Or, A Christmas Call to FaithLuke 1:26-38 November 28, 2021 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins

Introduction

Christmas is a double-edged story that cuts off both the legs of Gnosticism and materialism in the same swing. God, clothed in flesh, endorsed the physical world, perhaps in a deeper way that even the creation itself. Yet how the Incarnation comes about, and what it points to, calls us to live on earth by faith, not by empiricism. Even though we don’t really have another good, consistent option (than living in the flesh like Christ by faith in Christ), too many Christians are exactly bad at this balance.

Also, let me acknowledge that I do appreciate John Calvin’s exegetical tenacity. He apparently never broke off of a verse-by-verse sermon series no matter the occasion. He once picked up in the next verse after a three year banishment from his pulpit in Geneva (see The Legacy of Sovereign Joy, 139). But as relevant as Romans remains, in holiday season and out, I think there is some pastoral purpose to take these advent Sundays and mediate together on the Incarnation, its story and theology and application.

Last year, 2020, was my first time preaching four advent/Christmas sermons. We spent all four Sundays looking at the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1, from four different angles. This year I’d like to take a look at a different gospel and four different passages. We will, Lord willing, work through the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38), the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), the Birth of Christ (Luke 2:1-7), and the Heavenly Host (Luke 2:8-20).

Each message will have three related but distinguished parts: the passage in its gospel context, the doctrine in its biblical context, and the call for us in our present context, how the realities of Christmas should shape our celebrations in these next weeks and shape our faith in the flesh year-round.

The Annunciation – Luke 1:26-38

Luke wrote his history for Theophilus (1:3), and gathered eye-witness reports in order to provide an orderly account. He began with an announcement from the angel Gabriel to the priest, Zechariah, about the birth of John the Baptist (1:5-25). Following that is an announcement from the angel Gabriel to a young woman named Mary about the birth of a child who would be her son and also God’s Son (1:26-38).

Gabriel was sent by God when Elizabeth was six months pregnant (1:26), not to the temple city of Jerusalem, but to a small polis called Nazareth. Luke probably added “a city in Galilee” because most people probably wouldn’t know Nazareth by name, and if they were famililar with it, they wondered if anything good could come from it (see John 1:46).

The greatest surprise comes in verse 27. Gabriel came to a virgin, betrothed but unmarried. The Greek word parthenos could refer to a young girl, but verse 34 leaves no doubt that she had not “known” a man. She was promised to Joseph, but they had not consummated any covenant. It was one thing for God to give a child to Elizabeth, old and barren, but somehow that seems more possible than pregnancy for a virgin.

Gabriel greeted Mary, and affirmed her, not because she deserved God’s favor, but because of God’s election.

As we might expect, she was “greatly terrified” by the angelic saying. But Gabriel continued:

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.” (Luke 1:30–33 ESV)

This is the annunciation, the announcement. It wraps up various promises given to God’s people in our Old Testaments, not only that are astounding, but that is impossible.

“Jesus” is Jeshua, a[...]