the world fell into enemy hands, God planned to win it back at any cost. His plan moved into action with the angel’s visit to two women both surprised with an unexpected pregnancy.
For centuries, God had been sending his message through kings, prophets and priests and poets. It meant raising up an entire nation, of Israel, through one man, Abraham so that He would bless the earth. But ultimately it meant that God had to enter the conflict Himself. In order to take the world back from Satan, God entered the human race in the person of his Son, Jesus, He is the reason Mary was expecting.
This is the point John was making in his gospel when he wrote: “In the beginning was the “logos”, and the Word was God…through Him all things were made…. He came into the world He created but the world did not recognize Him. This Word, this “logos” became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory… (John 1)
Some once wrote: “ God declared war at Bethlehem.” It is a good truth.
At Bethlehem God launched a mighty counteroffensive that started with a tiny baby boy named Jesus, born in an usual circumstance, to a young couple who traveled to Bethlehem. The world had no idea what God was up to. Only in retrospect do we understand. (thoughts from a sermon by Ken Pritchard Luke 1:26-33 December 26, 2018)
Both expectant mothers had their baby’s. One was named John, the other Jesus. Jesus came, according to God's plan and promise, "When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law." (Gal. 4:4)
After the baptism of Jesus the Holy Spirit placed Jesus in the wilderness to challenge Satan over God’s divine authority and rule. Jesus cast out demons. He healed the blind. He cured those with leprosy. He battled Satan on the cross, when the Pharisees tried to tempt Jesus to come down off the cross…. Jesus refused. Jesus was taking on His shoulders, shedding His holy blood as the perfect sacrifice for our broken commandments. By His death and resurrection Jesus shattered Satan’s hold on death by rising with a glorified body on Easter.
Listen to the words of the Apostle Paul: Colossians 1:19-20 (read)
Josh McDowell in his book “Evidence that Demands A Verdict” wrote:
“Two thousand years ago, a man was born contrary to the laws of life. He lived in poverty and was reared in obscurity. He was the child of a peasant woman and worked in a carpenter’s shop until he was 30. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. (His miracles demonstrated God’s power over sickness, demons and death.) He never owned a home, never wrote a book, never held public office. He never went to college and never set foot in a big city. He never traveled 200 miles from the place where he was born.
In his infancy He startled a king; in childhood He puzzled doctors; in manhood He ruled the course of nature, walked upon the (waves of the sea) as if on pavement, and hushed the sea to sleep. He healed the multitudes without medicine and made no charge for His service.
The name of Jesus remains. He stands alone on the highest pinnacle of heavenly glory, proclaimed of God, acknowledged by angels, adored by saints, and feared by devils, as the living, personal Christ, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the Savior of the world. This is the message of Christmas.
The words of the angel to Joseph continue to bring eternal joy and hope to people who worry about their eternal future. “Joseph, do not be afraid, take Mary home as your wife, she will give birth to a Son and you shall give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their broken commandments.
