With God Nothing is Impossible

The Gospel Reading from Luke 1:39-56

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 Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, chapter 1, verses 39 through 56. In those days, Mary arose, went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judah. And she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.

And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

And why is it granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy, and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.

And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed.

For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. And he has shown strength with his arm. He scattered the proud and the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away. He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.

And Mary remained with her about three months, and returned to her home. This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus, consider what we just sang in this Christmas hymn. I wonder as I wander out under the sky how Jesus the Savior did come forth to die, and here is the most important words, for poor ornery people like you and like I.

Ornery is an understatement, and this describes all of us. So as we consider our gospel text today, let's consider our orneriness, shall we not? And consider then the impossibilities that our orneriness, our sinfulness, poses as far as our salvation.

Our text today has two expectant mothers, both with miraculous, shall we say, impossible pregnancies. Elizabeth, old enough to be some of your grandmothers, and some of you younger people here, she's old enough to be your great-grandmother.

She's pregnant, pregnant, big with child. She's got more than a baby bump. She's six months along. She's now entered her third trimester. Now we understand how that came about, at least as far as the microbiology and the anatomy is concerned, and this though clearly is miraculous, but it's not too far of a stretch for us to comprehend.

Now Mary, on the other hand, probably 15, 16, somewhere in that age. She's definitely not 18 or 21. Her being pregnant, if you think about it, isn't exactly a stretch either, and the reason why is because teenage girls oftentimes get pregnant out of wedlock.

It happens in every generation. So what's different here, though, is who the father is, and many people today don't buy the story, because that's the problem with our sinful fallen reason. We have almost a knee-jerk reaction to the miraculous pronouncements of Scripture, and we end up saying, that's impossible.

It's impossible that the Red Sea was parted and the children of Israel crossed on dry.

Land.

It's impossible that Jesus rose from the grave. It's impossible that a virgin would conceive and give birth to a son. So we hear about how Mary, a virgin, came to be with child in the verses immediately preceding our Gospel text.

Here's what it says. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel, six months since Elizabeth has become pregnant, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth. We learn from the cross references that Gabriel stands in the very presence of God.

So he's commissioned by God to deliver a message to this virgin. So he was sent to a city called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, love this last part, of the house of David.

David.

If you think back to the high watermarks of the Davidic kingdom, David himself, King Solomon, look how far down this Davidic kingdom has gone. There's the heir of David, languishing as an obscure carpenter in a tiny town of maybe a hundred families.

The virgin's name was Mary, and Gabriel came to her and said, Greetings, oh favored one, the Lord is with you. She was greatly troubled at the saying, and she 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. Earlier this summer, working our way through the book of Exodus, we noted what scripture teaches regarding how one attains God's favor.

We remember the story of the golden calf, and how Aaron blamed the people for everything, and that he threw gold into a fire, and poof, out came the golden calf, and they all worshipped.

It.

And they lost God's favor, and Moses was quite distraught, trying to figure out, once again, how can the people of Israel have God's favor, because God had said that he would not go with his people to the promised land.

It was a devastating word. And so he asked God, after two other attempts, to see God's glory. And in the revelation of God's glory, we hear how one attains God's favor. It is by being forgiven. It is by being absolved.

It is by, well, by grace, through faith. We'll talk a little bit more about it in a minute. So, you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb, bear a son. You shall call his name Yeshua.

That's his Hebrew name, Yahweh saves. He will be great, and he will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. Just a little bit of a note, the angel Gabriel has perfect biblical Christology here.

He understands the hypostatic union perfectly, that Jesus is both God and man, that he is the Son of God and the Son of David, and he pronounces that he, Jesus, will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

And although Mary truly believes what it is that Gabriel has said, she's a little bit distraught about how the mechanics of all of this will work. And so, hang on a second here, let's kill this, done, there we go.

How will this be, since I am a virgin, she asks. 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 to you 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, and listen to the words then of the angel Gabriel, for nothing will be impossible with God.

Old women conceive, virgins conceive, nothing will be impossible with God. Fascinating, fascinating, fascinating, and my iPad is acting up here, hang on a second here, I literally cannot, there we go.

My fingers are cold, so it doesn't register, all right. So here we then pick up our gospel text, nothing will be impossible with God, and Mary says these words, behold, I am the servant of the Lord, so let it be to me according to your.

Word.

And you'll note that Mary responds in faith, she believes the word of God in the mouth of the angel Gabriel, and she says, let it be to me according to your word, and so then the angel departed from her, and immediately in those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judah.

So you're gonna note, she gets the word that she's gonna become pregnant, she asks the details, and then she hightails it to Elizabeth's house, which means that when she arrives there, if I remember my high school microbiology and anatomy class, Jesus at this point is about the size of a pinhead, he's a blob of cells, he hasn't developed enough to have hands and feet and nose and toes and things like that.

In fact, this is so early in Mary's pregnancy that she wouldn't even be able to pass a pregnancy test and test positive for it, that's how early on we are in her pregnancy. So she enters the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth, and when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

And now, fascinating note, the first human being to proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord is a woman, prophetically speaking, under the unction of the Holy Spirit. And we know from 1 Corinthians 12, 3, no one can say Jesus is Lord, and by saying Lord, we're not saying master.

