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Date: 1st Wednesday in Advent Text: Luke 1:26-38
www.kongsvingerchurch.org
Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern
Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.
And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Rosebrook. A reading from the gospel of Luke chapter 1, starting at In the sixth month, the angel
Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was
Joseph of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And she came to her, and he came to her and said,
Greetings, O favored one. The Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.
And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name
Jesus. He 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 father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.
And Mary said to the angel, How will this be since I am a virgin? And the angel answered her,
The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore the child to be born will be called Holy, the Son of God. And behold, your relative
Elizabeth, in her old age, has also conceived a son. And this is the sixth month with her who was called barren, for nothing will be impossible with God.
And Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.
And the angel departed from her. In the name of Jesus. Why? It's a question we ask a lot nowadays, isn't it?
Why? Why was there another school shooting this week? Why are we looking at another set of lockdowns?
Why Omicron? Why do we treat each other so poorly? Why is there a homelessness problem?
Why is it that we don't get along with each other? Why do we gossip? Why do we lie?
Why do we steal from one another? And why do we hate? Why? When you start asking the question, you'll know that the question starts to make us uncomfortable, especially when it comes to the subject of such questions.
Because when we ask why in that context, what are we trying to do?
Place blame. Who's to blame for all of this? The mess that we find ourselves in.
Who's to blame for the suffering that you're experiencing in your life? Who's to blame for the
COVID pandemic? Who's to blame for all the problems that we're experiencing in the world?
And see, when you start asking why and you want to start placing blame, well, the reality is this, is that when you start playing that game, it's not long before somebody points the finger at you and asks the question, why?
And it's in that context then, you know, as we approach the celebration of the birth of our great
God and Savior, we ask this question, why? Why would
God deign to humble himself? To be born of the
Virgin Mary, why would he come and join us in this mess that we've created?
You'll note that when God created everything at the beginning, everything was good. In Hebrew, tov, and then at the very end,
God said, tov ma 'od, very good. But since our rebellion, and yeah, it's my rebellion and your rebellion too, the world that we live in is anything but tov ma 'od.
At times, there is good, for sure, and it's those times when their things are going well, that oftentimes our mind wanders back to in memory.
Times when we were happy, times when we were healthy, times when we were young. But in the midst of the mess that we've created in this world, a world full of sin, hatred, discord, strife, suffering, terrible ways in which we treat each other, why would
God just not say to hell with all of you? Why does he not say that to me?
Why would God send his son into the midst of such muck, filth, sin?
And it's an unsatisfactory answer when somebody says, well, God promised back in the
Garden of Eden that he would send the seed of a woman who would crush the head of the serpent.
And it's an unsatisfactory answer to say, well, God always keeps his word. The reason why it's an unsatisfactory answer is this, it is true,
God never lies and he always keeps his word. But then there's another why behind that explanation.
And the why behind that explanation is the one we have to get at. Because God didn't have to promise that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent for us.
He didn't have to do that. And the answer comes back to who
God is and what he's all about. And when we search the Scriptures, there is one answer to why
God would do that that comes back to us over and over and over again.
You see it in the words of Christ recorded for us in the Gospel writers. You see it in the words of the
Apostles written for us in Scripture. Paul writes about it extensively. In fact, habitually.
John mentions it so clearly that it's, well, it's written in such a way that it embarrasses us and convicts us.
Even Peter talks about it so boldly. In fact, it was the very thing that Peter pointed his wife to on the day of her crucifixion.
And the answer to the question as to why, why would heaven meet earth, why would God deign to be born of a virgin into the midst of this world of sin and death, it's because of his great love for us.
Because God really is love. And we understand that when you have to do the proper distinction between the law and the
Gospel, that when we hear about love, we are convicted of our failure to love
God. And if you're thinking, well, I'm not that bad at it, remember the modifiers.
To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength.
Well, when you put it that way, you know, maybe I'm not as good at that as I thought. But then you have the other, love your neighbor as yourself.
When we hear about love, we are always convicted because we don't. We don't love
God, we don't love our neighbor as ourself, but boy do we love self. I know
I love myself way too much. I trust myself far too much.
If you're honest, so do you. But it's in that context then, we hear the words that are so familiar to us.
Our text tonight from the Gospel of Luke is the text, the Gospel text that's taken from, well, the month of March, the
Annunciation, where Gabriel announces that Mary will conceive and bear a child.
