The Angels' Message to the Shepherds

 

After no messages from God or angels for well over 400 years, suddenly angels are showing up everywhere.  An angel spoke to Zechariah in the Temple, an angel spoke to Mary in Nazareth, and in a dream an angel spoke to Joseph.  Every time the angels speak, they bring the good news that the Messiah was coming.  God was going to fulfill His promise and send the Messiah into the world.  God was going to come and rescue His people.  God was going to show up and be with His people.  Emmanuel was on the way.  This was all good news.  In time, even Joseph saw this as good news.

Today’s message of the angel goes from good news to great joy and the message they share gives us three reasons why we can have Great Joy.  The first reason is that the promised Messiah is no longer coming in the future, the Messiah is now here.  Unto you is born THIS DAY.  Today is the day. The Messiah has arrived.  There is no more waiting, there is no more longing for God to step in and do something.  God has done it and the Messiah is here.  In fact, if they wanted to, people could go and see the child because He is lying in a manger in the city of Bethlehem.  

This was great joy 2000 years ago, but it is still great joy today because God is still with us.  The Messiah is still present with us.  We won’t find Jesus as a baby in a manger, but as the living Christ at the right hand of God in heaven.  But Jesus is also with us through the power of the Holy Spirit.  While we might feel far from God and have a longing to see and hear God in our lives, the truth is that God is right here and God is willing to meet us right now.  Jesus said that when he physically left this world that He was going to send His Spirit to lead us and guide us.  We were not going to be left as orphans, Jesus would still be with us through the power of the Holy Spirit.  

So for us today, there is no more waiting.  While we are waiting for Christ to come again in glory, Christ is also right here and He is available to us right now.  If we have hearts and lives open to receive Him, the dear Christ still enters in.  There is no more waiting for Christ to come, Christ is here now.  This is great joy.  

The second way this angels’ message brought great joy was that they said that the Messiah had come for ALL PEOPLE.  All people means all people.  It means the rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, those who feel loved and those who feel forsaken, those who feel chosen and those who feel left out and cast out.  It’s no accident that the message that all people were going to be included in the promise and work of God was given to a group of shepherds.  These were men who most of the time felt like the Messiah would not have come for them.    

While Shepherds did important work, they were considered outcasts and unworthy because their jobs made them ceremonially unclean.  Working with sheep means getting your hands dirty and it wasn’t the dirt of the ground that was the problem.  It was the blood and bodily fluids of the sheep and other animals that the shepherds had to work with that made them unclean.  There were laws that said you had to purify yourself after you touched blood or dead animals before you could enter the Temple, worship God, or just be with other people, and the shepherds never had the time to go through a process of purification.  They were considered unclean and cast out and so they would have been the last ones to consider themselves welcome in the presence of the Messiah - and yet they were included.

The shepherds had no idea that they were the only ones who got the message that night.  In fact, they may have thought that other angels had gone to the kings, rulers, and religious leaders because those were the ones they would have assumed would have gotten that kind news.  So at first they were just excited to be included, but think about how they must have felt when they arrived at the stable and saw Mary, Joseph, and the messiah lying in a manger?  

Mary and Joseph would have told them that they were the only ones who came to see Jesus that night.  There were no rulers, no kings, and no priests or religious leaders.  Just them.  As they left Jesus, the Messiah lying in the manger, they would have been talking about how they might have been the ONLY ones who were given this message.  Now they were really rejoicing because it’s no longer that they had been included, they had been chosen.  Great Joy.

Have you ever had a moment when you realized that no longer have you just been included, but you have been chosen?  Most of us can probably remember the opposite of that. I remember being included in gym class (you had to participate) but being one of the last ones chosen.  For 12 years I could only imagine what it must have been like to be some of the first ones chosen.  To know that some captain saw you as the best and wanted you on their team - what a feeling that must have been.  And then it happened.  No, I wasn’t chosen first or even second in gym class. 

It was my senior year and our yearbooks had just come out.  I read through it, but not that closely and then someone said, Andy, do you see that you were nominated for something in the senior class awards?  You know, those things like most likely to succeed, most athletic, best smile.  Well, yes.  I was nominated for “most sophisticated”.  I didn’t win but it was just an honor to be nominated.  

OK, my class didn’t know me well because I was anything but sophisticated, but hey, I was nominated for something.  I was suddenly special.  People knew my name and thought of me in a positive way.  That’s what the shepherds must have experienced.  Someone actually knew them and they had been nominated and chosen to get the news.  They weren’t the last ones chosen, in fact, they were the first ones chosen.  That night, they may have been the only ones chosen.  This Messiah was for them.  Great Joy.  

