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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
You know those times in your life when God seems the furthest away? Typically, it’s whenever you’re going through a difficult time, and we scamper around kind of like chickens with their heads cut off, like the proverbial type, wondering, where is he at? How do I find him? How do I find that peace that goes along with it?
Then there are those times when life is going along so well that we perceive that God is with us in a great and mighty way, when maybe we’re not necessarily giving Him all that much thought. Just because everything is going so smoothly and swimmingly. We never really have a block of time that lasts throughout our lifetime when we are very convinced God is with us.
It kind of is like peaks and valleys, isn’t it? Well, it was not that way and never was intended to be that way. In fact, as you think about it, think about the creation of the world. When God created Adam and Eve, there was never a point in their daily life, before they sinned, of course, but there was never a point in their daily life when they didn’t know God’s presence right there among them. They never ever had to wonder. They never ever had to question. They never ever had to think to themselves, wow, where’s God? They always knew He was right there.
Isn’t it interesting that after they sinned in the garden, they hid from God? They didn’t want to be in His presence. Too much for them to consider and grasp, to be in God’s presence. Because that union which they had been given because of their creation, they had broken. No longer was there this tight relationship. In fact, you could almost say there was now a great divorce, an irreconcilable difference between the Creator and the creature. And when there is this irreconcilable difference, there is this pit in one’s stomach, and there is question as to whether God is with us or God is not with us.
And the life that you and I know now as what we would think as normal was not prior to the fall. But after the fall, yes. Interesting, isn’t it? In the Old Testament text, God’s presence was shown to the people and reminded of, for you and me to remember too, when they were rescued up from slavery and sin in Egypt, brought through the Red Sea, and brought to the wandering in the wilderness for 40 years till finally they arrived to the promised land.
From that point to the promised land, God said, you know, I want to make myself very clear to you that I’m with you. So He had Moses build a tabernacle, a tent, during their camping out time of 40 years. So if someone wanted to know where God’s presence was, they would point to that tent. There’s where God said he would come to us. There’s where Moses, the great prophet, the one who is God’s spokesman, goes and speaks to God, and God speaks to him. There and only there.
When they finally arrived at the promised land, this conversation that David is having with God through Nathan the prophet, God sets up a more permanent establishment rather than the tent. Now it’s set up in a huge temple. Now if anybody who wants to know where God is at, they would all point to the temple. There’s where God’s at. There’s where you locate him.
And then Mary. Interesting. There is no temple anymore and there is no tabernacle. So where do we find God? Because that’s a big thing in today’s world. Of course, it’s always been a big thing, hasn’t it? Where do we find God? God. And we create all kinds of different things to find God. We create experiences. We recreate ideas or concepts with memories and so on.
But God doesn’t want to be found anywhere except where He has said, Here I am, like He did in the tabernacle. And here I am, like He did in the temple. Now sin, on the other hand, we know where it’s located. It’s located right here. We deal with it regularly. But it too has its ups and downs, doesn’t it? There are times when we deal with our sin and we think, you know, I’m not that bad.
We hear about the coach from Penn State and we think, oh my goodness, how horrible, and rightly so. But we sure don’t lump ourselves in the same camp as he, do we? We consider someone who kills their children and then kills themselves, like we’ve read in the news recently. And we look at them and we think, oh, how horrible, and rightly so. But do we lump ourselves in the same pool as that person?
See, we know sin is in this world. We’ve experienced it numerous times, both in our own person, having it done to us by someone else, and we’ve seen it in someone else’s face when they’ve received it from us. So we know where sin’s located. We just don’t always want to agree with how truly vile sin is within us. Hence the up and down of our life. Sometimes we feel like we’ve got this sin thing pretty well cloaked and taken care of.
And then other times, boy, is it so ugly we don’t even want to face ourselves in the mirror. Kind of like Adam and Eve hiding themselves. And then along comes Mary, where God, the sinless creator… He wants to fix the sin within his creatures, that his own creatures did to themselves. He doesn’t want to completely hide it as if it never happened. He wants to deal with it honestly and openly. He wants to make sure you know that it’s been dealt with.
So of all the places that he chooses to be found, he chooses to be found in a woman’s womb. The heavens cannot contain God, and yet Mary’s womb contained God. As David was told, a house can’t contain me, and yet in that very womb, starts out no bigger than a fist, can contain and did contain all of God. Remarkable.
But this, that contained God, was something even more remarkable in that Mary was not a sinless person. Mary was a sinner, contrary to our tradition. Roman Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ, Mary was sinful. She was born a sinner, and she died a sinner. Hence why she even died. And yet inside of her womb was contained sinlessness. She who has guilt within her contains no guilt in her womb. She who has no holiness contains all holiness within her womb.