And it's the following verses that will form the canticle that we will sing tonight, the Magnificat.
But we have to understand that God loves us.
Like a parent who has a child who's wandered away and gone prodigal, God has never stopped loving us.
And he's done all that is necessary so that we can be saved, forgiven, pardoned, redeemed, adopted back in the family, given an inheritance and life eternal rather than the damnation that we have earned because of our participation in Satan's rebellion and apostasy against God.
Paul writes about it this way in Romans 5, while we were still weak, at the right time,
Christ, he died for the ungodly. One will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die.
But God, he demonstrates, he shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us. And so we recognize that Christ was sent on a mission and the mission is going to take him straight to the cross.
But the mission begins with his conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary. And his mission continues when he is conceived and then born with, well, ten fingers, ten toes, and a little nose, and a mouth, and a hand that can just grasp a finger.
That's all part of the mission. Since therefore now we have been justified by his blood, the blood of this
Messiah, this Jesus, how much more then shall we be saved from the wrath of God?
And you see then the stew that we find ourselves in. We have each sinned and earned the wrath of God.
Each and every one of us are ungodly. And I've said it before from this Pope and I'll continue to say it.
If you do not consider yourself part of that group, the group known as the ungodly, then you have no need for Jesus.
You can just turn off the stream now or leave the congregation. There's no point in you being here if you're not part of that group.
But you'll note that that group has earned the wrath of God, but it does not satisfy
God to just pour his wrath out on us. Above and beyond his wrath is his great love for us and giving us a way out, calling us to repent, calling us to be forgiven, providing everything that we need for that salvation.
You see, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his
Son. How much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life?
And more than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Paul says it this way in Ephesians, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, so that we should be holy and blameless before him.
I recently read a sermon from a fellow who kind of quipped, and I had to think about it for a little bit.
He said, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God in aid of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we like to talk about it as a fall from grace.
He says, I don't think that's quite right. When our first parents sinned, they fell from holiness for sure.
But God demonstrates his grace and his mercy in providing and covering their sin and their nakedness, and caring for them and giving the promise of the
Savior. So maybe we should stop talking about it as a fall from grace. Because if it was truly a fall from grace, then what are we doing here tonight?
You see, he predestined us in love. He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the
Beloved. Man, these are amazing words when you think about it. You all remember when you had your first crush when you were in like grade school, right?
Maybe it was junior high, maybe you were a late bloomer. But I remember when
I was a kid, distinctly having a crush on that girl. I couldn't remember her name to save my life now that I think about it.
But man, when those feelings came about, the only person
I can think about was that girl, right? And then my wife, oh man, she transferred into my high school algebra class, second day of high school, sixth period.
She comes transferring in, she was, oh man, she was just nothing but braces, rubber bands, headgear, and knee -high socks, and little blue ribbons, right?
But as soon as I saw her, oh, I knew. And at that time, the feelings that I had were just all -consuming and overwhelming.
And what's really interesting here is that if you consider Paul's description of God's love for us, it's as if, well, all of that is present in God.
Even though we have sinned horribly and become His enemies and transgressed His law, and we have acted high -handedly against His commands, even in the midst of all of that,
He has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world so that we can be holy and blameless before Him.
In love, He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace with which
He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him, we have redemption through His blood and the forgiveness of all of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace which
He lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of His will.
You hear those words? This sounds like an obsessed lover, practically a stalker.
And yet I'm so thankful that God has stalked me. And I bet you're thankful that He's stalked you as well.
This is one lover that we dare not spurn. Is it any wonder that in our first text for Advent this year, we heard the glorious words of the prophecy of Zechariah.
Say to the daughter of Zion. You can even trace it back through the
Old Testament. All those terms of endearment and love. Say to the daughter of Zion, behold your
King comes to you humble, riding on a colt the foal of a donkey. All of these words as if God Himself is wooing us.
Isn't that what He's doing in Christ? John puts it this way in his epistle in chapter 4.
Beloved, let us love one another. In light of the love of God, John here is thinking about the very love of God and then its impact that it should have on each and every one of us as His beloved children.
Beloved. There's that word. Listen. Beloved. I mean, when was the last time
I wrote a letter to my wife and called her beloved? Probably when I was still in the midst of all the hormones of young love, right?
Who of us have written love letters lately? Especially if we've been married for more than a few decades, right?