The joy the shepherds experienced in being chosen was so great that they couldn’t contain it. They told everyone what they had seen and heard. They told everyone that the Messiah had come and that the Messiah was for all people.  Everyone was included and everyone was wanted.  That is still a message that needs to be shared today and we are the ones who need to share it.  There are still too many people who feel uninvited, unwanted, and unwelcome by God and by God’s people.  If we have been included, then we need to share the news that everyone is included and by coming to God we can experience great joy.    

Who can you invite to come and experience the joy of Jesus?  Who can you invite to Talleyrand on Friday or to worship on Christmas Eve?  Who can you send a card to and say that you are thinking of them and remembering them and that they are loved?  Reaching out to all people is one way we can spread Great Joy into all the world.  

The third way the angels’ message brings joy isn’t so much in what they said but in who the angels chose to share it with - the shepherds.  While the shepherds were seen as outcasts because of their job, their job was also one that connected them to the Messiah.  The Messiah was to come from the line of David, who was a shepherd.  The Messiah was going to save people and lead them into a better life, like Moses who led the people into the Promised Land, and who was a shepherd when God called him.  God Himself is even described as a shepherd in Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd.  So the Messiah didn’t just come for shepherds, He came to be THE SHEPHERD, the good shepherd, and that in itself brings great joy in 3 specific ways.  

#1.  Psalm 23 tells us that the good shepherd will guide us to places of provision, safety, and life.  

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He makes me to lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul;

He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

The Messiah came to lead us to places where we can have fullness and life.  Jesus will lead us to green pastures where we can eat our fill and be satisfied.  He will lead us to still waters where we can drink and be refreshed.  Green pastures and still waters are places of peace and security.  The Messiah didn’t come to just open a door to heaven, the Messiah came to make life here and now better.  

Whatever it is we may feel we lack or need, God can provide.  As the good shepherd, God still wants to meet our needs, bring us peace, and give us a sense of confidence and assurance that all will be well.  Jesus can meet all our needs and supply us with everything God wants for us but we have to be willing to follow and trust the good shepherd.  If we will, there can be great joy.  

#2 A good shepherd also knows His sheep and His sheep know Him.  Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me.”  John 10:14,  Not knowing a lot about shepherds, we may miss the great joy that comes in knowing this.  

A shepherd really had to know his sheep.  He had to walk among them and know their strengths and weaknesses in order to keep them safe.  He had to know which ones might wander out after food or linger in the water.  The shepherd had to spend time speaking to them so that they would know his voice and be willing to follow it.  A shepherd had to take the time to get to know his sheep and God knows us.  As our good shepherd, Jesus knows us.  He walks with us.  He knows what we have been through, the good and the bad, and is still by our side.  The Bible says God knows everything about us, even the number of hairs on your head, and still loves us.  

There is great joy in knowing that God knows us fully and still loves us.  God knows our times of doubt and discouragement when we struggle to believe.  God knows when we aren’t walking faithfully and struggling to do what we know is right.  God knows us fully and still loves us completely.  In fact the Bible says that there is nothing that can separate us from God’s love.  It is unconditional and complete, which means God is always there and God’s presence doesn’t bring shame or guilt, it brings freedom and joy.  Great Joy. 

#3 A good shepherd brings great joy because the shepherd is committed to his sheep and loves them so much that he is willing to lay down his life for them.  Jesus said,  

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.  I am the good shepherd… and I lay down my life for the sheep.  John 10:11-15

God, as a good shepherd, sent Jesus to be the shepherd who would lay down His life for the sheep.  God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.  John 3:16.  That everlasting life is a gift given to us because Jesus laid down His life for us.  Jesus took on the penalty for our sin when He died on the cross.  He died our death and then He fought our enemy Satan.  We know Jesus defeated Satan and destroyed sin and death because on the third day Jesus rose from the grave. Jesus literally laid down His life for us so that we might not die but live.

All of death has been swallowed up in victory, the victory of Jesus Christ.  This is great joy because we couldn’t get this victory on our own.  We couldn’t defeat sin and death on our own.  On our own, we would be devoured by the evil one, but we aren’t on our own, we have a shepherd who not only fights for us but who has won the victory for us.  This is great joy!  We aren’t defenseless, we aren’t defeated, we aren’t dead in our sin - we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us and came to be our good shepherd.

