Sunday, December 24, 2023

Fourth Sunday of Advent
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16
Psalm 89:1-5 [19-26]
Romans 16:25-27
Luke 1:26-38

For nothing spoken by God is impossible.

I used to enjoy watching a show called “Cash in the Attic.” It was an unscripted show that followed a family as they searched through their home to find objects to sell to earn money for a special family project. One family wanted to have a party, another wished to purchase some goats, another wanted to renovate an ancient bathroom.

On one episode, the woman had been a servant at Sandringham, which is a lovely country home where the British royal family spends Christmas. The host of the show asked the woman about her work and if she had any special experiences with the royal family. She told a story about a moment with Prince William when he was just a child. She thought no one could see her while she played peek-a-boo with William. Suddenly she realized that someone was watching over her shoulder. She turned around to see Prince [King] Charles. He was very gracious as she curtsied and greeted him. It was a memorable moment for her, and the story reminds us that despite their extraordinary position in the world they are ordinary people.

We look at Prince William now and it is hard for us to imagine that he was ever a little boy who liked to pay peek-a-boo with the household servants; even his son is becoming a handsome young man. William has been trained to be a man of power and authority. He is certainly charming with his own children, but he’s in a position that requires a certain demeaner, especially in public. He will likely one day wear the crown and sit on the throne, not unlike the crown and throne of David.

When we think of David, we think about his power and authority. He was the ruler of Israel during a golden age when they were a strong, independent nation, but it didn’t come easy. The obstacles of establishing a strong and independent kingdom were overcome by God’s hand. Under David’s care Israel established her place in the world, laying down roots in the Promised Land. David is among the greatest of biblical characters, placed on a pedestal by numerous faith traditions, but David was an ordinary shepherd when God called him to serve. He was the youngest son; there was nothing exceptional about him. His story reminds us that God does not see His people from a human point of view. He knows hearts and He gives gifts according to His purpose.

In today’s Old Testament lesson, Israel had a city in which to live, and their king had a palace. Roots were planted and they were settling into their new life. David was greatly blessed, and since he was a man who sought after God’s heart, it was natural for him to want to give God an offering of thanksgiving and praise. For David, whose life had been characterized by upheaval, the security of a permanent place was the most logical gift. David finally had a home thanks to God, so he thought God deserved a home, too.

David’s heart was in the right place, but he was thinking like a man. God sent Nathan to show him how His kingdom works. It is not for David to provide a home for God. God does not need a home. He commanded the tent which traveled with the people, and when the time was right, He would command the building of a permanent structure. But the timing had to be according to God’s plan. And the design would be according to His purpose. David could not choose to build God a house. Instead, God promised to build a house for David.

Our natural inclination is to do something. When someone is sick, we ask what we can do to help. When someone is going through a tough time, we want to be there for them and offer our resources to get them through. When we face a time of struggle, we want to do something to get out from under the struggle. Even when things are good, we have to find something to do. We are blessed to be a blessing, so when we feel blessed, we strive to find a way to be a blessing. The trouble is, we often decide to do something for the sake of doing it, instead of waiting to discover what God intends for us.

David rightly wanted to do something to bless God. How could a temple be a bad thing? It would be a place where God’s people could gather and give Him honor and glory. God obviously was not against a temple because He eventually gave the responsibility to build it to David’s son Solomon. David could even collect the materials that would be necessary. Yet, God refused to allow David to do the work. God asked, “Did I ever ask you for a house?” He didn’t need four solid walls because He stayed among His people wherever they went. He led them through the wilderness into the Promised Land. He would allow the Temple to be built one day, but for this day God wanted David to see that the promise of a house is His to give. God would build David’s house and Kingdom. Out of David’s seed would come a kingdom that will never end, a throne that will last forever.

