When I was little, if I had something on my face, my mother would often spit on a napkin or her thumb, reach over into my space and wipe the grit, or food, or dirt off of my face. It is a proven fact that a mother’s spit contains the same ingredients found in Formula 409!
When we don’t look right, or have something wrong with our appearance, no one does it better than family members to let you know about it. Have you ever had your brother or sister say of you, “What a disgrace!”
I come from a long line of disgrace: My dad actually went into public with little bits of tissue still stuck to his face from where he cut himself shaving;
My brother was caught with his zipper down while at a public restaurant;
After leaving the store’s restroom, my aunt walked all the way out to her car with toilet paper stuck to the bottom of her shoe; I could share how long that line goes with many of my own examples—you probably could too.
Have there been times when you didn’t look right on the outside and you wished someone would have told you sooner about your disgraceful condition?
Disgrace comes from two root words: dis + grace. ‘Dis’ has become a slang term meaning “to treat someone without respect, to be rude or inconsiderate to” so it means “to criticize” someone.
“Grace” on the other hand means “gift or favor”—very much the opposite of “dis”. So when we put the two together “dis-grace” means to treat others w/o favor or as a gift; to treat them shamefully and w/o approval. “Dis” cancels out the word that comes after it.
When we don’t feel on the inside like we look right on the outside, it may be because someone has put a ‘dis’ on the front of our grace! Has somebody put a little ‘dis’ on your ‘grace’?
The Christmas story came to us in the midst of disgrace. Elizabeth said, “the LORD has done this for me, in these days He has shown His favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.”
What caused the ‘dis’ to be upon Elizabeth’s grace? Who put the ‘dis’ on her grace, grace-grace, grace-grace?
The ‘Dis’ On Elizabeth’s Grace came from several places:
1) Her country and her people Israel was under Roman authority–the Gentiles had a foothold in the everyday lives of her and her people. When your freedom is hindered there is disgrace.
2) Herod, a descendent of Esau, was her overlord. Esau was the brother who sold his birthright to Jacob, who then became ‘Israel’. Esau’s descendants were the Edomites, and they were enemies of Israel. When the past comes back to haunt you, your hopes are challenged and there is disgrace.
3) The Temple was unfinished. It was still being erected at this time. When there is noise, intrusion, chaos, and when the conditions are less than what they should be, your strength begins to fail and there is disgrace.
4) God had been silent for over 400 years. At the closing of the prophecy of Malachi in the OT, the waiting for Elijah to come to prepare the way for the Messiah had been expected. 400 years of waiting can cause your eyes to be searching the ground instead of the skies. When what you long for is long in coming, your heart grows faint looking and you question your faithfulness and wonder if it is really worth it.
5) Not only was she under Gentile authority, ruled by a descendent of Esau, hindered in her worship, faithfully lived an empty religious life, she also had to bear the reproach of something very personal—being barren (childless).
Every Jewish family clung to the promises of God and their heritage of possibly being the chosen family to bring the Messiah into this world. With the rulers being Gentiles and of Esau, the Temple unfinished and God being silent, all these things would be crossed out if only you had a son to take your family line to the next generation with hopes of the Messiah being found in your lineage.
Just look at Matthew 1 and you will see how the ancestry was so important and such a part of the family heritage. We don’t hold the meaning of what this truly is in our culture. But for the Jews, children were a heritage of the LORD! When your efforts of doing the right thing seem to be fruitless, there is disgrace.
Oh yes, Elizabeth had ‘dis’ on her grace. ‘Dis’ after ‘dis’ after ‘dis’ was smeared again and again and again all across her face. With every remembrance of her infertility, she had gritty ‘dis’ wiped on her face and upon her heart. AND NOW SHE WAS OLD!
It was no secret. Everyone knew and talked about how Elizabeth was barren. Her friends, her family, even her husband thought and spoke about it—even to the angel!
But with that angel came a message, and with that message came hope! The “DIS” is about to wiped off Elizabeth’s grace! Let’s listen to the good word of how Elizabeth had her ‘DIS’ wiped off her grace.
1) The angel messenger came to a priest
Since the time of first priest of Israel, Aaron the brother of Moses, the priesthood was still in existence. But it was to a priest, not to the high priest, just a priest in the Temple’s service. A messenger of hope came to wipe off the disgrace and speak of a freedom that was soon on its way!
2) The message came while others were outside:
The worshippers were gathered around the outside of the Temple.
G. Campbell Morgan speaks of it like this, “Luke thus gives us a graphic suggestive picture of the time and conditions, as he introduces His forerunner. The king is there, degenerate. The Temple is there, desecrated. The priesthood is there, degraded. The people are there, debased. Nevertheless, God proceeds upon the line of His own ordination. He comes to the Temple, though it is desecrated. He comes to the priesthood, though on the whole it is degraded. He did not come to the king. He did not come to the people, save through the appointed channel of the priesthood… God comes to the priest, but not to the high priest, not to the priest degraded and debased by a false thinking about God, but to a priest fulfilling his service. All the old was being linked up to the new.”
And the new came to wipe away the disgrace.
3) The message of grace came at the Temple.
It didn’t come to the outer courts, but the message came at the Temple, inside where the serving priest was. The Temple wasn’t finished, but it was still symbolic of the presence of God. And a message came to wipe off the disgrace. God wasn’t finished with His people yet!
4) The message of promise came to Zacharias & Elizabeth in their old age
Zachariah’s name means, Jehovah Remembers. At some time at some place much earlier some priest and his wife had a son and they named him “Jehovah Remembers”.
