The opening chapter of Luke’s gospel is full of excitement and anticipation. For Theophilus, to whom the gospel is written in the first place, there’s the anticipation of discovering the facts behind all the things he’s heard about this man Jesus. For Elizabeth and Zechariah there’s the excitement of a promised son where no child was thought possible.
For Mary there was probably a whole mixture of feelings: excitement, concern, worry about what others might think, amazement at being visited by an angel in the first place, but then an overwhelming sense of her personal inadequacy. Who was she to be given such an honour? And on top of that, there would have been the fear of what Joseph was going to say.
For us the excitement is contained in these words in vs32-34: "you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32He 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 ancestor David. 33He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." This is a message that we should never cease to wonder at. God has appeared in our midst as one of us, in the form of a tiny baby boy. This child would be called the Son of the Most High, the Son of God. He incorporates in himself all the fullness of God. This child would grow up to become the one God had promised would inherit the throne of David. This was the one God had promised would rule over God’s people in a never ending reign of peace, a reign that would draw all the peoples of the world to him.
What’s more, the excitement for us is that at last we’re able to experience, first hand as it were, the person of God almighty.
I’ve titled this sermon ’Love Incarnate’, because this is what Jesus’ coming means for the world. God is now able to show us in concrete, tangible form what has always been the case: that he loves his creation beyond reckoning. Especially, he loves those who are called to be his people. And that’s where our first reading today comes in.
Listen to how John expresses it: "See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are." Truly, nothing is impossible with God! How incredible, that I could be called a child of God! How incredible that you could be called a child of God! Not a servant of God. Not a worshipper of God. No, a child of God.
Mary was about to bear a son who would be her child, but at the same time he’d be God’s child. He’d be God incarnate, God born in human flesh. He’d be the one who would take our human frailty and sanctify it, cleanse it, make it perfect once again. So the miracle of his birth would produce, in the end, just as great a miracle in us. We would be cleansed, purified, remade in God’s image; all our impurities removed so that we could enter into God’s presence in peace.
Mary is offered an enormous privilege: she’ll bear the Son of God in her womb. This child whose name will be Jesus, which means ’saviour’, will be hers to care for and to raise until he’s old enough to do the work God has planned for him.
And how will this miracle come about? She’s told "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you." Joseph has no part to play in the child’s birth, other than as an onlooker, or perhaps as an assistant to the midwife, if he was allowed such an honour. No, this is the work of God alone. God has come to save his people. As we saw a few weeks ago when we were going through Hosea, God takes the initiative. God is the one who seeks out his people and who brings them home.
Again, can you see the parallels with our becoming children of God. How do we become God’s children? God sends his Holy Spirit to bring us back to life. He breathes new life into us. He indwells us.
John, in his preface to his gospel says "To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God." Just as Jesus is born as a result of the work of God’s Spirit in Mary so too we receive new life through the work of God’s Spirit in us.
But let’s stop for a moment and think about what might have been going through Mary’s mind at this moment. You wouldn’t be surprised if she was wondering whether she was imagining it, would you? "It’s all too amazing to be true", might well have gone through her mind. On the other hand, her response is a response of faith isn’t it? "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Despite what it might mean for her personally. But even then she had 9 months to wait to see what this child would be like. And even after that, it was another 30 years or so before he began his public ministry.
Well, Luke makes it clear that all this time, Mary is observing all the things that happened to Jesus as he grew up. The term that’s used is ’she treasured them up in her heart.’ All this time she’s watching and waiting to see what this amazing message really means.
Our experience of God’s love and mercy can be similar to that, can’t it? We don’t always see clearly what God has in mind. We don’t always experience our new life in Christ the way it’s meant to be. As 1 Corinthians 13:9-12 says: "we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known." Paul, in Romans 7, deplores the way he knows what’s the right thing to do, he even wishes he could do it, but he says he finds it a law at work in him that when he wants to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.
We have a long way to go before we see this new person, this new child of God grown to maturity, don’t we?
Yet we know that God has come into our midst in human form to bring us back to him. We know that he’s worked a miracle in bringing Jesus to birth. He’s worked a miracle in bringing Jesus back to life following his crucifixion. So we can have some confidence that the rest of the miracle will come about in the end as well.
John puts it like this in 1 John 3:3 "2Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is." There’s a tension at work in God’s people on this side of Jesus’ return. We are God’s children now: with all our faults, all our failings. What we will be in the end we won’t know until we get there, though John assures us that when we do get there we’ll be like Jesus because we’ll see him as he is. That is, in God’s new creation we’ll be remade just as Jesus was remade following his resurrection. I guess that means we’ll still have a body something like this body, only without it’s imperfections. But more importantly we’ll be able to see Jesus just as he is. That is, we’ll be able to approach God face to face - without fear, without guilt or embarrassment.
That’s truly something to get excited about isn’t it?
But then, if this news is so exciting what are we going to do about it? Do we just sit around waiting? Waiting for God to do something with us? Well, not if John has anything to say about it. John is the great apostle of the positive lifestyle change. Listen to what he says next: "All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. ... Everyone who does what is right is righteous, ... Those who have been born of God do not sin, because God’s seed abides in them; they cannot sin, because they have been born of God." Now we need to say first of all that John is speaking here of the ideal, of the goal at which we’re aiming. He isn’t saying that if you fall short you’re lost. That would be to overlook the saving power of Jesus’ death on the cross. But he is saying that there’s only one standard to aim for and that’s the standard of perfection, of utter purity of life. You see, if we’re preparing ourselves for this future with God, this future when we’ll stand before God, seeing and being seen, then we need to be prepared. We need to purify ourselves just as he is pure. I remember when I was teenager our youth group used to hold folk nights and they’d often deck the hall out with ultraviolet fluorescent tubes that showed up anything white you might have on. So before we went out to one of these nights we’d first get the clothes brush out and make sure there were no specks of dust or dandruff on our jackets or jumpers. That’s the sort of idea that John has in mind here. Prepare yourself for meeting God by removing any impurity from your life.
But there’s something else we might want to do to prepare for Christ’s coming. That’s to let our friends and neighbours know so they too can be ready. We didn’t look at the first section of Luke 1, but there we read of the coming of John the Baptist who was to go before Jesus to prepare his people, to get them ready for his coming, so his people would be prepared for the Lord. Others need to know so they too can purify themselves, so they too can be ready when Jesus returns. Others need to know so they can turn to God for forgiveness before it’s too late.
In the church calendar this is the season of Advent. That’s the time in the year when we look forward to God’s coming. We remember the time when God’s people looked forward to the coming of a Messiah to bring them salvation. We in turn look forward to celebrating the birth of God’s Son in a week’s time. But we also look forward to the day when we who are called children of God will stand before our heavenly father, will know him just as we are known by him, will see him face to face.
In the meantime Advent is a time when we’re reminded of the need to prepare, to get ready. We’re not just waiting, we’re preparing. Just as most of us will be preparing this week for that Christmas dinner next Sunday, so we should be preparing our lives for the day when Christ will return and will take us to be with him forever.
How do we prepare for that day? By purifying ourselves, just as he is pure. By continuing to rejoice that God has come among us. By getting excited at the prospect of Christ’s return; so much so, in fact, that we want to tell others about him. And by joining with Mary in saying: "Here am I, the servant of the Lord." Perhaps we might spend a few moments now thinking about how God might want to use us to bring his salvation to those he’s chosen to be his people.
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