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This Week's Sermon THE FOURTH SUNDAY in ADVENT 21 December 2008 "The Mystery Now Disclosed" Luke 1:26-38 LSB Series B Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

Everything that God had been doing throughout the long centuries since Adam and Eve fell into sin now comes to fruition in a rather literal sense. In botanical terms, we say that the fruit is the reward hoped for. In this sense, it means that God's plans have come to a certain completion, a culmination, a climax. As we reach the Fourth Sunday in Advent we see the Advent season come to fruition as well because we are about to celebrate the birth of the Savior in just a few days at The Nativity of Our Lord.

Sometimes when we read the Old Testament we don't understand or even grasp that everything that happened took place according to God's plan. We lose the forest because of the trees! When we trace Old Testament history in a broader way we sometimes see God's plan in the sweep of history. All of it seems rather mysterious to the casual reader, leading some to dismiss the Old Testament as irrelevant, but throughout all of it God was carrying out his promises to send the Savior. In his foreknowledge God planned to send the Savior, just as the Apostle Peter wrote:

"He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for your sake. . . " (1 Peter 1:20, ESV)

The term "mystery" means something hidden, something covered. God has always hidden his majesty before man because one cannot see God in his glory and live [Exodus 33.20]. The promise to send a Savior was repeated in many ways and in many different times, yet God continued to make that promise more and more clear, pulling away some of the mystery of his presence and dealings with man.

In our Old Testament reading God spoke to David through the prophet Nathan. God promised that he would build a house that lasts forever, yet he was not speaking about a physical structure but of a kingdom, sometimes called the throne of David. God promised:

"And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever." (2 Samuel 7:16, ESV)

However, in the succeeding years things went badly for David's line. The kingdom was divided after Solomon, and complete disaster came upon Israel. First the kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians and ceased to exist. Then Judah, David's kingdom, fell to the Babylonians, the people being carried into exile for seventy years. David's line was cut down, only a stump remaining. Yet, even from this stump God said that a shoot would be raised up.

"There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit." (Isaiah 11:1, ESV)

This great mystery was now disclosed when the angel Gabriel was sent to Mary, a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David. Here the mystery of the ages was being revealed, uncovered, made known. This child, conceived by a word of the Holy Spirit placed in Mary's ear, was to be the fruit of all God's promises to mankind.

That Mary was stunned and humbled is somewhat of an understatement! Mary was afraid even though the angel called her "O favored one." Gabriel assured her that God was with her and that everything that would happen was by God's eternal plan. In her child the mystery of the ages was to be revealed. Listen to Gabriel's words again:

"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 1:31-33, ESV)

All of history came together in that moment, the only history that finally matters because this Child is the Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man, the Redeemer. God names him Jesus because the name Jesus means "Savior."

On the Fourth Sunday in Advent we marvel at God's plan and we marvel at Mary. The greatest promise of the ages takes place in her womb. The greatest miracle is not that God could become incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary through a word placed in her ear. After all, didn't God create the heavens and the earth merely by speaking a word? "And God said, 'Let there be . . .' and it was so." That's the phrase that repeats over and over again in the Creation account. Why is it so difficult for God to do this?

Luther said that the miracle of the virgin conception and birth was really a small thing, and that the greater miracle was that Mary believed the Word of God through Gabriel. And it is so! God discloses the greatest mystery of the ages to Mary and she believes it! We wonder at it because who is Mary, after all? She is not one who sits in a palace. She is a distant descendant of King David.

Many German surnames are connected to occupations, like Müller [miller] or Zimmermann [carpenter] or Schneider [tailor]. My mother used to tell me that her maiden name originally was von Breitwieser, a name based on a place. Usually that von indicated some kind of higher status, like royalty. I always asked, "Mom, if that's true, what happened to the money?" Whatever status there might have been is long gone.

This past week there was a lot of discussion as to who should be named to succeed Hillary Clinton as Senator from New York. Much attention focused on Caroline Kennedy. Some people said that she was smart and could raise lots of money because she is influential, but mostly because she is a Kennedy. It seems to me that many people feel that they are entitled to certain perks of power because of who their relatives are. It happens often in a fallen world. We come to understand that such power often gets passed down to one of your own family. We see that in our local politics, too. Political jobs get passed to relatives.

But such is not the case with Mary. She comes from David's line but she has no influence, no status, no power, except that God chose her. No human being chose her. She "brought nothing to the table" as the expression goes, no money, no influence, no power, only her humility. But God chose her! She would be his instrument in disclosing, revealing the Christ, the Savior, to the world. Here was a status conferred by God that would far outstrip any earthly title. She was to be the mother of God! In her own hymn Mary confessed:

"for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;" (Luke 1:48, ESV)

Mary is God's servant who believes God's Word and then lives out her God-given vocation as the mother of the Christ. Jesus, the Savior of the whole world, did not burst in on the world in a blaze of glorious power, but came as a tiny baby, a true man, dependent upon this woman for his very life-

"God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man." [Nicene Creed]

Faith sees the mystery revealed in Christ, all the way from his humble beginning in Mary's womb to the cross to the seating at the right hand of the Father. This is the Christ, the Son of God and Son of Mary. The ancient custom of the Church was to kneel or bow when the words "and was made man" were recited in the Creed. Kneeling or bowing expresses thanks to God for so honoring our humanity that he came in such a way. It is a way of confessing what this great mystery revealed. Luther says: " . . . so that we might thank God from the heart that Christ assumed human nature and bestowed such great and high honor upon us, allowing his Son to become man" [Luther's House Postils, vol. 3, p. 290]. Indeed, should you not kneel as this "Mystery Now Disclosed" is distributed again and again in the Sacrament of the Altar? Here, under bread and wine, is the true body and blood of Christ, the same Christ incarnate in the Virgin Mary, born at Bethlehem, crucified on Calvary, risen, ascended, and sitting at the right hand of the Father. Should you not, like Mary, respond,

"Let it be to me according to your word." (Luke 1:38, ESV)

In Christ the mystery of God through the ages is disclosed. "For nothing will be impossible with God!"