The message of the angel was great joy to the shepherds.  All the waiting was over and the Messiah had come.  And the Messiah hadn’t just come to the in crowd, the wealthy and well connected, the rulers and religious leaders, He came for them and for all people.  They were not just remembered and included but they had actually been chosen.  Great joy.

The angels’ message to a group of shepherds was also great joy because it told the world that the Messiah was Himself to be a shepherd.  A good shepherd who would lead people into the abundance and fullness of life, a shepherd who would fully know His sheep and love them unconditionally, and a shepherd who would lay down His life to save them.  The Messiah coming as our good shepherd brings great joy/  

Jesus is right here and ready to meet us right now.  There is no waiting.  There is no going home to get cleaned up, no changes that need to be made before we can meet Him, Christ is here for us and for all people.  You might not feel worthy or wanted, but Jesus is ready to receive you.  You might feel you have fallen too far or failed too often for God to love you or save you, but Jesus came as the Messiah for all people, that includes us, all of us.  

And Jesus is here to be our good shepherd.  He will lead us into all the fullness of life.  He knows us so well that He knows what we need and is willing to help us, provide for us, and sustain us as you wait for God’s work to be completed.  God knows us fully and loves us completely and He has died for us.  Christ took on our sin and died our death so that we might be forgiven and know the joy of salvation.  All of this, all of this is great joy.  

Next Steps

The Angels’ Message of Great Joy!

This week, reread all the messages of the angels.  

Luke 1:5-25, Luke 1:26-38, Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 2:-14

● What common themes do you see?  

● What difference do you see?  

● How is this week's angels’ message different from the others?  

“THIS DAY”

The angels tell the shepherds that the Messiah is now here.

● How do you experience the living Christ today?

● What practices can help you experience Jesus every day in the new year

● Read John 14:15-31.  Jesus said he would not leave us orphans but through the Holy Spirit God would be with us.  How do you see the Holy Spirit at work in your life and in the world?  What questions do you have about the Holy Spirit?  Ask God for answers.  

“ALL PEOPLE”

Christ came for all people.

● When have you felt invited but not chosen?  

● When have you experienced the joy of being known and wanted?

● How can you help others feel welcome and wanted?

● Who can you share this great joy with this week?

“THE SHEPHERDS”

Jesus as a good shepherd tells us three things.

1. Jesus will lead us into all the fullness of life.  Psalm 23

2. Jesus knows us and loves us still. Matthew 6:25-34

3. Jesus lays down his life for us.  John 10:1-18

When and how did Jesus do these things?

How does Jesus do this for you today?  

The Angel's Message to Joseph

 

This month we are looking at the good news that was given by the angels throughout the Christmas story.  Zechariah heard the good news that God had heard the prayers of His people and was going to send the Messiah.  Zechariah also got the good news that he and his wife were finally going to have a child who would be the one to prepare the way for the Messiah.  Mary heard the good news that she had been favored by God and chosen to be the one who would give birth to the Messiah.  All this good news, however, was not good news for Joseph.  

Joseph was a righteous man who spent his entire life honoring God.  In all of his ways, Joseph sought to be obedient to the teaching of God’s law.  When Mary told him that she was pregnant, and he knew that he was not the father, what the law told Joseph to do was to dismiss her.  An engagement was legally binding, so for Mary to now show up pregnant meant that Joseph should divorce her, and if he wanted to protect his own righteous image, Joseph should do it in a very public way so everyone would know that he was not at fault.  But because Joseph loved Mary and didn’t want to shame her, he made up his mind to dismiss her quietly.  He would work through the mess she had handed him, and move on with his life.

We have to assume that Mary tried to explain to Joseph that she had been visited by an angel and that it was the power of God that brought about this child, but clearly Joseph wasn’t buying it.  Nothing like this had ever happened before, and things like this just didn’t happen in his life.  While we might want to be critical of Joseph for not being more supportive of Mary, we have to give him some credit for loving her enough to not publicly shame her.  

For Joseph, the decision was made.  He was going to move on, and God could have let that happen.  God could have let Joseph walk away and then bring someone else into Mary’s life and allow another man to be part of God’s plan of salvation.  Nothing is impossible for God. God could have said, fine Joseph, you don’t believe what I am doing?  Then just go your way and I’ll go my way.  But that is not what God said and that’s not what God did.

What God did was to send one more angel to give Joseph this message.   Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.  Matthew 1:20-21.