The establishment of God’s Kingdom was never up to any human. The kings of history and today might have power and authority, but they are ordinary people just like you and I. God is our guide, our true King. He is the one to whom we should turn when trying to discover our mission and ministry in the world. I know this is impossible. If you ask a hundred people in a congregation about their mission and purpose, you’ll get a hundred different answers. But the reason we come up with so many answers is because we are asking the wrong question. We ask, “What should we do?” when we should ask, “What is God doing?” We try to build a temple when God is telling us to wait. When want to build a place where we can put God when He wants to build us into a place where He can dwell.

We are not very good at listening. How can we know for sure that what we are planning is, or is not, God’s will? Nathan didn’t know and at first gave David permission to build the Temple. How do you trust one another when one is sure that they have heard God’s voice, and another hears something completely different? How do you decide as a body to go one way when all the bodies think they have heard different directions? Our uncertainty makes us struggle with one another. This is why the question should never be, “What should we do?” It isn’t about what we do, but what God does among us. The response we make to God’s grace is not something that is decided by a committee at a meeting, but naturally flows by faith. Only by God’s grace can we do anything at all. If we are to truly be a blessing, individually and corporately, we need to see what God is doing in our lives and follow Him. Then we will see God accomplishing His work through us.

There may be a few churches that are growing and successful, but it seems to me that most churches are struggling in some way. The pews are less full than they were a few years ago, the bills are harder to pay. Too many churches have had to close. People are struggling so they have less to give to the church. The church is not immune to the political differences found in the secular world. The issues might be great or small, but they are there. Now, perhaps it is not worse today than always; after all, conflict has been a part of the Church since the beginning. Yet, in some ways it seems like we just don’t have the strength to fight the burdens and obstacles that are inside and outside our walls.

We are even finding it difficult to define our mission in the world. The neighborhoods around us are changing, and we have to realize that what we did a few years ago might not continue to be the work we should be doing today. It is easier to see in our own individual lives because we recognize that as we grow we have to change with our circumstances. I’ve been a mom for a long time, but now that my children are grown, I have different work to do.

God puts us in circumstances that help us define the work we are to do. Suppose you have a hundred dollars to share. You sit down and make a list of all the charities that could use that hundred dollars and then consciously decide which one deserves it more. In the meantime, you discover your neighbor just lost his job and doesn’t have enough to buy groceries for the week. Charities are certainly wonderful ways to share our blessings; helping those organizations is good stewardship of our money. But we have to ask ourselves, are we open to the possibility that God is inviting us to use this blessing to do a kindness for our neighbor? Where is God working? What is God doing? What is God calling us to do?

Mary certainly didn’t ask for her blessing. Mary was an ordinary woman, not even a woman. She was little more than a child when the angel spoke to her. She was given the most extraordinary purpose: to bring the Savior into the world. This was indeed a blessing. As a matter of fact, Elizabeth said the same. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” What if Mary had been like Sarah and Abraham who tried to fulfill God’s promise by their own works?

The same can be true with the Church, especially if we define ourselves by the work we do. But perhaps that’s the problem. We invite people into our fellowship by using the programs and ministries as a draw. “My church has a great choir, come and hear them sing.” Or, “We are having our annual soup supper, come enjoy some homemade soup and stay for worship.” We “sell” our church based on the good works we do around town, or the preschool where we help the neighborhood children grow in knowledge and in faith. These are all good; they are excellent ways to share our gifts and reach out to the community. But they will never build the kingdom of God. Perhaps a family or two will become members because of the good things we do, but we will never be truly faithful if we think that we can build a house for God; we have to understand that God builds the house for us. He blesses us to be a blessing, but His blessing comes first.

The word “bless” is interesting. We think of people who are financially well off as blessed, but that is not always true. I’m not even sure we can count on happiness being equated with blessedness, although it is much closer. Blessedness is much holier than we make it out to be in our common language. As a matter of fact, as I researched the word, I discovered that the Middle English root from which it comes actually means “to consecrate with blood.”

