Introduction: I don’t see it as much as I did a few years ago, but it’s still around. I see it on signs on people’s lawns or on bumper stickers. I notice it sometimes when I’m searching the internet or checking my email. It’s a little phrase, just seven words long and two of them rhyme so it’s easy to remember: Jesus is the reason for the season. You’ve seen it, too.
It’s true, obviously. Without Jesus there wouldn’t be Christmas. Buddhists and Muslims don’t accept Jesus and a lot of pretty smart historians don’t even believe Jesus existed. But nobody doubts the connection between Jesus and Christmas. Christmas was invented because of Jesus. The Christ Mass celebrates Jesus’ birth. Jesus is everywhere at Christmas. There’s no Santa Claus in Russia, but Jesus is in Russian Christmas. There’s no white Christmas in Africa, but Jesus is still in African Christmas. You see Jesus on church lawns like ours and on Christmas cards and you hear about him in Christmas carols on the radio. And every once in a while, someone will say or some sign will read: Jesus is the reason for the season. And we go “Yup. He sure is.”
I’m not surprised. It’s an irresistible story. The birth of a baby always puts a smile on your face, but the birth of this baby is more compelling. Poor parents, a long journey, no place to stay but a stable, a manger instead of a crib, cows mooing, sheep bleating, donkeys braying. Who can resist that? It’s so sweet. It pulls at your heart strings. It touches your emotions. A lot of people feel that way and that’s why Jesus is the reason for the season.
I’m guessing that story would have touched Mary’s emotions if she heard it. She was a simple soul living in a little town. She wasn’t married, she wasn’t a mom, but she probably had a motherly heart at her age. I doubt she could have imagined the exact scenario, but the story certainly would have touched her. And then all at once, while she was sweeping the floor or washing the dishes or mending a pair of socks—we don’t know what she was doing—all at once an angel showed up. That story of Mary and Gabriel is the Gospel for the Fourth Sunday in Advent.
The Annunciation of Our Lord, this account from Luke 1, pulls our attention past the baby and the poverty and the stable and the animals. It takes our eyes away from what is common and usual and mundane. Instead it takes us to mysteries and marvels that are so exceptional and so unique that we can barely understand them. They give a whole different meaning to Jesus is the reason for the season. So this morning, five days before Christmas, I ask you all to
Consider the Miracles of Christmas
Actually, Mary had a lot on her mind. There was the news about her older cousin Elizabeth who was pregnant. Maybe Mary was worried; older women didn’t always have successful pregnancies. But maybe she was excited and looking forward to having a baby of her own. That day was coming, she hoped. Mary was engaged to a good man with a good job who lived in her hometown. I can see her working around the house with a happy heart. And then her life changed. In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. Oh, really! I guess I’d be troubled, too--and confused and scared. Not every day you get an angel showing up in your kitchen and not every day you get a direct message from the Lord! But the angel calmed her down real fast. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son.
Well that didn’t calm her down, not at all. Mary was young and probably wasn’t the most sophisticated teenager in town but she knew enough about the birds and the bees to know that virgins don’t have babies. I can’t imagine the look on her face or the palpitations in her chest when she asked Gabriel, How will this be since I am a virgin? Gabriel had a quick answer: The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
A hundred questions must have bombarded her brain. Mary went to synagogue school. Did she remember the passage from Isaiah: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel. Did she wonder: Am I that virgin? We don’t know. We don’t know when her pregnancy began and we don’t know how it began. But at a certain point Mary felt life inside her like just as most mothers do. Morning sickness? We don’t know. Fetal movements? We don’t know that, either. Did Joseph find out? That we know. He did but the angel calmed him down, too: Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
The virgin birth of Jesus is one of the great miracles of Christmas. Mary and Joseph both knew it. The son that Mary would bear and the son that Joseph would guard was a unique child. There was never one like him before and never one like him since. He was a divine child and a human child. God was his Father and Mary was his mother. There was no doubt his about parenthood. He could not have been Joseph’s child because Mary was a virgin. He could not have been an illegitimate child because Mary was a virgin. Because Mary was a virgin he could only be a miracle child and that’s what Jesus was.
2. Mary’s head and heart must been splitting by now. But there were more surprises. Gabriel gave her a name: You are to call him Jesus. Actually, Gabriel spoke Hebrew, You are to call him Jeshua. Did Mary catch on? Jeshua was a name that meant deliverer. If Mary didn’t catch on, Gabriel explained: He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end. Every Jewish boy and girl knew about David’s son and every Jewish man and woman was waiting for him desperately. David’s son would restore the nation. David’s son would get rid the Romans. David’s son would make Israel great again. You heard about David’s son in the First Reading for today. A thousand years before this God had appeared to King David and said, When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. It all fit together. Mary was a descendant of King David and so was Joseph. She and Joseph were both in David’s blood line. The son she bore and birthed would be Joseph’s son legally and her son naturally, but he would also be David’s son and he would certainly be God’s Son. Did all this begin to sink in? Did Mary understand? Do you?
As his life played out, Jesus never did restore Israel or get rid of the Romans. That was never the point. God had a different kingdom to set up and a different enemy to wipe out. The enemy God planned to defeat was the enemy called Satan and sin. The kingdom God would wanted to build held the forgiveness of sins, peace with God, and the hope of heaven. Mary’s Son and David’s Son and God’s Son would defeat the enemy and gain the kingdom not with a sword but with suffering, not with weapons but with death. He would be innocent himself but he would carry the wrongs of the world on his back. God knew it. He told David: When he does wrong (that is, carrying our wrongs), I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands. And that’s exactly what happened. Jesus the deliverer was delivered to death that you and I might be delivered from hell. Maybe Joseph understood this better than Mary at least at first. Gabriel told Joseph, You are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.
That God sent his Son to save us from our sins and deliver us from hell is the greatest miracle of Christmas. You and I deserve nothing from God. Really we don’t. Sometimes we like to think we do, but we don’t. Sin is a disease that’s always terminal. The sins we commit are symptoms that no vaccine takes away. Just look at yourself: jealousy, anger, laziness, lust, doubt, fear, pride. God owes us nothing. Come to grips with it. Face it.
And then consider the miracles of Christmas. You see them in this Gospel for today. God called on a virgin to give birth to his Son. This Son of God and son of Mary was the only child who could save us from our sins. Only a human child could be compelled to obey God’s laws and only a divine child could obey them perfectly. Only a human child could die and only a divine child could die and make a difference. That’s what it took. A Savior who could actually save us needed to offer his perfect obedience in place of our imperfect obedience and he needed to offer his innocent death in exchange of our eternal death. And this is the child we have in Jesus. It’s a miracle and God made it happen because he loved us—that’s a miracle, too. The greatest Christmas gift of all came wrapped in the womb of the virgin Mary with the words attached, “To you from Father with love.”
Don’t be fooled by the baby you see on Christmas cards or in stable scenes. Look past the swaddling clothes and the cattle and sheep. Jesus is the reason for the season, but for many more reasons than some people think. There are miracles at Christmas. We see them in faith, we consider them in joy, we live them with confidence. The angel said to Mary, No word from God will ever fail. He says the same to us. Now we say with Mary, I am the Lord’s servant. May his words to me be fulfilled. Amen.