God loved Joseph enough to speak to him during a time of doubt and disappointment.  When Joseph’s world was crashing down around him, God told him to keep going because God was with Him.  I love this!  Maybe of all the angel’s messages during the Christmas story this is my favorite because I love that God didn’t dismiss Joseph but sent an angel to tell him that he was loved, and that God had a plan for his life, and that God was with him.  I love this message because it means that when we have doubts, when we are ready to walk away from God and dismiss Him from our lives, God doesn’t dismiss us.  God loves us enough to never dismiss us and walk away.  

I love this because there was a time in my life when I was ready to walk away from God.  I didn’t want to follow God’s will or consider God’s plan, and I didn’t want to give up the things that I wanted in life, so I dismissed God.  I told God to leave me alone.  But God didn’t.  While God gave me a glimpse of what life would be like without Him, and everything in my life went from bad to worse, God never left me.  God loved me enough to stay by my side as I wrestled and wandered.  

God loved me enough that when I then sat down on a concrete bench under Beaumont Tower on the campus of MSU, God said, Andy, with me there is life, without me there is death, and the choice is yours.  That was the message that came to me after I had dismissed God from my life a month earlier.  I told God I wasn’t interested in following Him and I would live life on my own.  But God loved me enough that He didn’t let go of me and He didn’t dismiss me.  God kept loving me and walking with me and God spoke about how I could experience all the fullness of life.  

One of the common themes we have seen in all of the angels’ messages is that God loves His people.  God loved Israel enough to listen to their prayers and fulfill the promise of giving them a Messiah.  God loved Zechariah enough to fulfill his longing for a son.  God loved Mary enough to choose her to be the mother of the Messiah and to do a miracle in her life, and God loved Joseph enough to not let him walk away in his doubt and disappointment.  God could have let him go, but God didn’t.  One more time God sent an angel to let someone know that they were loved and chosen by God and that God was with them.  

The angel reminded Joseph of what the prophet said long ago.  

The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel (which means “God with us”).  Matthew 1:23

It is in those moments when we are filled with doubt and disappointment, and in those moments when we ask ourselves if God is even there, that God longs to tell us that He is.  In dreams, through His word, in moments of silence, through the words of others, God speaks to us and the message He shares is the same one He gave to Joseph.  Don’t be afraid to keep going.  I am with you.  Don’t be afraid to keep planning and dreaming and living life.  I am with you.  Don’t be afraid of the dark or doubt or disappointments you are facing.  I am with you.

Covid brought disappointment into the Christmas season a few years ago but we found that even during that difficult time, God was with us.  This year, many people are facing the doubts and disappointments of life brought on by a difficult economy.  Investments have decreased.  Prices have increased, and the jobs we have now can be challenging but trying to find a new or right or better job can be even worse.  The plans we had for our future are not as clear today as they were yesterday and it’s easy to dismiss God or start walking on our own.  It is precisely in these moments that God wants to tell us that He is still with us.  

In Luke’s gospel, the angel appeared to Zechariah and Mary in ways they could see and talk to them, but here, the angel appears in a dream.  Angels speaking to people in dreams is not uncommon in Jewish tradition.  God spoke to Abraham, Jacob and Solomon in dreams, so when God spoke to Joseph, it put him in good company.  I wonder, however, if God had to speak to Joseph in a dream because when he was awake, Joseph was too busy trying to think through the problem and figure out how to solve it on his own.  Had Joseph given God time and space to speak?  Do we give God enough time and space to speak?  Are we ever still long enough to know that God is with us and that God has something to say to us?

I know this is a difficult season to be still and quiet.  Good and important activities are all around us.  Opportunities to serve and worship and share and give are all around us and we want to take part in it all.  And there is so much great music to listen to, scriptures to read, movies to watch (and not just on hallmark), and so our days and nights and weekends are filled.  Filled with noise.  Filled with activity and movement.  We fill our lives with so many good things that it can be hard for us to hear God speaking.  

Now let me be clear that the answer isn’t always to do less.  God can speak to us through our times of worship, service, sharing, and giving.  And the answer isn’t to turn off all music and movies.  The answer is to ask God to speak to us in ways we can hear Him in the midst of our busy-ness.  God can speak during times of worship.  Through the music and message of the Christmas Concert this afternoon, God can speak.  In fact, we might just hear an angel's message to us if we come with ears to hear.  We can hear God in all that we do if we ask God to speak and then work to listen.  

God loved Joseph enough to speak to him.  Through his doubts, his disillusionment, and all his thinking and planning about what he should do, God loved Joseph enough to find a time to speak.  And Joseph didn’t just listen to what God said, he followed it.  Joseph took Mary home to be his wife.  He gave the child she carried the name Jesus, and he helped raise the son of God.  

