Birthing A Promise -- A Message for December 10, 2023

 

Scripture               Luke 1:26-38

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. 

But 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, and you are to call him Jesus. 

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.”

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

The angel answered, “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. 

Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 

For no word from God will ever fail.”

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

Here ends this reading of the Word of God for the People of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Let us pray: Gracious God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Message                           “Birthing A Promise”

          As you all know, I was the first pregnant pastor we have had at Trinity Christian UCC.  When you hired a single 40 year old woman, you probably did not expect a pregnancy to be in our future today. But, we make plans and God laughs. So, over the past year or so, you journeyed with me as I experience pregnancy number two and you had your first experience of being pastored to by a pregnant minister.

Pregnancies can be scary. There are things that can go wrong for mom. There are things that can go wrong for baby. Physically, your body takes on a life of its own – your joints become loose – your bones actually adjust themselves into a different position – you gain weight. Your digestive system goes haywire – nausea, vomiting, ugh. And, emotionally, because the hormones are in hyper-drive, the mom is all over the place: happy, sad, depressed, manic, numb…

          Imagine having all of these pregnancy symptoms and being Mary – young, innocent, and virginal.  She would not have suspected the cause of the symptoms because she was only engaged-to-be married. She probably was overwhelmed and worried – why was her body acting so strange? Why did she feel so odd? What was wrong?

          Mary probably felt off-kilter. And, then, the angel Gabriel showed up.

          We imagine angels looking like they do in Renaissance paintings – tall with beautiful human faces and white wings. But, Biblical passages describe some angels has having four faces and some angels having six wings. When the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, she seemed shocked.  She was greatly troubled by his greeting. The second thing he said to her was for her to “not be afraid.” He may have looked horrifying. Was she afraid because a man had just showed up in her presence? Was she afraid because of how he looked? Was she afraid because of the words he used to greet her?

          And, then the angel shared the shocking news that Mary was pregnant with the son of God. Mary, an unmarried young woman, was pregnant…and she was carrying the Messiah. Which was a huge deal, and anyone who received this announcement would be overwhelmed….Mary was no exception – she was probably terrified and overwhelmed.

          Instead of crying and running away, Mary took the news well. She said: “I am the Lord’s servant,” … “May your word to me be fulfilled.”

          Mary handled this task better than most of us  would have handled it. After this brief encounter with the angel, Mary went on to live out her calling to be the mother of Jesus, the mother of the Messiah. Under her watchful eyes, Jesus grew from a tiny helpless baby to be the savior of humankind.

          In our lives, we often face obstacles that seem impossible. The odds are stacked against us. In our lives, perhaps we faced an academic challenge we thought we would never figure out. Or we sought a job that we thought we would never be considered for. Or we searched for a romantic partner and everyone we met seemed like a dud. Or we sought reconciliation with someone we didn’t think would forgive us.  Sometimes we face impossible obstacles, and we don’t know how we will achieve them.

          Mary possibly thought she was facing an impossible situation. She was young, poor, unmarried, and from a little village in the sticks. Yet, God gave her the strength to carry through with her strange pregnancy, to count on Joseph who was just as unprepared as Mary, to travel to Bethlehem when she was uncomfortably pregnant, to give birth in a stable, to flee to Egypt and escape with her life and Jesus’ life by the skin of her teeth, and then to raise Jesus even though any misstep could have drawn the attention of the Roman authorities who would have probably killed Jesus to eliminate the threat of the Jewish messiah. Mary overcame everything that she faced.  Mary was courageous. And, every action Mary took was infused with hope.

          The Season of Advent is a season of hope. Hope requires a lot of courage. Despite the challenges in her future, when Mary talked to the Angel Gabriel, she felt a burst of hope. And, that hope sustained her during her pregnancy and through the trying years of Jesus’ childhood. If we could control the outcome of our life’s challenges, we wouldn’t need to hope. Hope is what sustains us when we are unsure of what is going to happen. Mary had hope that the baby in her belly would change the world for the better. We have hope that Jesus will still change the world for the better. Hope helps us overcome challenges and get us through those situations that seem impossible. Hope keeps us moving forward, even when we aren’t sure things will work out the way we want.

          In this season of Advent, we must grasp hold of the Hope we have through our relationship with Christ. Whenever we face challenges that seem impossible, we are not alone because God is with us. God supports us, strengthens us, and guides us. With faith in Christ, we believe our hopes will be fulfilled, and the impossible situations we find ourselves in will become possible.

