Trinity Lutheran Church
Christmas Eve
December 24, 2009
Luke 1:39-45
A Pregnant Pause for Grace
Grace, mercy and peace on earth to all mankind on whom God’s favor rests:
Would you pray with me?
Lord Jesus, in your incarnation you took on flesh. Give us the grace whereby we might live our lives each day convinced of your indwelling with us, assured that you love our world enough to enter into it and to share this life with us, that you love us even enough to die for us so that we who are infinite and mortal might live for you in all our being. In the name of the babe of Bethlehem; Amen!
Today is Christmas Eve: I would like to speak to you about a passage that we all need to hear over and over again: Luke 1:35-45, “The angel answered (Mary), ‘the Holy Spirit will come upon 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 barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.’ ‘I am the Lord’s servant,’ Mary answered. ‘May it be to me as you have said.’ Then the angel left her.
At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you shall bear … Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished.”
What a wonderful Gospel reading – the kind of reading that you can feel, touch, hear and taste with all of your senses. It’s as if the world stops for a moment in time to just ponder the divinity of it. It is a pregnant pause for Grace!
It is understandable that Mary would respond to the angel just prior to this passage: “How can this be?”
We are mortals. I know this because I just turned 61 at the end of November. And I say that with some regret. I don’t see myself as “over the hill” but I could be well on my way, if you know what I mean. I didn’t particularly like being 60 and I don’t like 61 much better. Still there are some satisfactions that come from having 60 years of life experiences, and maybe even some wisdom that come along the way. My children are grown with their own children across the country and over in Europe so that is satisfying. I take a certain degree of pleasure in life accomplishments. I haven’t done everything I’d like to do but I have done much of what I wanted to do. So there are some joys at this age.
I think the main thing wrong with being 61 is the body. First it was my eye sight. Then it was my hearing. Then it was a broken ankle and numerous surgeries.
Well, what can you expect we are but mortals. David wrote, “All flesh is like grass,” one minute green and the next brown.
I think that is why the divine message is all the more interesting. I think it is the reason we “Take a Pregnant Pause for Grace.” We are not created to be angels. On the contrary we are created as finite mortals, limited now by time and space. As the Psalmist says: Short-lived, terminal flesh, to live 70 or 80 years if we have the strength.
This reasoning obviously crossed Mary’s mind. And to make it more miraculous the angel told her that her relative Elizabeth was having a child. And the scriptures tell us that she was well beyond child baring years. This is the one we have come to know as John the Baptist.
Yet in God’s infinite wisdom, his longsuffering and divine understanding – the eternal, divine, creating Word – became flesh and “tabernacle” or moved in among us.
Mary’s pregnancy was confirmed when John “leaped in (Elizabeth’s) womb.” This was God’s glory, says John’s Gospel. We need something done about our flesh, our dominant decaying materialistic side, our self absorption. So on a starlit night, Almighty God slipped in among us, assumed our very flesh, offering his own flesh and blood for the world as the Son of Man.
When we sing, “I Wonder as I Wander,” it points to the particularly unexpected moment in God’s plan for the world – “God’s overshadowing” “God’s incarnation -“God in the flesh.” When we hear the story it makes us “Take a Pregnant Pause for Grace.” After all when we think of God from our limiting experiences we sometimes refer to him as the opposite of the flesh. To be Godly in our wisdom is to rise above the flesh. And yet we know we can not rise above our mortality. This is why we understand Mary when she says: “How can this be?”
The story of Bethlehem and the manger is a moment of hope. The birth and the Word made Flesh tells us that God in his infinite wisdom, loves, forgives and offers grace through his Son. As frail, enslaved, finite and limited human creations we realize that we can not go to God because of our sin, therefore it is God who has come to you this day in the City of David. This is what incarnation literally means: (enfleshment). This is what Christmas means: (In the Flesh – a babe born in Bethlehem). It is only our moment to say “I am the Lord’s servant … may it be to me as you have said.”
That is why we come here tonight – To Take a Pregnant Pause for Grace – to meet with God – We want to get closer to God.
The church is a conduit for the Means of God’s Grace – in the Forgiveness of sins, in the written Word, at the baptismal font through water and by receiving Christ’s very body and blood through simple means like bread and wine.
This infant, a man, the very Son of God came to us, not to deliver us from our flesh and all that we find it demands, but to redeem us in our flesh – to make that which is frail and faulty into a holy vessels of the very mystery of God. He makes our flesh a sacramental vessel of the Holy Spirit to be a conduit for our faith and salvation.
It is good that we Take a Pregnant Moment for Grace – God’s Righteousness at Christ’s Expense. Merry Christmas. Amen