But here, the Holy Spirit has caused the Apostle John to write to us and he writes to us in these terms of endearment.
Beloved. You who are beloved in Christ. You who have been chosen in Christ.
You who've been forgiven whose sins Christ has washed away. You who
He is lavishing the riches of His grace upon. Let us now love one another for love is from God and whoever loves has been born of God and knows
God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love.
In this, the love of God was made manifest among us. That God sent
His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. And this is love.
Not that we have loved God, but that He loved us. And He sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Beloved. And there it is again. Listen to the wooing words of Scripture.
Beloved. If God so loved us, and He has, we ought to love one another.
No one has ever seen God. And if we love one another, God abides in us.
And His love then is perfected in us. And by this that we know that we abide in Him and He in us because He has given us of His Spirit.
And we have seen and testified that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the
Son of God, God abides in Him and He in God. What a strange sentence that we sinners can have
God now abiding in us despite the fact that we have yet to be perfected.
And don't worry, we don't have to go to purgatory for that. Just want to make that clear with you, Mike. In the twinkling of an eye,
He will perfect us, right? So we have come now to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
Listen to those words again. In this wonderful chapter, we have come to know and we've come to believe the love that God has for us.
You see, God is love, and that's what
He wills. Is it any wonder then that Scripture says it's not His will that any should perish? Of course it would not be
His will that any should perish, because God is love. He truly wills, desires to be reconciled with all of us, each of us sons of Adam and daughters of Eve.
God is love and wills us to be saved. So whoever abides in love then abides in God, and God abides in Him.
And by this is love perfected with us so that we might have confidence for the day of judgment.
In fact, God sent His Son, born of the Virgin Mary, so that rather than shrinking back in fear and lament, rather than hiding under the rocks at His coming, we might greet
Him when He arrives with shouts of joy and praise. And that comes from the confidence that knows that we are forgiven in Christ because of God's great love.
God's love gives us confidence for the day of judgment because He is so also are we in this world.
You see, there is no fear in love, but perfect love then casts out fear. And fear has to do with punishment.
And whoever fears has not yet been perfected in love. And that's kind of the point. If you think that you're gonna save yourself by your good works, by your deeds, by your brownie points, by your community service, by your hard work, your sacrifices, then there's nothing for you but fear.
Because you can never know if it's enough. But Christ is enough for us.
And He has been sent because of God's great love for us. It was because of God's love that He was promised in the first place.
And John then says this, the reason we love is because He first loved us.
Apart from Christ we can do nothing. And through the love of Christ, who loves the loveless, who loves his enemies, loves those who are hostile to him, now we can love others.
As Paul says, we overcome evil now by doing good. So we love because He first loved us.
If anyone says I love God and then hates his brother, he's a liar. That person doesn't know what he's talking about.
He doesn't even know God at all. He does not, for if he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen cannot love
God, whom he has not seen. And so this commandment that we have from Him, whoever loves
God must also love his brother. And this is only possible by faith.
Faith in the love of God. Faith in the forgiveness of sins. Faith in the
Savior sent to redeem us. Faith in the babe of Bethlehem, who will grow and then eventually be nailed to the tree, who becomes a curse so that we can be blessed.
Is it any wonder then that Paul, speaking about love, says that love is patient and love is kind.
It doesn't envy or boast. It's not arrogant or rude. Every time I hear that passage of Scripture, I'm so tempted to replace the word love with Christ.
And if I were to replace the word love with Christ, would I do any violence to this text?
Christ is patient. He's kind. On Mount Sinai, He was declared
Himself to be slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, pardoning iniquity.
Christ is not arrogant, nor is He rude. He's not irritable or resentful.
He doesn't rejoice at wrongdoing, but He rejoices with the truth. Christ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and He has endured truly all things.
He's endured the wrath of God on the cross so that you and I can be forgiven. Christ never ends.
You see, it doesn't do any violence to that text. So as we begin our Advent time, as we begin our time together, and considering the mysteries of the
Incarnation, the time when physically heaven and earth meet, where God Himself tabernacles among us, when we ask the question, why?
No, the answer that Scripture gives, practically on every single page, is because of God's great love.
Love for His creation. Love for rebel sinners like you and me. Love. Love so much that He would bear our sin, that God will lay on Him the iniquity of us all, so that we can be pardoned, and God can lavish
His love and grace upon us. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
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