Up the street, another priestly family had a baby girl, and they named her: “The Oath of God.” And as these two children grew up together, and one day were married, the Lord sends a message to them by an angel and promises them a son, whom “Jehovah Remembers” and “The Oath of God” are to name, “John”, which means: “The Grace Of God”
Can you see how grace is at work to wipe off the disgrace of God’s people?!
5) The purpose: “To make ready for the LORD a people prepared.”
400 years prior, the OT was closed with these words found in the last prophecy of Malachi: “I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of Jehovah come. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to their children and the heart of the children to their father; lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”
Look at what the angel tells Zach! He doesn’t include the words: “lest I come and smite the earth with a curse”! He ends with words of encouragement! A word of grace to wipe away the “dis-grace”!
And that word once again promises to wipe the ‘dis’ off your grace! And Christmas can heal your hurts today!
Others will speak words of disgrace over you. The Bible records that “they said she was barren”… Others spoke of Elizabeth’s disgrace. Even her husband Zach said, “She is old!” to the angel!
You, yourself might hear disgrace spoken by others so much around you, you might begin to believe it and speak it yourself! Elizabeth said it too: “I am old!”
Satan, will speak disgrace over you. Discouraging and disgraceful words come straight out of his mouth! Things like: “You are old, you are barren, you are out of the loop and you are useless! You are no good to anyone!”
But disgrace is only kept on you by half-truths! Elizabeth WAS old, she WAS barren, she WAS out of the loop, but then these words are recorded from her own lips: THE LORD HAS DONE THIS FOR ME!
Elizabeth experienced God’s grace for her life, and came to know: The LORD (through Whom all things are possible), did this FOR ME! It was THE LORD who wiped away her disgrace, and it was only the LORD who could!
She was old, she was dried up, she was on her way out, but the Lord stepped in and had another plan for her, a plan of displaying HIS WONDERFUL and AMAZING GRACE in her life!
And you—YOU may have shame and disgrace in your life; you may be suffering from an inner looking of rejection at yourself; the pointed finger at you being no good, damaged goods, out of the loop with God’s favor;
YOU—you may feel like your sins are getting the best of you, but remember this: WITH GOD, NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE, He had a plan and a purpose for Elizabeth and He has one for you! He delivered Elizabeth from her disgrace and He will do it for you! And you can and will share the same testimony of Elizabeth, “The LORD did this for me!” Indeed, it is only the LORD who can!
The very thing that cancels out what the three mouthpieces have to say about you is WHAT GOD HAS TO SAY ABOUT YOU!
Because what God has to say about you is the answer to: Who put the GRACE in the GRACE, GRACE-GRACE GRACE-GRACE? HE DID! And HE did it for YOU!
What God has to say about YOU is totally and entirely, purely concentrated, no artificial colors or flavors, nothing but sweet GRACE!
God saw Elizabeth! God heard her prayers!
God knew her full well!
God had not forgotten her!
And God loved her so very much!
And God sees you, he hears you, he knows you, he hasn’t forgotten you, and he loves you oh, so very much!
The angel that came that 1st Christmas season, came with the promise of grace. And God has a message of grace for you too!
He loved you so much He sent His only Son to be born into this world, live, minister, recruit twelve men to take over his job when He left; and then He died as an innocent man on a cross willingly for our sins; and three days later He arose from the dead to wipe the ‘dis’ off of any human being who would come to Him and ask Him to do it!
His blood is stronger than Formula 409 ever will be! It cuts beneath the grit and the grime and the shame and the disgrace deep down to the root of the problem and washes away our sins, our fears, and our hurts!
I cannot offer you anything more, and I will not offer you anything less than Jesus Christ!
He is the man, would you like to shake his hand? He gave us life when he died for you and me. Because he is the one who put the grace in the grace…
Several years ago, missionaries had difficulty in communicating the good news of Jesus Christ to the Chinese people. But one day, there was a breakthrough.
A missionary was studying a particular Chinese ideograph, the one which means "righteous." He noticed that it contained an upper and lower part. The upper part was simply the Chinese symbol for "lamb." Directly under was simply a second symbol, the first person pronoun, "I" or "me."
"Suddenly, the missionary discerned an amazingly well-coded message hidden within the ideograph: "I under the lamb am righteous!"
"This startled the Chinese people. They never noticed it, but once the missionary pointed this out, they saw it clearly. They then asked the missionary, "Which lamb must we be under to be righteous?"
The missionary replied with John 1:29, which is a description of Jesus Christ by John the Baptist, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” And Who takes away our shame and disgrace.
"I under the Lamb of God am righteous." That is God’s solution to mankind’s sin problem—and to our guilt problem, our shame problem, and our disgrace problem.
Some of you can relate to Elizabeth right now in your life: perhaps your freedom is being hindered, or your past has come back to haunt you. Maybe your hopes are being challenged right now, or perhaps you have way too much noise, intrusions, chaos in your life.
Are the conditions in your life less than what they should be? Is your strength failing? Maybe, for you, it’s seemed like God has been silent for days, months, or even years.
Or maybe you’ve been waiting for a very long time for changes to come your way, but now your eyes have grown dim and your heart faint waiting. Have you been questioning whether your faithfulness is really worth it. Is there some “dis” on the front of your grace? Christ wants to wipe it off this Christmas and heal you of your hurts.
Will you let Him? Will you come to him and ask him to do it for you? You can’t do it yourself. You need the expert at wiping off the things that shouldn’t be there! Come to Jesus and you will find grace!
When you’ve been graced from disgrace, you’ll find that it’s Amazing Grace!