By saying he's Lord, we're saying he's God. Nobody can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit, and you notice the Holy Spirit is on the scene. And Elizabeth, overcome by the filling of the Holy Spirit that she received, she exclaims with a loud cry, blessed are you among women, blessed is the fruit of your womb, and why is it granted to me that the mother of my Lord, the mother of my God, should come to.

Me?

Good hypostatic union. Christology here again. She nails it under the utterance of the Holy Spirit. And so you'll note, she then says, for behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.

Now, consider the implications. Jesus, tiny blob of cells in the womb of the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist now begins his work proper. He begins it in utero, filled with the Holy Spirit, leaping for joy.

He's basically kicking mom and saying, that's the one I'm sent to tell everyone about. And we remember when our wives were pregnant and you women, when you were pregnant, you get to the sixth month. I mean, strange things happen.

There's like an alien inside of your tummy, right? You can see when they push and they, you can see a hand for one second and then they push again and you can see kind of the outline of a foot or whatever, or when they have hiccups.

I always remember when Barb would say, Chris, come quick. The baby has hiccups and you put your hand on her tummy and whoop, whoop, right, right. But here, John the Baptist has more than hiccups. John the Baptist is proclaiming with joy about Jesus and his mother is the first, not to exactly to hear, but to kind of be impacted by his preaching, this time preaching with his leap for joy.

And then Elizabeth says, blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. And these are the words then that apply to us. And here's what I mean. God hasn't told any of us, thankfully me included, that we're going to give birth to the Messiah.

We haven't been assigned that. God's promises to us and God's words to us are of a different nature than this, but similar. God's words to us are a word of repentance, of recognizing our sin and receiving the forgiveness of sins offered to us in Jesus Christ to poor, ornery people like you and like my, right?

So believing then is the thing that we're called to do. So Mary, believing the word of the Lord says, my soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. And you'll note that Mary confesses that she herself is in need of a Savior and that God is that Savior of hers.

For he has looked on the humble estate of a servant, behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed. For he who is mighty has done great things for me. And holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.

His mercy is for those who fear him. Now we started by considering the impossibility of a woman old enough to be some of yours great grandmother being pregnant, the impossibility of a virgin conceiving and bearing a son.

But consider the impossibility of your salvation. And here's what I mean. Proverbs 17 15 says this very explicitly. He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination.

To the Lord.

He who justifies the wicked. Now, wait a second here. Jesus has come to justify the wicked, the ornery, the ungodly, the sinners, you, me, all of us included. If this is an abomination to the Lord, then isn't our salvation an impossibility?

Consider what I was alluding to earlier in Exodus 34. When God causes his glory to pass by while Moses is hidden in the cleft of the rock, we hear these words. We hear these words from God. The Lord passed by and said, Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but who will by no means clear the guilty.

Well, if it's an abomination to justify the wicked and God will know by no means clear the guilty, then isn't our salvation an impossibility? Isn't our salvation more impossible than a virgin birth? Because none of us can say that we are not guilty.

None of us can say, I have not sinned against God. None of us can say that we are not guilty of idolatry. None of us can say that we are not guilty of murder, of adultery, of slander and gossip and coveting and jealousy and discord and strife.

Ornery is a polite way of describing us. But God says he will by no means clear the guilty. And which of us can say that we are not? So as we consider the impossibilities of our text today, consider the impossibility of your salvation.

And this is where the words of the angel Gabriel come flooding back to us. But with God, nothing will be impossible, including your salvation. You see, the great prophet Isaiah, the ancient church called him the fifth gospel writer.

In Isaiah 53, he writes of this baby Jesus who has come to suffer and to die for poor, ornery people like you and like I. He says of him that he has borne our griefs. He's carried our sorrows. And yet we esteemed him stricken and smitten by God and afflicted.

But see, here's the thing. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the punishment that brought us peace. And with his wounds, by his stripes, we are healed.

You see, all we like sheep, we've gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way. And then here's how the impossible becomes possible. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. God will by no means clear the guilty.

And then you think of the words of 2 Corinthians 5 that says, For our sake, God made Jesus to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. You see, with God, nothing will be impossible, including your salvation.

And God has done the impossible. He has taken our sin off of us, our orneriness, and he's placed it all on Jesus. Jesus has become the sinner of humanity, and he goes to the cross. That's right, the wood of the manger now gives way to the cross.

He goes to the cross to suffer and to bleed and die as the sole singular sinner of humanity. So that God can say he by no means cleared the guilty or justified the wicked. And he did this so that you and I can receive the impossibility of the forgiveness of our sins.

Psalm 130 says, Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. O Lord, please hear my voice and let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness, so that you may be feared. Mary continues then, God is shown strength with his arm. He scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.

And he's filled the hungry with good things, but the rich he has sent empty away. And he has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.

Impossible for a great grandma to conceive. Yeah, that's impossible. Impossible for a virgin to conceive and carry in her womb her Lord and her God. Yeah, that's pretty much impossible too. But you see, with God, nothing will be impossible.

But then consider these words, impossible for a guilty sinner like you and like me to be forgiven. Yeah, that's truly impossible. But with God, nothing is impossible. That's why the Son of God was incarnate.

That's why we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. So you see, the Son of God was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, was made man, suffered, bled, and died under Pontius Pilate, and rose again on the third day, so that you, a wicked, ornery sinner, me, a wicked, ornery sinner, can receive the impossibility of the forgiveness of sins, and that God could then justify the wicked.

For nothing is impossible with God. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

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