Someone once told me that “to bless” means “to speak well of.” It can also have something to do with the bestowal of divine favor and good things. God blesses us. This we know is true. Now, if we think of blessing in terms of worldly goods or happiness, then there need not be any shedding of blood or divine action. But the lasting blessing comes at great cost. The lasting blessing is God’s favor upon us. It is God’s eternal gift of life through His Son, the son He brought through Mary. The Son that was born to die.

Mary willingly accepted the Lord’s Word and received His promise. She didn’t run off trying to make the promise happen. The point of this example is so that we’ll realize how often we jump into work for the sake of doing something rather than waiting expectantly for God to do His Work in us. We jump into a ministry because it sounds good, but we do not see what God is really working in us. Even worse, we hang onto ministries that are no longer viable because we aren’t willing to see where God is moving us. We want to build that temple and keep God in one place because is it so much easier for us to do what we want.

Yes, I know. I feel useless when I’m not doing something. I feel lazy and selfish because I’m not using my gifts at every opportunity. I feel like the possibilities are passing me by. I am worried that I’m missing something important. But I have learned that sometimes we miss the real work God has ordained for us because we are so busy doing the work that we think we are supposed to be doing. David had other work to do, so God put a stop on the work he wanted to do so that he could focus on the work he was meant to do. Mary accepted God’s will even though it did not fit the expectations she had for her life. It must have seemed like an impossible task for a young girl in a small town in ancient Israel.

Now to Him who is able... nothing is impossible. These two phrases are found separately in today’s lectionary; the first part is from Romans, the second from the Gospel. Yet, they seem to go together. Paul told the Romans that God was able to save them by the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the angel told Mary that the impossible news she just heard was possible because it came from God. He is able to do the impossible.

There is so much about Christmas that is hard to believe, none more so than the Virgin birth. How is it that God would use a young girl as a vessel for the salvation of the world? How could God select her to bear the flesh of the Savior? God’s ways are higher and greater than our ways; it is beyond our scope to fully understand His purpose and His plan. One of the most incredible things about Christmas is that it is miraculous, a time to believe in what cannot be. The Savior Immanuel, God with us, was born in Bethlehem. No wonder it is such a time of joy.

Yet, there are many that want to explain away the miraculous. They give science more credence than the Word of God. They diminish the impossible by making it possible through natural means. Take, for instance, the crossing of the Red Sea; some have suggested scientific explanations for the parting of the water such as an earthquake or the tides. They refuse to accept that it was God who made it happen, but also refuse to consider the fact that it happened at exactly the right moment, that the ground was dry enough for carts and that it ended at exactly the right moment to destroy Pharaoh’s army.

Christmas is no different. What was that star that led the wise men? Was it a comet or some other astronomical body? Was Mary a virgin, or does the language indicate something very different? We don’t like mysteries because we have so much more scientific knowledge. We have sent rockets into space to take pictures of the heavens; we can see the universe in ways that the people of Jesus’ day could not even imagine. As for the birth of Jesus, we know a virgin birth is impossible. Even Mary knew that human reproduction required sex because she asked, “How can this be?” She wanted to know how God would prevail over nature.

The angel Gabriel gave her an answer, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore also the holy one who is born from you will be called the Son of God.” This is not an answer that a modern intellectual will accept; after all there is really no explanation, but Mary didn’t need that kind of answer. She accepted the word of the angel and willingly submitted herself to God. It was enough for her to believe.

Is it enough for us today? Are we willing to accept the Word we’ve been given through the scriptures by those who lived the stories and heard the promises with their own ears? Even the scriptures have been doubted and explained away by those who try to make it say what they want it to say. Surely Mary could not have been a virgin, science tells us that, so some twist the language of the scriptures to say she was simply a young girl and reject the miraculous story of the virgin birth.

I don’t reject science. After all, there are so many incredible things that we can do because of the scientific advancements that humanity has achieved. Perhaps we’ve gone too far with some things; we have tried to play God. However, don’t we all enjoy the technological and medical advancements that have made life easier and longer for us? I also don’t reject modern scholarship and the advancements that have been made in biblical understanding. Language changes, new information is discovered, we learn to see the ancient world through a more powerful lens. In many cases, these new points of view have helped to clear what were once confusing and misunderstood biblical texts.