When Joseph made this decision, he chose to live not by the letter of God’s law but the spirit of God’s law.  Joseph didn’t dismiss or divorce Mary, which is what the letter of God’s law required, instead he lived by the spirit of God’s law, which was to love.  We know that love is the foundation and spirit in all of God’s law because of the two passages that the Jewish people revered and Jesus lifted up.  

Deuteronomy 6:5.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength

Leviticus 19:18. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

Joseph’s decision to love God and love Mary shows us what it looks like to follow the spirit of God’s law, and it was an example that Jesus followed throughout His life.  One of the things that Jesus was criticized for over and over again was breaking the letter of God’s law.  Jesus worked on the Sabbath, He healed on the Sabbath.  Jesus touched people who were unclean and allowed unclean and sinful people to touch Him.  Jesus spoke to Gentiles and women, and allowed children into His presence so He could bless them.  Jesus taught people not to hate their enemy but to love them, and instead of seeking an eye for an eye, He said it was better to turn the other cheek.  

Jesus didn’t live by the letter of God’s law but taught us all to live by the spirit of God’s love that rests behind the law.  It’s not that we ignore the law, it’s that we look deeper than the law to see and hear God’s wisdom and discern God’s will.  This is what Jesus did. Where did Jesus learn to do this?  From His heavenly father.  Where did Jesus see this lived out?  In His earthly father, Joseph.  When the law said to dismiss Mary, Joseph took her into his home and heart and loved her.  

Joseph loved God enough to do what God asked him to do, and he loved Mary enough to take her into his home.  Joseph traveled with Mary to Bethlehem and cared for her and their newborn son in a stable.  Joseph protected Mary and their child when they were warned to get out of Israel.  Joseph protected Mary on a trip to Egypt and then a trip home to Nazareth years later.  Joseph loved Mary, not with words, but with actions.

In case you haven’t noticed, Joseph is the only character in our nativity scenes who doesn’t speak.  The angels speak.  Mary speaks and says Yes to God.  The shepherds speak when they say, let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that the angel told us.  The wisemen speak when they ask for directions on where to find the king of Israel.  And unless you believe the legend that the animals spoke on the first Christmas, we know they didn’t speak, but they did make noise.  But Joseph was silent.  There is not one recorded word of Joseph in the Bible and yet his example of love was powerful enough to shape the life of Jesus.  Joseph shows us that:

Love is not measured by what we say, but by what we do.  

This is not to say that our words of love are not important.  It is very important for us to say, I love you, to those we love.  Those words can be transformative.  This past week we celebrated the life of Jane Holderman and one of the most touching stories I heard about Jane was how her constant words of, I love you, shared with her grandson with autism, broke through to him.  Jane was one of the only people who could touch her grandson without him getting agitated.  Her constant words brought him comfort and in time her words allowed him to find his own words and say, I love you, in return.  Words are important, but those words have to be backed up with actions.  

1 John 3:16-18.  This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

God put His love into action when He sent Jesus into this world to be our Savior.  Jesus put His love into action when He saved us from sin by taking up the cross.  Joseph put his love into action when he chose not to dismiss Mary but chose to live by the spirit of love and take her home to be his wife.  

It’s not enough for us to say that we love God, or that we love others, we need to put that love into action.  I want to invite you over the next 2 weeks as we prepare to celebrate the gift of God’s love in Jesus, to find one way that you can put your love for God into action. Maybe it’s to be fully present in worship.  That means showing up and setting aside everything else that is going on so you can be still and know that God is with you.  Maybe it’s to read the Christmas story in Matthew and Luke, and then give God time to tell you what it’s all about.  Find one intentional way that you can love God as we get ready for Christmas.  

Then find one way you can put your love for someone else into action.  Serve others at the Christmas Dinner.  Love our brothers and sisters in Ukraine by giving to the Christmas Offering.  Take in a friend or neighbor who might be alone for the holidays.  Bake something to give away.  Reach out to help someone who is going through a difficult time.  Find one way to put your love into action before Christmas.  

God’s message to Joseph was, I love you.  I’m not going to dismiss you and walk away. I’m going to be with you and show you what love looks like.  Joseph learned what love was all about and then set an example of love that Jesus followed.  God still loves us and God invites us to love Him and others in ways that will not only change the lives of others, but change us as well.  

