Deprecated: Methods with the same name as their class will not be constructors in a future version of PHP; StringReader has a deprecated constructor in /home/mobiusse/public_html/famwagner.com/geoffrey/pivotx/includes/streams.php on line 48

Deprecated: Methods with the same name as their class will not be constructors in a future version of PHP; FileReader has a deprecated constructor in /home/mobiusse/public_html/famwagner.com/geoffrey/pivotx/includes/streams.php on line 84

Deprecated: Methods with the same name as their class will not be constructors in a future version of PHP; CachedFileReader has a deprecated constructor in /home/mobiusse/public_html/famwagner.com/geoffrey/pivotx/includes/streams.php on line 144

Deprecated: Methods with the same name as their class will not be constructors in a future version of PHP; EntriesFlat has a deprecated constructor in /home/mobiusse/public_html/famwagner.com/geoffrey/pivotx/modules/entries_flat.php on line 25

Deprecated: Methods with the same name as their class will not be constructors in a future version of PHP; PagesFlat has a deprecated constructor in /home/mobiusse/public_html/famwagner.com/geoffrey/pivotx/modules/pages_flat.php on line 20
Atlantis ‹the domain of the Stingray›
Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, and most fools do.
‹Benjamin Franklin›
Atlantis: the domain of the Stingray
7Dec
2011
Wed
23:09
author: Stingray
category: Sermons
comments: 1
[GRAV]
Unspecified Linux Google Chrome (12.0.742.124)
Geoffrey
24Dec2011/17:28
[97.118.222.174]
trackbacks: 0

Mid-week Advent II

Luke 1:26-38

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

There’s something else we could call The Annunciation, and that would be The Incarnation of Our Lord. It happened right before our ears; did you hear it? Hear it again: “[Gabriel said,] ‘Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women! And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS.’” Here is Gabriel announcing a very real, physical fact. When he says, “The Lord is with you,” this is not some simple acknowledgment of the omnipresence and omniscience of God. This time, he is telling Mary, “YHWH is right here, right now, with you, and because of this, you will conceive in your womb the Son of God. You will name Him Jesus, for He will save His people from theirs sins.” (cf. Matthew 1:21)

Flesh and blood...God is taking on human flesh and blood. In the womb of Mary, egg is becoming zygote—one cell becomes two, becomes four, becomes eight—head, arms, legs, eyes, ears, nose, heart, lungs, kidneys, and brain all begin to develop. There is a place to point to and proclaim, “There is Immanuel—God with us!” and it is right in the gut of a lowly maiden from Nazareth. In our text God is becoming like one of us, in every way as we were supposed to be before Eve picked the fruit from the tree in Eden and Adam stood by without preventing her. In our text, we are reminded once again of what the Psalmist writes, “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.” (Psalm 139:13-14) You could say David had his descendant and Lord in mind when he wrote this.

And it is precisely because Eve picked that fruit, ate it—and gave some to her silent husband, Adam, to eat—that the Son of God incarnated in the womb of Mary. At that moment, all mankind fell. Now, we know and see around us all of the effects of sin, though most of the time we are hard-pressed to acknowledge these things as the wages of sin: allergies, asthma, scraped knees, dry skin and cracked knuckles, the cold, the flu, heart attacks, cancer, brain damage, death. Yet these are the things which the Word declares to us as very much the wages of sin, especially death. (cf. Romans 6:23) Unless there is a direct correlation between a sin and such an injury—such as smoking and lung cancer or running in traffic and a broken leg (or worse)—illnesses and injuries seldom seem the wages of sin; rather, they seem unfair and unjust, the evidence of an unloving and distant God.

It seems even more so when it is your child who suffers the wages of sin—be it a simple cold, a catastrophic illness, or even death. It is heartbreaking for anyone to watch an “innocent” child suffer, even more-so for the child’s parents. It often goes so far as to hear a parent exclaim, “I wish I could take his place,” or, “I would rather suffer through this instead of her.”

Therefore, God the Son takes on human flesh and blood. You see, God is not an unloving and distant God. On the contrary, God says, “I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies...” (Ezekiel 18:32a) In essence, God says the same thing of you that a parent would say of a dying child, “I cannot bear to see him suffer, so I will take his place.” No, God is not unloving and distant, but out of perfect, divine love God took on flesh and blood to be one of us and suffer in our place, once for all.

It at just the right time, God did so. “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.” (Galatians 4:4-5) It was from Eve—the one who first picked at ate, yet still the mother of all the living—through the womb of Mary—a lowly maiden from Nazareth, and now the Mother of God—that God took on human flesh and blood, just as we each did in our mothers’ wombs. This flesh of His mother’s flesh is Immanuel and Messiah from the very moment of His conception.

