A sermon preached by Scott Nowack on December 18, 2011
at the First Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, Texas.
He’s Not the Leavin’ Kind
2
Samuel 7:1-11, 16
Luke
1:26-38
God does some amazing stuff.
God catches us when we least expect it and in unexpected ways.
My guess is that Mary’s to do list for the day Gabriel visited her
did NOT include, “Have an amazing, life-altering conversation with an angel of
God that will transform the world as we know it”. It’s not every day that the angel Gabriel
announces the birth of the savior of the whole world.
This is what makes God’s love and grace so amazing. Such an announcement illustrates God’s
initiative; God takes the first step. It
is and initiative of grace and power: of grace in that what is soon to happen
will express God’s favor toward the world; of power in that God can work
through anybody God chooses to, even an unmarried girl. God is able and God is gracious.
When Gabriel announced to Mary that she would give birth to Jesus,
he was proclaiming the fulfillment of a promise made nine hundred years earlier
to King David through the prophet Nathan.
Jesus is the promised Messiah of our Old Testament reading this morning,
the king who would reign forever on David’s throne. The Annunciation reminds us that God is a God
who always keeps his promises. He’s not
the leavin’ kind. God will do what he
says he will do.
There are three themes that undergird this amazing account of the
announcement of the birth of Jesus.
The first theme is from Gabriel’s final words to Mary, “For
nothing will be impossible with God.”(1:37) It was not unusual for God to
promise a child to couples well beyond normal child-bearing years. The previous verses telling of the birth of
John the Baptist to an elderly Zechariah and Elizabeth recalls a similar promise
made to Abraham and Sarah in Genesis in the Old Testament. Although it is highly improbable for
Zechariah and Elizabeth and Abraham and Sarah to birth child at their old age,
the pregnancy of a virgin is clearly impossible. And it is this impossibility which Gabriel
says has been overcome and made possible with God.
Such an impossibility offers us the first account of the
impossible things that God has in fact done.
Throughout the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, Luke tells of the
impossible things actually accomplished by God: healing the sick, the
resurrection of Jesus, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the formation of the
community. These events cannot be
believed and yet they must be believed.
Our God does the impossible.
The second theme is that of grace.
It is often overlooked. We must
be careful to not do so. Gabriel
announces to Mary, “You have found favor with God.” The Greek verb here translated “favor” could
also be translated as “grace”. Mary is
the object of God’s grace.
If it is true that Mary is the object of God’s grace, then I must
ask: What is it about Mary that makes her appropriate as an object of God’s
grace? There are no reasons offered to
say why Mary is chosen by God to birth the savior into the world. Luke doesn’t describe any qualifications,
virtues or vices about Mary that can be used to determine if she is worthy to
take on the role of mother of Jesus Christ.
The point is that the God of the Universe is a sovereign God; God
chooses because God chooses. Mary does
not earn or deserve the honor of becoming the mother of Jesus any more or any less
than any other woman. We must remember
that the biblical story is not where rewards are earned and sins are punished,
but it is the place of God’s unearned and amazing grace.
The third theme is based on Mary’s response to God’s grace. Mary identifies herself as a servant of the
Lord. She submits herself to God as a
slave of God. The text suggests that
this relationship between Mary and God is an involuntary one on Mary’s
part. Mary’s response suggests to us
that she has been selected by God for this purpose. There is no room for her own will to be
exercised, only the will of God. Her
service to God is a result of God’s plan for her life and not her own. Her love for God and God’s love for all
people are clearly evident in this encounter.
Mary puts God first and herself second.
Like Mary, we are a part of God’s plan. When we submit to his plan, we are passive
objects of God’s intervention. God’s
plan of action is the full expression of the love God has for each of us. It is expressed as the effort to bring
salvation to the whole people of God.
And this love comes to fruition in the long-expected birth of a savior,
Jesus the Christ. Love came down from
heaven as one of us to teach us what love really is; to show who we were
created to be and that we are loved unconditionally. Love is the still small voice that speaks to
our point of need.
In her book, The Whisper Test, Mary Ann Bird writes about how she
was born with a cleft palate. She writes,
“When
schoolmates asked, “What happened to your lip?” I’d tell them I’d fallen and
cut it on a piece of glass. Somehow it
seemed more acceptable to have suffered an accident than to have been born
different. I was convinced that no one
outside my family could love me.
There was,
however, a teacher in the second grade whom we all adored, Mrs. Leonard. She was short, round, happy – a sparkling
lady.
Annually we
had a hearing test….Mrs. Leonard gave the test to everyone in the class, and
finally it was my turn. I knew from past
years that as we stood against the door and covered one ear, the teacher
sitting at her desk would whisper something, and we would have to repeat it
back – things like “The sky is blue” or “Do you have new shoes?” I waited there for those words that God must
have put into her mouth, those seven words that changed my life. Mrs. Leonard said, in her whisper, “I wish
you were my little girl.”
God calls out to each of us with an amazing love, “I wish you were
my little girl” and “I wish you were my little boy”. Nothing is impossible with God because God is
a God of grace and love who refuses to stop loving us no matter the mess we’ve
made of our lives. He refuses to exclude
us. He refuses to kick us out into the
cold. That’s why he finally sent us
Jesus[1],
so we could enter into a loving, grace-filled relationship with the savior of
the world and its creator.
Because before Jesus, we were all outside of the fence of God’s
grace.
Let me conclude with one last story. In World War II, a group of soldiers,
fighting an intense battle in rural France, lost one of their brothers in
arms. They did not want to leave his
body on the battlefield and wanted to give him a Christian burial. They remembered seeing a church a few miles
back with a small cemetery surrounded by a white, picket fence.
A priest, old and frail for his age, responded to their
knocking. One of the soldiers blurted
out, “Our friend was killed in battle and we want to give him a church
burial.” Apparently the priest
responded, “I’m sorry, but we can bury only those of the same faith here.”
Weary after many months of war, the soldiers simply turned to walk
away. “But,” the old priest called after
them, “you can bury him outside the fence.”
Cynical and exhausted, the soldiers dug a grave and buried their
friend just outside the white fence.
They finished after nightfall.
The next morning, the entire unit was ordered to move on, and the
group raced back to the little church for one final goodbye to their friend. When they arrived, they couldn’t find the
gravesite. Tired and confused, they knocked on the door of the church. They asked the old priest if he knew where
they had buried their friend. “It was dark last night and we were
exhausted. We must have been
disoriented.”
A smile flashed across the old priest’s face. “After you left last night, I could not
sleep, so I went outside early this morning and I moved the fence.”[2]
Jesus did more than move the fence; he tore it down. Jesus broke into human time to declare some
amazing stuff: God’s love is for everyone.
God’s love and grace is so amazing because it chooses the
impossible, the least expected, the road less traveled, removing the barriers,
the fences, between God and us. God can
work through anybody God chooses, even we as the meek and lowly sinners we are.
“He ain't the leavin' kind, He'd never walk away, Even
from those who don't believe, And wanna leave him behind, He ain't the leavin'
kind, No matter what you do, No matter where you go, He's always right there
with you. He ain’t the leavin’ kind.”[3]
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