Next Steps

The Message of the Angel to Joseph

Read Matthew 1:18-25

Why did Joseph not dismiss Mary when the law told him to?  Why did God not dismiss Joseph?  

When have you wanted to dismiss God and walk away from His word, purpose, and plan?  What did you do?  

In the busyness of these next two weeks, ask God to speak to you.  Listen for God in His word, the music you will hear, the movies you will watch, and the schedule that you keep.  

Instead of living out the letter of law, Joseph lived out the spirit of the law and chose to love.  Consider these times when Jesus also lived by the spirit of the law:

● Mark 3:1-6

● Luke 13:10-17

● Luke 6:1-5

● Luke 18:16

● John 4:1-26

What is one intentional way you can love God during these next two weeks?

What is one intentional way you can love others during these next two weeks?  

Put your love into action.  “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”  1 John 3:18

The Angel's Message to Mary

 

Last week we began looking at the message of the angels that we find throughout the Christmas Story.  After not speaking directly to His people for 400 years, God sent an Angel to speak to Zechariah when he was serving as high priest in the Temple.  From the Holy of Holies, the place where Israel believed God dwelled on earth, God’s message was heard.  The angel said that Zechariah’s prayer had been heard.  As the High Priest in the temple, Zechariah’s prayer would have been on behalf of the people, and he would have been praying for mercy and for the coming of the Messiah.  The people had been longing for the Messiah and their prayer was that He would soon come to set them free.  God told Zechariah that the peoples’ prayer had been heard.  A Messiah was coming.  

But there was another prayer in Zechariah's heart that day, a prayer he may have stopped praying out loud because he was old and beyond any real hope that it would happen, but it was the prayer for a child, a son.  As a man, and a husband, Zechariah had long prayed for a child and that prayer had also been heard and was being answered because God said that Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth would have a son who would prepare the way for the Messiah.  

After 400 years, God finally spoke.  God broke the silence, and as Pastor David shared last week, God not only heard the prayers of His people, but He was keeping His promise and sending the Messiah.  God spoke, but God wasn’t done speaking.  There were more messages to come and we just heard the second message, but God didn’t speak these words in the Temple or even in Jerusalem.  

This time, God spoke in an insignificant town about 60 miles north of Jerusalem, a town that no one really liked, the town of Nazareth.  And this time God didn’t speak to a man of respect and standing who had lived a righteous life, or a man who was a priest or acting as the High Priest of God’s people, or even a man.  This time God spoke to a woman that no one knew.  And God didn’t speak during a time of worship or any kind of holy moment, God spoke… well, we don’t know exactly when God spoke.  Luke doesn’t bother to tell us when because there was nothing special about it.  

Some believe that Mary was drawing water when the angel came, and there is still a well in Nazareth where water has been flowing for over 2000 years.  It could have been there that the angel visited Mary, or it could have been in her room at night, or as Mary walked along the road during the day.  We don’t know the moment because it was just an ordinary moment.  God spoke to an ordinary woman, in an ordinary town, at an ordinary moment.  While we might think that God would only speak to righteous leaders in important places during times of worship, this message of the angel makes clear that God also speaks to ordinary people, in ordinary places, and during ordinary moments in life.  

This is really good news for us because most of us probably think of ourselves as being pretty ordinary.  Not that we aren’t special in the eyes of God or created with value and dignity and with gifts to share with others, but let’s face it, in the eyes of the world, we are pretty ordinary.  We aren’t Billy Graham.  Our faith doesn’t shape the decisions of world leaders.  We aren’t well known political figures, musicians, actors, athletes, artists or social media influencers.  We are ordinary.  If we were to walk down the street of any city in America, no one would know us or notice us.    

Like Mary, we are ordinary, and yet the message of this angel tells us that God speaks to ordinary people, and when God speaks, God says the same thing to us that He said to Mary.  Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.  Luke 1:28

This is God’s message to us, today.  God is with us and we have found favor with God.  God is with you and me and you are loved by God.  God is with you, and you have been chosen by God.  We aren’t loved and chosen because we have done something special or righteous or holy, we are loved and chosen and favored because God chooses to love us.  We are favored.   

