Sermon preview, week of December 19, 2023
Bearing Good News
This Sunday’s order
- Sunday
- Reading
- Luke 1:28–38
- Preaching
- Jonathan Balmer
The readingLuke 1:28–38
Read Luke 1:28–38
28The angel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you. ” 29Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30So the angel told her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31Behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus. 32He 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, 33and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end!” 34“How can this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” 35The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God. 36Look, even Elizabeth your relative has conceived a son in her old age, and she who was called barren is in her sixth month. 37For no word from God will ever fail. ” 38“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it happen to me according to your word.” Then the angel left her.
Berean Standard Bible, public domain
This sermon preview is part of "Pardon the Interruption: An Advent Series."
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“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
-From Luke 1:28–38
“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told”
-From Luke 2:1-20
Sometime Monday evening, Kendall and I realized how much we had to do before Christmas. We loaded our one-month-old daughter into the car, braved the cold, and hit three stores in as many hours. Our little one took her dinner in a Target fitting room. A normal routine was interrupted by hurry.
Has Christmas snuck up on you this year? Good! Christmas should come in a burst. God’s timing is not our timing. But it is in “the fullness of time” (Galatians 4:4) that Jesus came.
This year, the last Sunday of Advent and Christmas Eve fall on the same day.
Sunday morning, we’ll see how Mary is the first faithful disciple: hearing the word of God and responding to it. It’s hard to imagine a life more interrupted, plans more upended, than Mary’s plans. And yet her response is, “May your word to me be fulfilled.”
In the evening, we’ll travel with Shepherds whose normal day shifts were interrupted by a chorus of an angel army proclaiming the good news of great joy and peace to those on whom God’s favor rests. When Mary hears of this astounding tale (after childbirth!) she “treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”
God doesn’t come in our time. Christmas comes in a burst. It interrupts. It upends. It upsets. But because it does so, we can be confident that Christmas peace doesn’t come into our world once it is tidy and neat. It comes to people tending smelly livestock. It comes to the poor and at-risk. The news, tidings of great joy, the blessing of peace on earth: words worth treasuring and pondering.
Christmas can still interrupt our lives. But the true meaning of Christmas won’t generate more hurry, like my last-minute shopping. Instead, Christmas interruptions generate wonder and awe at the God coming to be Immanuel, God with us, in the right time, the fullness of time, God’s time.
