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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading, but also the Old Testament about the temple and the presence of God there. You may be seated.
So, for thousands of years they waited, patiently and impatiently at times, but they waited with a certain hope. And their hope was completely established and founded upon the promises. The promises given them through prophet by prophet by prophet by prophet. Finally fulfilled in John, the last Old Testament prophet, the one who came before Christ. For all of these prophets, each one, spoke the word of God to the people, pointing toward God coming among them. And they wrote it down. For the blessings of those people, but for the purpose of you and me, upon whom the fulfillment of the promise has come.
In St. Luke’s reading, this mystery that’s fulfilled in the Old Testament is brought forth here. The choir sang about it before the Gospel reading. The virgin shall conceive. That is the most remarkable statement. And to reason and logic, the most ridiculous and absurd statement. For it is intellectually and scientifically impossible that a virgin could conceive. And yet the virgin conceived, but didn’t just conceive flesh and blood. Conceived God and flesh and blood together in one person. Jesus. Emmanuel. God with us.
Now no longer did the people point to the temple as being where God would reign. No. The Old Testament talked about David wanting to build a house, but he would not get that honor, would he? That would be given to his son Solomon. And Solomon, though he built the first house, it had been destroyed and rebuilt again. And the one that Jesus entered in the New Testament era was destroyed for good in 70 AD. No longer can anyone point to a building where God is present anymore. For that was the only building that he could be present, was in the temple.
Now it’s different, isn’t it? Now, God’s presence, God with us, Emmanuel, we could point to Mary’s womb. Mary’s womb was where God dwelt. Mary’s womb is where Emmanuel was knit together… Like all other children, in nine months of flesh and blood and cells dividing, multiplying, and places going where all the flesh and tissue should go. For nine months we could be said, there is God in that womb, in that woman. She’s the vessel. She bears God.
Think about that for a moment. It was through a woman’s womb that all humanity was born. And her name? Eve. From Eve was all humanity born. She is all of our mother. For we came from Eve. But from the womb of Mary did come a different human. From the womb of Mary came Emmanuel, God with us. The one through whom all of humanity would be reborn. In other words, Jesus becomes the father of all humanity, giving birth to all through the church. Amen.
Just as Mary was the only vessel chosen by God to receive and to give birth to God in the flesh, so the church is the only vessel chosen by God to receive and give birth to you. Your mother, the church, gave birth to you at the font. Just as there was water in your physical birth, so there was water in your spiritual birth. But the water is from God. The mother of all of you and me is the church. And if you want to see where the church is gathered on any given Sunday, you look here, and it’s gathered around this altar. We are the church. Here is where Emmanuel dwells.
And if anybody wants to know where do you find Jesus, you find him here. Here’s the womb that contains him. Here’s the womb that gave birth to the world through him here. For new birth. Just as the church or as Mary was nothing more than a vessel, so the church is nothing more than a vessel. But just as Mary was the mother of God, so the church is the mother of all Christians.
But think of the words that the angel Gabriel spoke to Mary. We sang about them and the choir sang about them this morning. Think of these words in our text that are spoken by the angel to Mary, which really have application today, to us, the offspring of our mother, the church. Rejoice, O favored one. The Lord is with you.
Why is it that for thousands of years the church’s greeting is, The Lord be with you? Because that is what the angel Gabriel said to Mary when she was about to receive God in the flesh through her ears by the words of God through the angel. So when we greet one another, the Lord be with you. I am telling you, God is in your midst by his virtue of his word. And it will enter you through your ears. And it will enter you through your mouth, where the flesh and blood of Emmanuel is fed to you. The same flesh and blood that her womb contained. It is the same flesh and blood that your mouth will eat, along with the bread and wine and the promise of forgiveness of sins.
Now, such an amazing statement. Mary heard this word that God is telling her to rejoice, that she is considered favored, and that the Lord is with her. Why? Why is the Lord with you? Are you cut from a different bolt of cloth than others in this world? Is that why he’s with you? Your family lineage or your family past, is that why he’s with you? Are you so markedly different than those who did not grow up in the church that you have something special and have a special place? Or is God’s promise for all?
When the angel Gabriel spoke those words to Mary, he was speaking them to her because her favor came by his grace. And every time the grace is spoken here today, in the church, it’s for all people. All may receive the grace that’s being told, that the favor that you have with God is due to God, proclaiming it to you and not of yourself. Your favor resides in your being baptized into Christ, having the same mother who gave birth to you, nursing at the same mother’s breast, who feeds you the sure word of eternal life, forgiveness, and salvation.
So she is greatly troubled, the text says, and tries to discern what this means, this greeting. Because we have heard it so often, it rolls through our ears. Remember that statement your dad or your mom said, It sounds like it goes in one ear and comes out the other because you don’t listen to me. Surely that was not said to you.
We’re so familiar with these words that we cannot let them go through. Stop them in your heart. Let them reside there and do what Mary did. She pondered these things up in her heart. She dwelt upon this mystery that she, a virgin, would be given flesh and blood without having known a man. That the miracle of God’s power of creation prevailed. When he created the world by speaking it into being, happened within her womb when he spoke flesh and blood into being, using only her genetic material. And God became flesh. Marvel. Marvel indeed.
And here is where you hear it, that your Emmanuel is done for you. And your Emmanuel is not a God who is with you in an abstraction. Your Emmanuel is a God who is with you in flesh and blood. For you were joined, not to a spirit when you were baptized, but you were joined to Christ. And if Christ’s flesh and blood died and rose again, so shall your flesh and blood die and rise again.
And you are not joined to Emmanuel, who is an abstraction, but one who is using the same means that he spoke… Emmanuel into existence through the ears of Mary. He speaks faith into your hearts through your ears by this word being spoken to you. And your Emmanuel is not an abstraction. Your God with us is in that flesh and blood with the bread and wine which you physically eat and receive the forgiveness of sins trusting in that promise given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.
You will conceive, you will bear the son, and you will call him Jesus. Here is where believers are conceived and born again. Here is where they call upon the name Jesus and are saved. Here is where they eat and drink Jesus and receive forgiveness of sins. But you and I know that we live in a world and in a country that does not accept comfort.
You may say, what are you talking about, pastor? Doesn’t accept comfort. They’re willing to accept the comfort that God’s promise and mystery of miracles, when the virgin conceived, and they can accept that and say, isn’t God amazing? Why then do they not accept the miracle that flesh and blood can be joined to bread and wine, and you can eat it and drink it for your salvation? It is as mysterious, it is as miraculous as the virgin conceiving. And yet they rob themselves of this comfort. Which you’ve been given by grace.
That you may know Emmanuel not only outside of you but within you in your baptism and Lord’s Supper. Here is where the king reigns and his kingdom will never end. Ever. Until God calls us all home and ends this world. And then the kingdom of glory is all that’s left. But his kingdom that he rules and reigns here is not like the kingdoms of this world that are continually thwarted with politics and posturing.
What is his kingdom’s power here in this world? Forgiveness. That’s the power that’s changed your life. That’s the power that binds you in your marriage. That’s the power that keeps you still in reconciliation with others around you. His forgiveness. And that is a power beyond your and my and this world’s comprehension. Amen.
It is a mystery. But it’s a mystery made known to you through the Lord who is with you, through Emmanuel, who for nine months dwelt in the womb of Mary, but now since his ascension into heaven dwells here in this womb of the mother of all of us, the church. And it is here where we are fed and sustained and where we are comforted.
So what do we say to such a great and glorious thing? We say the same thing that was said to Mary. Say it with me. Let it be done unto me as you have said; we are the Lord’s servants. In the name of Jesus, amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.