Something Old, Something New
Pastor Mathew Magera – 12/20/15 – Sermon 135
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from God our Father, from our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Imagine for a minute that
you're at home going through the mail and you open a letter that says you have
been chosen to participate in a new reality TV competition for a chance to win
$1 million. You have to clear a month off your calendar and fly to Los Angeles
and you get down there and you're put into this studio and you look around at
other faces. These faces have come from all across the country for the same
chance at winning the prize. You have no idea who they are. They have no idea
who you are. If you were to walk out of the room right then, you'd probably
forget all of them by the time you got home. But, the reality is that in 30
days, one of these faces, perhaps even yours will be recognizable and
nationally known as the person who won the $1 million.
A few weeks ago I sat down
in my living room and watched the finale of the 27th season of the Amazing
Race. As I watched the end I didn't realize it had been going on for 27 seasons
already. Then I began to think back to when it started. Actually I went all the
way back to the beginning of my knowledge of reality TV and the beginning of
the show Survivor. It has gone so far since then. Several different shows, so
many different angles, so much popularity. There is a reality TV show for just
about any topic now. Some people love them, some people hate them. But if we
look into a reality TV show, there is a little more than the aspiration for
good network ratings. Thinking of shows like Survivor and The Amazing Race,
they put together ordinary people, people we as viewers couldn't care less
about and put them into a competition where one of them will be set apart from
the others and win whatever the prize happens to be. When they win you could
take a moment and think back the first time you "met" them on screen
and remember how you think they would do. You might have guessed them never to
make it to the end, yet here they are with the prize. That's reality TV,
turning a face in the crowd to something special. And when they win, you can
see it in them. They get emotional, overjoyed, overwhelmed, grateful, humbled.
They were once something old but are now something new.
If you haven't guessed it
already, this is what happens to Mary when she is encountered by the angel
announcing her pregnancy. Mary, an ordinary girl probably 13-14 years old, is
being called upon and set apart by God for something very special. Just a face
in the crowd that you wouldn't even guess would be the mother of the Son of God
and yet she is the one that receives all the attention because she WAS the one
God chose. She was made into something new. It was a miracle. A pure miracle
that someone like her could be set apart in that way. In fact, Mary's being set
apart combines three miracles into one, three different ways God was clearly at
work within Mary, preparing the world for the hope of the future, the hope of
Jesus.
Miracle #1: God Became A Human Being
That first miracle was that
God was becoming a human. To this point in history, God has never come to the
world in human form. We might think of God walking in the Garden of Eden with
Adam and Eve, but God wasn't a person. God was God. That was before the
consequences of sin, the consequences of our broken relationship, God and man.
God couldn't be touched. God could not be embraced. God was intangible. But
something was changing. A miracle was about to take place and God was about to
become tangible. Veiled in flesh the God-head see, hail incarnate deity. God
was about to relate with the world in a completely new and unique way. God came
to us and related to us as a person, a man, like us but more than us. He had
ten fingers but held the entire world in his hands. He had blood flowing
through him, but it was blood that would cleanse the entire human race. He was
born as a baby but was also eternal. It's something we can't even wrap our
heads around, that God would do this, that God could do this.
You might know the song,
"Mary, Did You Know?" This popular Christmas song encapsulates the
miracle of God becoming one of us. Mary, did you know that your Baby Boy will
give sight to a blind man? Mary, did you know that your Baby Boy will calm the
storm with His hand? Did you know that your Baby Boy has walked where angels
trod? When you kiss your little Baby you kissed the face of God? A powerful
testimony to the miracle that is taking place. The old way of knowing God, is
becoming new in the child that Mary carries. Something old has now become
something new. The miracle, God became man. Intangible. Now tangible. Something
old, something new.
Miracle #2: He Was Born Of A Virgin
The second miracle continues
on the first one. Not only is it a miracle that God is becoming a human being
but it is even more a miracle that this child to be born is being born from a
virgin. Looking at our Gospel story today, we find Mary and Elizabeth getting
together and there is something wrong with this picture. Both of them are
pregnant but neither of them should be. Have you ever thought of that?
Let's look at Elizabeth
first. Elizabeth, as we would learn earlier in Luke chapter one is both unable
to conceive, she's barren, and she's too old to have children. She should not
be pregnant, but she is. Now, let's look at Mary. Mary is about young teenager,
she's unmarried and she's not been with a man. She's too young according in a
social understanding. She should not be pregnant, but she is. Both of these
women either for physical or social reasons should not be pregnant, but both of
them are carrying children. God has worked outside of physical and social
protocol. That's the miracle. But there's more to this miracle than just that.
Elizabeth's child, John the
Baptist is the one who is going to be closing up the old life, or we can just
say that John the Baptist is closing up the past. His purpose is to point
people to Jesus and no longer to Jewish law. He's ending the old. Mary's child,
Jesus is the one who begins the new life, or starts up the future. John is the
end. Jesus is the beginning. Elizabeth is old, Mary is young or new. But that’s
not all. There’s more.
