According to His Word :: Luke 1:26-38
I wonder if I should ever give someone my word. What is my word worth, anyway?
I can give you my word, but I know what it’s worth, and you don’t. I can give you my word, but you don’t know if I value it, let alone if I’ll keep it. When we don’t keep our word, we’re saying something else is more important. When you give your word and break it, you teach others, including yourself, that you can’t be trusted ... that your word isn’t worth a lick of salt. If your actions don’t prove the truth of your word, then your word is nothing more than a lie.
Thank God, though, that we have His word.
Scripture is filled with promises according to His Word ... I know the value of His Word. It is worth everlasting life. ... He spoke His Word in the beginning. It makes all things new. ... He gave us his word in paradise. It redeems us ... He gave his word to Abraham. It makes us righteous. He established his word with David. ... His Word breathes new life into a dead world.
His Word is always with you, he declares, as he was in the beginning, and as he will be with you into eternity. His Word is making you holy because he is holy. His Word will never leave or forsake you (Dt 31:6) and he is not slow in keeping his promises (2 Pet 3:9) ... all of His promises find their Yes in him (2 Cor 1:20).
Thank God he gives us his Word made flesh.
Today we take a break from our Lenten season to remember one of God’s greatest words. Today is March 25. Christmas is just nine months away. In other words, today, we remember when the Word Made Flesh became Immanuel, quite literally God with us.
Listen to God’s Word for us today.
In the sixth month, the angel Grabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, Greetings, O Favored One, the Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And 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.
What a beautiful word!
The Angel Gabriel is heralding the magnificent Word that God so loves the world he has given you his only begotten son ... the Lord who is actually with you ... He is incarnate ... and now whoever believes in him will never perish but will have eternal life.
We recognize the promise that the Lord is with you is realized fully today.
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning. And the Word became flesh. The bonding of God with man is complete. The two natures of Christ ... his full divinity, his full humanity ... 100 percent God, 100 percent man ... have been united forever in this moment, just as we confessed together in the Nicene Creed.
Sometimes, God gives us promises according to his word at our worst moments, in our darkest moments. At least that’s how the first promise unfolded.
You know the Word well: Adam and Eve had it made in the shade, walking with God, and talking with God, being nourished by God. They were living the True Good Life ... the very good life, to use God’s Word. If you think you know what good is now, it would be no comparison to what they had in paradise.
But then they began pursuing their own God ... They sought to create life according to their own Word. And in the process, they discovered evil. It wasn’t my fault, they said. She made me. He made me. The devil made me.
God would have nothing to do with their word.
Adam and Eve deserved nothing but condemnation. They deserved death.
They had become idolaters and liars. But the only wise Lord who is full of grace and truth did something we never expected. He delivered his first great Word of promise, declaring that in the fullness of time, the woman will bear a son, a son who will crush the serpent’s head and stamp out sin and death, pride and shame, madness and mayhem once for all.
Today, we recognize that promise fulfilled in the Annunciation of Mary.
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
Some scholars will argue ... and I will agree ... that the annunciation, not Christmas Day, is one of the four great days in the world’s history.
First is the day that God created the world.
Second is today, the annunciation, when the Lord proclaimed that he was with us.
Third is the day God nailed himself to the tree as a sacrifice for sins of the world
And fourth is Easter Sunday, when God demonstrated He had defeated sin, death and the devil once for all.
These four events are all the promises according to his word from the very beginning.
And this word gives us hope. God keeps his Word.
Even when God’s chosen people break their promises ... God remains faithful to them. Even when you repeatedly ignore God’s word, when you strike his word, and change his word, God remains faithful. Even when you call good evil and evil good ... God remains faithful to you because he cannot deny himself.
This morning’s gospel reading is the realization of that Word.
Mary was deeply troubled by the greeting of the angel. And she wondered what sort of Word, what sort of greeting, it could be.
Can you imagine hearing the Word that you are single and pregnant?
Our world today turns this news into a crisis. In Mary’s day it meant she could have been stoned to death because she had become pregnant out of wedlock. Had this happened in America, today, Mary might have been pressured into having an abortion, the evil that the world calls good.
Instead, God turns the annunciation into a miracle, according to his word.
Mary believes. And so, too, now can we.
While the world thinks all the religions are the same, the annunciation proves otherwise. The angel is heralding that Mary will bear the Word made flesh. Yet the world laughs at the thought because human nature is so loath to believe God’s wondrous Word, the creation narrative, the virgin birth, that Jesus is God ... but Mary believes. She is bearing physical proof.
The Lord is actually with you ... not only in spirit, but in the flesh, in body and soul.
No sooner than Mary believed ... no sooner than you began believing his word ... than everything changed. God breathed life into her womb, the new Holy of Holies, the new temple of the Holy Spirit, all according to his word.
In a matter of moments, a single-cell savior began growing in Mary’s womb. In short order his sacred head formed. Within 40 days, his heart of flesh began beating, and his holy blood began to flow. At six weeks he developed eyes that would look upon the crowds of the poor and brokenhearted, the prisoners of sin. At 10 weeks, he was just an inch long, but his arms and hands stretched forth so they could reach out and heal the world, the blind and the lame. About the same time, the incarnate Son of God developed legs and feet, that one day would carry him across the stormy seas of life.
Before long, his mouth formed, giving him the power to speak, according to his word, to raise the dead.
One night while praying, he was betrayed, arrested, slandered, beaten, mocked, spit upon. He then would be flogged, in accordance with his word, and he would receive the stripes by which you and I are healed. A crown of thorns would be thrust upon his head. And through it all, he remained silent, according to his word.
Man continued mocking his maker. Then his feet and hands were pierced for your transgressions with crude nails, all according to his word. God poured out his wrath for your sin upon Jesus, also according to his word. God so loved you that he turned his back on Jesus, forsaking him on the cross.
When it was all finished, when the sins of the world were atoned for, and wrath of God poured out upon Christ, Jesus was faithful to his word into death, even death on cross. Then after resting on the Sabbath -- just like he promised -- on the third day, our risen savior extended his hands and breathed out a forgiving spirit upon us all.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, forgive each other.
Do you see now how today is one of the four great days in the history of the world? The Lord actually is with you, according to his word.
Now, because you believe his word that Jesus is Lord and confess the Word he has given you that he has risen from the dead ... just like Mary ... you are the Lord’s treasured possession, a royal priesthood, a holy nation -- the eternal temple of the Holy Spirit, who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
It’s not because of anything you have done. It is all according to his word.
This is the grace which we celebrate today, thanking God that he has cleansed our sinful conception and birth through his holy conception and holy life, and removed the curse from us and blessed us.
Now to the only wise God, be honor and glory forever, and ever. Amen.