One of the things that makes our faith unique is that it is always God who loves and chooses His people.  God chose Abram, an ordinary man, to be the father of His people.  Abram hadn’t done anything extraordinary or special that made God choose him and if you read through Abram’s life, he made a ton of mistakes and at times didn’t trust God, but God still loved him.  God reached out and chose him in love.  God chose Moses, and while Moses had been raised in the household of Pharaoh and at one time been known as the Prince of Egypt, that wasn’t when God chose him.  God chose Moses to lead His people after he had run away from God and was an ordinary shepherd working in the fields of his father-in-law.  God chose David, the youngest son that no one paid any attention to, to be the king of Israel.  God chose Mary and Joseph, unknown and ordinary people, to be the parents of the Messiah, and when Jesus chose as His disciples, He didn’t choose outstanding scholars or religious leaders, He chose ordinary people.  

Like Mary, we are chosen and favored by God not because we have done extraordinary things, but because of God’s extraordinary love.    The Bible says, this is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  1 John 4:10.   

It is always God who first reaches out in love.  In love God created the world.  In love God created us.  In love God chose to forgive us and save us from sin by sending Jesus into this world.  John 3:16 says, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  God is love and it is God’s love that reaches out to us ordinary people in ordinary moments to tell us that we are loved, and chosen.  This is what God says to you today, you are highly favored.  The Lord is with you.  

40 years ago this October I had one of those ordinary moments when God spoke.  I was sitting alone on a concrete bench under Beaumont Tower on the campus of MSU.  I had been going through a difficult time in my life and wrestling with whether or not I really believed in God and what it meant for me to have faith in God and to follow Jesus.  As I sat there, I heard God speak.  There wasn’t an angel and there wasn’t an audible voice, but at the center of my very being, I heard God speak.  God said, Andy, with me there is life.  Without me there is death.  The choice is yours.  

 It was an ordinary moment.  I wasn’t expecting God to show up.  I wasn’t expecting God to speak.  I wasn’t expecting God to invite me into the fullness of life, but God did.  And God still speaks.  In ordinary moments, God still shows up and speaks.  Have you had one of those ordinary moments?  Have you had a moment when God showed up and spoke to you?  

If you have, what did God say?  Did you write it down and use that word to guide your life?  Is that message still leading you?  If God has spoken to you, if God has made His presence real to you in some way, I want to invite you to share that experience and that message in some way during this Advent season.  Tell your family or friends.  Share it with a small group, send it out in a Christmas card, write the message on a sugar cookie, I don’t know, but share it.  Let God speak through you.  

If you haven’t had this kind of a moment, or if like the people of Israel, you are longing to hear God speak, part of what this season of Advent is all about is asking God to come and be present with us.  The word Advent means come.  It’s during these 4 weeks that we remember and celebrate when Jesus came into this world as a baby born in Bethlehem.  We also place our hope, not a wishful thinking kind of hope, but real hope in the knowledge that Christ will come again in glory.  But Advent is also a time for us to ask God to come and be with us today, in the ordinary moments of our life.  

If you are feeling overwhelmed because there is too much going on and too much to do as the holidays approach, you need to ask God to come and speak.  In moments of anger or anguish, doubt or depression, frustration or failure, we need to ask God to come and speak.  In moments when we feel forgotten or forsaken, ordinary or outcast, we need to ask God to come and speak.  If we are feeling blessed and filled with love and joy and peace, we need to ask God to come and speak.  If we ask God to speak, He will. God longs to speak to us and God still speaks to ordinary people in ordinary times and places.  

This message of the angel, that God loves and chooses ordinary people, is a message the world needs to hear today.  Too many people feel unworthy of God’s love.  People may want to attend worship, but they feel they have fallen too far or made too many mistakes for God to want them here.  This Christmas angel story is desperately needed in our world today because it tells us that we are all loved and favored and chosen by God. Maybe we can be the messenger, the angel, that can share this good news.  One simple way to share is to invite people to worship.  Invite people to worship with you on Christmas Eve or invite people to join you for Christmas Carols and Cocoa in the park.  

When God spoke to Mary, He didn’t just tell her that she was loved, He also said that she had been chosen to be the mother of the Messiah. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.  Luke 1:31.  

The name is what tells us that the child would be the Messiah because the name Jesus means God saves.  The child Mary was to bring into the world was going to bring salvation.  He was going to be the Savior, the long-awaited Messiah, and Mary’s first response was, how can this be.  Mary understood the importance of this job and she felt like she didn’t have what it would take to do it.  

I can’t do this, Gabriel.  I’m nobody.  I’m ordinary.  I’m not even married.  I’m not enough.  And this is how many of us feel when God speaks to us.  Whether God speaks words of love and forgiveness, or words that give our life a purpose or plan, the first thought many of us have is, how can this be?  I don’t have what it takes.  I’m not good enough to be loved.  I’m not smart enough or talented enough to serve God or make a difference for God in this world.  I’m not enough.  I’m too ordinary.  