Do you remember the story of
Jacob and Esau in the book of Genesis? They struggled in the womb with one
another. Jesus and John weren't in the same room but John was well aware of
Jesus' presence. He could sense him even through the flesh of his mother and
his aunt and rather than struggle within the womb, he leapt for joy. The
struggle that Jacob and Esau dealt with was not present in this story of Mary
and Elizabeth. Jesus would come to end all struggle and bring joy. And do you
remember between Jacob and Esau who was born first? It was Esau, right? And the
prophecy was that the older would serve the younger. Typically the older child
would be the more important one but in this case it was Jacob, the younger
child who was served by his older brother. Of John and Jesus, John was the
older one and he too served the younger, pointed to Jesus, the younger, born of
a virgin. This is the miracle. The old becoming new. Two women who should not
be having children are. Something old has turned into something new. John is
ending the old age and Jesus is beginning the new age. Something old had turned
into something new. It's a miracle. Jesus was born of a virgin.
Miracle #3: Mary Believed It
Perhaps the most amazing
miracle here is the last one. Even though God was becoming a human being and
even though Jesus was being born from a virgin, the third big miracle here is
that Mary actually believed it. Mary believed it. Not only did God disclose to
her that He was going to become a human being but God also conceived the child
within her. If May had any chance of believing the first miracle, the chances
of her believing both go way down. But she did. She believed it.
I also think that part of
Mary's belief comes from Elizabeth. There is no reason for her to believe that
she had conceived a child in her barrenness and old age, but she did. Elizabeth
knows the uncertainty but when her child leaped for joy upon Mary's entrance,
Elizabeth must have believed that Mary was indeed carrying God's son and she
calls her blessed. Elizabeth believes it, but does Mary? Yes, she does. And we
know she believes because of the words she speaks in the popular words we might
know as the Magnificat. Unbelief plagued the world up to this point. In so many
ways, different characters in the Bible did not believe and fell away from
God's promises. But here, that changes. Here, we have something new. We have
belief. Something old changing into something new.
The Christ child makes all
three of these miracles possible. He becomes a human being, he is born of a virgin
and his presence causes John to leap which leads to belief. Mary was set apart
for a very special purpose. Once a face in the crowd, her name and face is
plastered everywhere in the world. Everywhere! She can't hide. She is out
there. So, why is this important to us now? These three miracles? They are
important because God also sets us apart. Now, how is this possible? Mary is
all over the place. People come ever so close to worshiping her, some actually
do. How is it that we are set apart just like Mary?
When Lane and I lived in
Minnesota, we tried out for an Amazing Race held in the twin cities hosted by
the Salvation Army. The prize was $5,000. We thought it would be fun to race
around Minneapolis and St. Paul and raise money. When it came to the race day
there were so many people there, they had to put us all through a preliminary
race to single out ten teams to run the actual race course for the prize money.
There were various tasks on this initial course and running around the streets
of Minneapolis, dodging traffic trying to get into that top ten. We were doing
okay until we got to one particular task, a food challenge. Each of us had to
eat two hot dogs with chocolate syrup on them. Easy, right? Wrong. With Lane
being a vegetarian, she couldn’t eat the hot dogs. Luckily, or should I say,
unluckily they had veggie hot dogs. She tried them but they tasted nasty. So,
in order to complete the challenge, I not only had to eat my two hot dogs but I
had to eat her two veggie hot dogs which I can say were absolutely nasty. This
challenge sunk us and we did not make the cut. We left that day just another
face in the crowd.
I mention this to you
because many times we try to stand out in some way, but end up going home just
another face in the crowd. But, to God, we are not just another face in the
crowd. When God set Mary apart to be the mother of Jesus, God was setting us
apart as recipients of what Jesus would bring, the ultimate prize of eternal
life. It may not feel like we have been set apart, like we just go home empty
handed, but we go home with the greatest treasure this world has ever seen.
This Thursday when we gather here, we are going to celebrate that treasure that
only by these three miracles is made possible. The only reason we are going to
worshiping on Christmas Eve is because God became human being, because that
human being was born of a virgin and because Mary believed it. And with that,
we are not only celebrating Jesus coming into the world that one night outside
of Bethlehem, but we are celebrating that each new day we are transformed from
something old into something new as Jesus is born in us, set apart as a chosen
one to receive the gift this child brings. We’ve been set apart in this reality
show we call life. We are not just another face in the crowd. Not even hot dogs
with chocolate syrup can slow us down. It’s a miracle. It’s a miracle that God
would do what He did. It’s a miracle that God could take ordinary people like
us and, through the birth of Jesus, turn us from something old into something
new. To God be the glory, now and always. Amen.