The Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 22

NOW!  SOMEONE IS PROMISED

Luke 1:26-33

     Up until this point in the Scriptures, Jesus’ coming is always sometime in the future.  Now, finally, all the Old Testament prophecies are about to be fulfilled.  Jesus is finally being sent to this earth from heaven.  God promises Mary she will conceive Jesus.  Mary won’t conceive Jesus the normal way, however—God will overshadow Mary, and then she will conceive.

     In the Old Testament, everyone looked forward to the coming Messiah by faith. Now, they shall see Him with their own eyes, and hear Him with their own ears.  Romans 8:24-25 tells us, “For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope:  for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?  But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”  Did you ever wonder why God told Mary she would have a child before He told Joseph?  God told Abraham he would have a child in Gen. 18:1-15.  God told Zechariah he would have a child in Luke 1:11-26; why did God come to Mary first?  Partly He wanted her to know what was going on before it happened, and partly because she had no husband to tell her.  God’s main reason in all this is to test Mary’s heart.  God knew how Mary would answer Him, but He wanted her to know.  Mary answered God out of faith in Him.  She believed what He said before He even said it, because she knew He was God.  Zechariah, in the story before this, heard the angel and doubted.  Zechariah was hoping in what he saw.  He saw himself, and his wife, old and past child-bearing age, and thought “no way could this happen.”  Abraham heard God’s promise, he believed, and it was credited to him as righteousness.  We must have the heart of Mary and Abraham.  We must listen to what God says, when He says it, and believe it.  You see, this was a very special time—God was sending His Son to the earth, in bodily form, in order to save it’s inhabitants from their own sin, which separated them from God in the first place. 

     I am beginning to see, and I hope you do too, the “amazingness” of the fact that an infinite God would take the form of His own people, which rebelled against Him, in order to save them out of darkness and into His own Kingdom.  That just shows us how much God loves us, and how much we should love Him.  He loves us enough to give up His own splendor and glory, and come to this earth to face ridicule, shame, and death from the very people He wants to save.  This is a very awesome God we have, a God that deserves all our praise and thanksgiving.  We must believe God for who He is, and then give up our own lives, and surrender everything to Him. This Christmas season, think on how much God loves us, and love Him back just as much.

~ Jason Frantz