If what you are thinking is that God couldn’t possibly choose you to do anything for Him, or that you don’t have enough of what it takes to serve God or answer His call, then hear what God said to Mary.  The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.  Luke 1:35  

God is not asking us to be or do anything on our own, God is asking us to allow Him to work in us and through us.  Whatever God may be asking of you today, He will give you all that you need to do it.  A new job, a new relationship, a new mission or ministry, a new way to serve, a new way to share your faith, a new way to worship - you can do it because God will be doing it through you.  

I don’t need to tell you that this is a busy season.  There are gifts to buy, cards to send, cookies to bake, family gatherings to plan, prepare for and attend, and we have to do all of this while we are finishing up at school or completing projects at work.  We are busy and we begin to wonder if we have enough time, energy and money to get it all done.

And then we open the enews from the church or show up here on Sunday and hear about a dozen ways we are being invited to serve and give.  There’s Breakfast with Santa.  There’s helping setup and teardown at Talleyrand Park, and we can’t forget all the help needed for the Christmas dinner.  

We don’t have enough time to do what we already have planned, how can we do more!  And then there are opportunities to give an extra offering to help with the Christmas Dinner or the Christmas Offering to Raising Hope Ukraine.  We don’t have enough money to buy gifts so how can we give more.  

It’s overwhelming and you might feel like you don’t have enough to do any of this, but then God speaks and says, how about serving here?  How about giving there?  And our first response is, how can this be?  I don’t have what it takes.  I don’t have the time, the energy, the money, or the ability to do it.  God I can’t.  I’m not enough to do one more thing or to give in one more way.  It’s ok to say this. God hears us when we say this just as God heard Mary. 

God heard Mary’s concern, and God’s response to her is what God still says to us today.  The Holy Spirit will come on you.  The power of the Most High will overshadow you.  In other words, don’t worry, I have it covered.  In fact, I have you covered.  I will give you the time, the energy, the money, the ability, and the strength you need to do what I ask you to do.  The Holy Spirit will overshadow you.  The Holy Spirit will give you all you need.  I will do it, all you need to do is believe that I will do it.  Do you believe God can do it?  Will you take a step of faith and let God do it?  

Mary knew she was ordinary and that in herself she didn’t have what it would take to bring the Messiah into the world, but she believed God and took God at His word.  Mary said yes to God’s will and God’s plan without knowing how things would happen and that is what real faith looks like.  Faith is saying yes when we don’t have all the answers.  Faith is saying yes when we still don’t see how it can happen.  Faith is saying yes because while we know that we aren’t enough - we know that God is more than enough.   

Mary’s final answer to God is what faith looks like.  I am the Lord’s servant.  May your word to me be fulfilled.  Faith isn’t about trusting in ourselves and thinking that we have what it takes to do it all, it’s about trusting in God’s love and power enough to say, I am yours God, I will do whatever you want me to do.  

The message of the angel to Mary is still the message of God for us.  You are known by God.  You are loved by God.  You have been chosen by God, and God has something in store for you that seems impossible, but with God - all things are possible.  Like Mary, we can say yes to God and allow God to use us to bring the light of His love and grace and power into the darkness of our world we can say yes because God is with us and the power of the Holy Spirit will come upon us.  . 

Next Steps

The Message of the Angel to Mary

 

Read Luke 1:26-56

 How does this story of God speaking through the angel differ from the story of Zechariah in the Temple?  (Luke 1:5-25) 

What does this tell us about who God speaks to today?

 Why do we often feel God doesn’t speak to ordinary people?

Has God ever spoken to you?  What did God say?  How did God’s word impact your life?  Can you share that message this week? 

 

Advent is a time for us to ask God to come and speak to us.  

● Take time to be quiet and ask God to speak.  

● Ask God to open your ears and you heart so you can hear Him.  

● When you hear God speak, write down what God says.  Allow God’s word to give you direction and life.

 

How might God be asking you to step out in faith?  Where is God calling you to give, serve and share His good news through Faith Church this Christmas Season?

● Breakfast with Santa

● Christmas Carols & Cocoa

● The Christmas Dinner

● Inviting a friend to Christmas Eve Worship

● Giving to the Christmas Offering and Raising Hope Ukraine.

How else is God calling you to worship, serve and give in this season?  

 

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things unseen.  What assurance do you need to say yes to God?  Ask God to speak those words to you today.