          Let us work to share the hope of the season with other people. Our waiting will not be in vain, because God is with us, and the hopes and fears of all the years will be met in Jesus Christ.

          Amen.  

Messengers of Hope -- A Message for December 3, 2023

 

            This morning, we embark on the four Sunday season of Advent. Despite the dates on Advent Calendars, Advent starts 4 Sundays before Christmas, not on December 1. Over the next 21 days, we will prepare to welcome Jesus into our hearts and into our world once again. As we prepare, we return to the stories of Jesus’ first years on earth. John the Baptist was designated by God to prepare the people of the first century for the arrival of the Messiah. This morning, we turn to the opening words of the Gospel of Mark. Mark doesn’t talk about Jesus’ miraculous birth or childhood, and starts his book with John the Baptist preparing the way for the Lord. Read along with me in Mark, chapter 1, verses one through eight:

Scripture                   Mark 1:1-8

The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God,

as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:

“I will send my messenger ahead of you,
    who will prepare your way”—
“a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
    make straight paths for him.’”

And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 

The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. 

John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 

And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 

I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

Here ends this reading of the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, Our Rock and Our Redeemer. Amen.

Sermon                                             Messengers of Hope

            John appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

 It is not easy for us to imagine life in the first century, life in an occupied territory. The Jewish believers, and their homeland, had been conquered by foreign armies again and again – Babylonians and Assyrians and Greeks and Romans – each occupying power and army leaving little traces of their rule on the people and their land.

When John the Baptist ‘appeared” in the wilderness, the Romans had more or less been in power for 90 years. They were brutal and expected the people of Israel to follow orders. Over the course of their rule, there were many insurgencies –- often these were led by charismatic leaders who were very devout to their Jewish faith. The Romans and their appointed overseers would have been suspicious that John was going to be a rabble-rouser or a zealot who would eventually lead a rebellion against the Romans.  Therefore, the Romans overlords were keeping eyes on John the Baptist.

But, John did not come to overthrow the Romans. John didn’t come to build an army or an insurgency. Instead, he stepped forward to call people to prepare for the coming of the messiah. He called them to prepare the way for the lord. John called people to commit to God, to commit to our shared faith, to repent for their sins and wrongdoings and to become baptized – to symbolically wash away their sins, to wash away their imperfect pasts, and to prepare to welcome God into their hearts.

John stepped forward in ministry during a period that was particularly grim. The people were oppressed. They had limited freedoms and autonomy. And, John told them to get ready, the Messiah was coming….it was time for them to get their “faith” houses in order, so they would be prepared for the arrival of God incarnate on earth.

At a time when people’s hope was dim, John came forward to tell them to get ready. Hope was coming. The messiah was on the way.

We also live in a time when things can seem grim. The cease-fire in Israel was halted. The war in Ukraine drags on and on. People in our communities struggle with poverty and crime and corruption. In our own families, we have members who struggle with addiction and mental illness and physical illness. It would be easy for us to fall into hopelessness.

But, we know Jesus. We know the Jesus who was born as a little baby to a young mother and a struggling step-father. We know the Jesus John the Baptist was preaching about, who came to teach us that the ultimate point of life is to love God and love each other. And, we know the Jesus who is coming again, to free us from the hardships we face and help us to establish God’s kingdom here on earth. We know the Jesus who we can talk to when we pray, who soothes us when we are brokenhearted, and who answers us when we cry out.

John came to tend to people who lived without hope, to tell them Jesus was coming. WE are also called to become messengers of hope, to tend to people who are struggling around us. It is our work to help people who are contending with their own broken hearts, with their own anxiety, with their own depression. It is our work to tell them they are not alone, we are with them and God is with them. It is our work to tell them that their mistakes do not define them. It is our work to tell them it will get better…things do get better.

Advent is a season of waiting. But, we don’t wait as people who have no hope. We wait in hope as people who know that something wonderful happened on the first Christmas Eve, when a special baby was born in a stable and placed in a manger. And, something happens every day when people accept Jesus as their savior and open their hearts to him. We hope for Jesus’ return to our earth, but we also hope for more and more people to turn their lives towards God and open their hearts to have a relationship with Jesus.

Thanks be to God for the hope of the season of Advent.

Amen.