She who has seen and experienced sin contains one who will not and has not seen or experienced sin, well, of course, until he dies on the tree, doesn’t he? When God the Father removes his gracious presence from him, and he cries out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? This shows that we’ve got a great and loving God who chooses to dwell in us, through sinful creatures. He who is sinless chooses to dwell in and through sinful creatures.
If Eve’s womb contained Cain and all mankind in Cain, then Eve’s womb contains sin. Because every woman since Eve has bore nothing but sinners. It’s a perfect track record. Along comes Mary that God has chosen to be the one who does not bear sin but bears grace. Christ Jesus bears the fruit of sinlessness. Our Lord, Emmanuel. Remarkable.
Now, if anybody wants to know where God’s presence is, it’s there in that womb. There in that womb, she contains God. She who is a creature created by God contains God. Or rather, God chooses to be contained in her womb. Now, the interesting aspect is that throughout that time, after Jesus was born, they kept pointing back to the temple to be where Jesus, not Jesus, where God is to be found, forgetting that the very temple of God is standing before them, the very one who said, destroy this temple, and I will rebuild it in three days, because now he is the one in whom God dwells and is God in the flesh.
If you look at the text, it’s very interesting. The Spirit comes through Gabriel… Gabriel speaks the words of God. Gabriel’s the messenger. Mary hears the word of the messenger, the Spirit overshadows her, and she now contains the flesh and blood of God. Here’s where we’re a lot like Mary. Here, we heard the words of God’s messenger. Here, the Holy Spirit overshadowed us. And here, we will eat the flesh and blood of God, the very same flesh and blood of God that was contained in Mary’s womb. We’ve got a lot in common with the mother of our Lord.
Now, Mary’s response to this amazing, miraculous thing was completely troubled. Verse 29, she was completely troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. When someone says to you, you are favored, the first thing in your and my mind is to think, well, there’s got to be a reason that God favors me first. And so we try to come up with in our head why He favors us, and as soon as we think in those terms, we turn grace into merit. We turn the gift into a work.
Grace causes someone to say, I don’t understand why I am favored. In this world, if someone says you’re favored, you’re kind of going, what did I do wrong to deserve this? When God says you’re favored and you know very well your sin, like Adam and Eve did, you’re very troubled at such a saying, and yet that’s what God said to you when you heard the message of the messenger, and the Spirit came upon you as it did Mary, and you now contain Christ within you as a believer.
When she’s told, don’t be afraid, for you have found favor with God, her response is, how will this be since I am a virgin? Your and my response is similar. How will this be? How am I favored if I am a sinner? And we try to figure it out.
Mary pondered these things in her heart her entire life. And she lived with Jesus and gave birth to her God and nursed her God. And yet she still tried to figure this all out. If she pondered it, then we as the church ponder it as well. We who have been given such a gift. Favored one. That’s what he called her. Highly favored one.
And then he reminds her very clearly that even though you are a sinner, even though you do not deserve this, I choose to do this to you. And that is God’s statement to you and to me. Even though you don’t deserve this, I choose to do it to you. I choose to overshadow you with my spirit. I choose to create you to be a vessel to contain me in your heart.
I choose to be the one who is with you every moment of every day, even though you can’t even determine whether I’m with you all times or not. Even though you struggle and doubt whether I’m with you or not, I am with you. I choose to do this to you. I choose to be this to you, not you, which leaves us even more befuddled. Why, O Lord? Why?
Mary is chosen something; Mary is told something by our Lord through the angel. Very clearly, nothing will be impossible with God. Everything that is impossible befuddles our mind. God is saying, this is beyond what your mind can grasp. This is a faith thing. I’ve given you the ability to believe that I dwell in you. Believe.
Now Mary’s response is, and ought to be forever, your and my response. May it be done unto me as you have said, O Lord. I am your handmaiden, and in this case, we are his servants. What else can be said? There is no rallying cry of what you’re going to do for God. There is no bold and pompous statement, I will follow you even unto death if I have to, like Peter. There is just, may it be done unto me as you have said. You’ve said it, let it be done. I am your servant.
If he is really with you, even though you and I at times can’t seem to feel Him, find Him, or think that He’s with you, we’re still the weak link in this great relationship that He has reconciled. No longer is there this divorce. Now what Adam and Eve brought into the world, Christ has repaired. Now the Creator dwells with the creature within the creature within you, unlike any other religion in this world describes.
Let it be done unto us as you have said, O Lord. And let us eat upon the flesh and blood that was in Mary’s womb, that we may join ourselves to you, you to us, and we to one another.
In the name of Jesus, amen. The peace of God which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