However, too many times we use new knowledge in both science and religion to take way the mystery that is God. We want rational answers to our questions, and quite frankly the whole idea of God is anything but rational when compared to the reality of the world in which we live. This is why it is so easy for non-believers to suggest that God is nothing but a myth, a crutch made up by weak people. If we can’t prove it with physical or logical means, then it must not exist. It was ok for people two thousand years ago to believe in angels, they didn’t have the knowledge we have, but now we should not continue to believe in fairy tales.

Our knowledge of the world has certainly changed over the last two thousand years, but God has not changed. While we can now understand Him in new and wonderful ways, He is the same God who sent an angel to Mary to announce that she was the favored one. Mary had enough knowledge to ask “How can this be?” but when the angel answered she submitted willingly to the impossible.

He who is able can do the impossible.

God can do the impossible, and it is ok that we don’t always understand. Christmas is a magical time of year. I think, sometimes, that it is easier for us to believe in Santa Claus and flying reindeer than in the story that the King of glory was born to a virgin and laid in a lowly manger. We allow a little mystery in the arrival of our Christmas presents, but we refuse to allow any mystery in our faith. It is an upside-down world, isn’t it?

Sadly, sometimes even the magic of Christmas is lost because the burdens we bear are just too hard. We can’t be joyful because we are hurt or angry or lonely. We can’t be generous because we have nothing to give. We can’t believe in anything because science and rational thought make faith impossible. There is no Santa Claus, there is no God, there is nothing to believe in. Bah Humbug. This is what happens to those who demand proof of the miraculous; it is impossible, so they refuse to believe.

Advent has always been a time of reflection as we wait the coming of the Christ. It was a time of penitence during the ancient days of the church, ending with baptism at Christmas. It is natural to wonder about our purpose as we think about how we have failed. What is God calling us to do? What does He want us to accomplish as we wait? We never expect it to be extraordinary because we are ordinary people. It is God’s work, not ours, that makes the miracles in this world. It takes faith to walk in this reality. We have to believe that He is able to do the impossible and allow Him to do miraculous things in, with, and through our lives.

Gospel of Jesus Christ is a mystery. Paul knew that God was working miracles in people who were not of Israel. He saw Gentiles being moved by the Holy Spirit into faith, active faith. It wasn’t just a confession of the mouth, but it was a movement of spirit and flesh that was changing the world. One person’s testimony led to a community gathering together to praise God. That praise was testimony for others who joined along in the song. The scriptures tell us that hundreds, even thousands, came to believe just on the word of one or two witnesses. This seems impossible to us, especially when we see our churches falling apart around us. They had seemingly unsurmountable obstacles, just like us. Yet, God is able to do this thing.

We don’t need to use the things of the world to convince the world that God exists. God simply asks us to believe and willingly accept whatever He is doing in our lives. We can trust that He will use us for His purpose. We won’t bear the baby Jesus as Mary, but we can have the same faith and be witnesses that take Him to the world in faith. We bear His Gospel and share His grace so that others will believe.

This is the last Sunday in Advent; Christmas is just days away. The children are getting excited about Santa and families are anxious for reunions. Trees are decorated, presents are wrapped, and cookies are baked. The magic of Christmas is making even the humbugs smile. We might argue about the value of those secular Christmas traditions, but in the stories we see a parallel to the faith of Mary. Children believe in the magic of Christmas without proof. Children have the most passionate and precious faith, both in Santa and in Jesus. They are our model for living faith because they do not doubt, they simply believe. Mary was little more than a child when she was faced with the most impossible truths, but she believed. She believed that He who is able will do the impossible.

May we all believe in the impossible Christmas story with such faith and praise God for His blessing for He makes the most incredible things possible.