He grew up as every one of us did, and though the Creator of all things, learned to read, write, and do His arithmetic. He was circumcised on His eighth day, shedding His very real blood and being placed under His very own Law. He was Baptized of John in the Jordan to further identify with us. He looked every bit as we do: body and soul, eyes, ears, and all members. He took up a trade—a vocation—just as we all do. He had a beating heart that pumped through His arteries and veins the very blood of His life. And, ultimately, He gave His life as a ransom for all, spilling His blood and suffering the wages of all sins on the cross at Golgotha. Again, God is not unloving: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13)

There, on that hill called “Skull,” God declared for all, “I would not see you suffer, so I suffer in your place.” And this He said to each of you, individually, as you share in God’s divinity through the waters of Holy Baptism—where the Word and Name of God was applied directly to you, where you were marked with the sign of the cross on Golgotha which marked you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified, where you were clothed in His righteousness, where you have put on Christ.

Now, what was said to Mary can be said of you, all because of that moment in Nazareth, which happened for the moment in Galilee and Jordan and Jerusalem and Golgotha. There, in Nazareth, Gabriel announced to the lowly maiden, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you.” So, as God’s appointed messenger in this place, I announced to you, “Rejoice, highly favored ones of the Lord, you Baptized into Christ. Yes, the Lord is with you, ‘[f]or as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.’” (Galatians 3:27)

Still, we see the wages of sin. We still suffering injuries and illness. We still witness our loved ones dying. We still cry out that we would prefer to suffer in the place of our children. We still struggle with sin, we Baptized sinners. Is God now unloving or distant?

No, but He is patient. He still declares to you that He is with you; you are Baptized, a past event that has present and future implications. You still bear on your forehead and breast the seal of Him who died the Death (big D) meant for you. You still have put on Christ. Oh no, the Lord is very much with you. But He is patient; you still suffer the wages of sin because our God, in His perfect and complete justice and love, waits for others in this fallen world in which we reside to be Baptized and come to a knowledge of the truth. (cf. 1 Timothy 2:4) Remember, He takes no pleasure in the death of one who dies. But, He will come again, when the time is fulfilled once again.

And so we still suffer. And perhaps we can see in that a blessing. For in those times of suffering, be reminded to look with your eyes of faith to heaven. Recall the goodness of the Lord, who saw in you someone who could not bear the load of your own sins, so He did it for you. Yes, even those sins you struggle with now have been borne by the Word-made-flesh, by Immanuel, by Messiah on the cross on Golgotha millennia ago. Let your sufferings remind you of Him who died for you, into whose death and resurrection you were Baptized.

Yes, He rose again from the death you deserved. Rejoice, dear Baptized, for our Lord completes that parental thought: “I would not see you suffer, so I suffer in your place that you may rejoice in mine.” Jesus, who was conceived flesh and blood, born flesh and blood, died flesh and blood, also rose from the grave flesh and blood, and is now ascended in heaven flesh and blood. He is fully man and fully God in heaven, and this declares to you that you too, dear Baptized, that at the last day, you will rise from your graves and be received to a place prepared for you at the heavenly banquet of victory over sin and death.

For now, though, we wait patiently. And yet, while we suffer, our Lord still does not leave us alone. Still, He is not unloving and distant. For He always comes to us in Word and Sacrament—Word from which we hear of and receive through the ears the forgiveness of our sins, and Sacrament from which we tangibly receive the forgiveness of our sins, through means: either water or bread and wine. On the cross, the Word-become-flesh spilled His blood for the forgiveness of sins, and now He gives for you His very life blood in the Sacrament of the Altar—this foretaste of the feast to come, this medicine of immortality given to combat the suffering that is the wages of sin that you now face as the Baptized of God and bring you into life everlasting—the very surety that God the Son has overcome these things for you and gives you the victory.

Flesh and blood may cause you to suffer, and ultimately take your earthly life, but God used them to fulfill His promise made in Genesis, and He will use your death to fulfill that promise to you: “I would not see you suffer, so I suffer in your place that you may rejoice in mine.” Or, as He said,

Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know...I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. (John 14:1-4, 6)

The way to the Father is through His Son, “who was conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the virgin Mary.” The way to the Father is through His Son, “who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried.” The way to the Father is through His Son, who on “The third day...rose again from the dead.” The way to the Father is through His Son, who “ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” The way to the Father is through His Son, who paved the way for you—life, death, and resurrection.

Simply put, the Annunciation—the Incarnation—centers around two words, as does all Biblical doctrine: for you. The Son of God was conceived for you. The Son of God was born for you and received His name—Jesus—for you. The Son of God was circumcised and baptized for you. The Son of God was captured, beaten, and flogged for you. The Son of God was crucified, rose again, and is ascended for you. The Annunciation—the Incarnation—is for you, therefore, you are forgiven for all of your sins.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Download media: 20111207.midweekadvent2.mp3 (7.5 MiB)
audio recorded on my digital recorder and converted to mp3
Have something to say about this entry? Submit your comment below.
name:
email:
web:
Give me a cookie and remember my personal info.
Hide my email address.
Type the correct answer: They are going to get they're / there / their reward.

This is a simple question designed to prevent spambots from spamming the site.

your comment(s):
[ Emoticons ]
Small print: All html tags except <b> and <i> will be removed from your comment. You can make links by just typing the url or mail-address.