Bible Passage: Luke 1:26-38
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: December 24, 2023

Bulletin December 24, 2023

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

Impracticable, nonviable, unworkable, beyond one, unthinkable, unimaginable, inconceivable, paradoxical, illogical, irrational, undoable, like herding cats, unattainable, unachievable, unobtainable, hopeless, implausible, far-fetched, forlorn, vain, incredible, unbelievable, absurd, ludicrous, ridiculous, laughable, preposterous, outlandish, outrageous, wild, and harebrained.  Do you know what all of those words are?  All of those words are synonyms of “impossible.”  That is, they all mean the same thing.

Our text for this morning contains a number of things that fall into this category.  Things that seem unthinkable, unimaginable, implausible.  Things that any thinking, rational person with half-a-brain would say are IMPOSSIBLE.  Yet, as we shall see, we are dealing with almighty God.  For this reason we say:  Impossible?  Not with God!

Our text begins with a timestamp.  In the sixth month (v. 26).  This is in reference to what comes immediately before our text.  Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s mother, is six months pregnant with John when this incident takes place.  Keep this in mind!  We’re going to get back to it!

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, the angel Gabriel is sent by God to the little village of Nazareth in Galilee.  There he appears to a girl named Mary.  Mary is engaged to a man in town named Joseph.  Mary and Joseph are not enjoying the benefits of marriage while engaged.  Mary is a virgin.  Joseph was a descendent of great King David (Mary was, too).  The house of David had long ago ceased being the “house of kings.”  Joseph made a living as a carpenter.  Greetings you who are highly favored!  The Lord is with you.  Blessed are you among women! (v. 28) the angel says.  Mary is jolted by the angel’s words.  “Highly favored?  Blessed among women?  Me?  What is happening?”

The angel then begins to tell Mary impossible things!  The angel tells Mary that she is going to get pregnant and have a baby!  Impossible!  Mary is a virgin!  She is to name her little boy Jesus.  And the angel tells Mary that her son will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High (v. 32)  Impossible!  How can a little baby boy born to a Jewish girl, albeit a nice Jewish girl, from the hillbilly village of Nazareth be called the Son of the Most High?  There’s more to strain credulity.  The angel tells Mary that her boy is going to be a king!  He is going to sit on the throne of David.  And his reign will never end!  Impossible!  The royal line of David came to an end 6 centuries before!  To use the language of the prophets, the once-sturdy tree of the Davidic monarchy was now just a stump in the ground.  No, no!  None of this is scientific!  None of this is logical!

Mary’s “impossible-detector” is blinking.  How will this be, since I am a virgin? (v. 34)  Mary knows enough about human reproduction to know it takes two becoming “one flesh” to conceive a child.  And she is a virgin; she has not been “one flesh” with any man!  Mary knows that girls do not spontaneously generate human babies in, or by, themselves.  What Gabriel has said is simply, biologically impossible.

Gabriel answers Mary’s question:  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. (v. 35)  Mary was going to fall under the shadow of the omnipotent Spirit of God.  That is how this is going to happen.  The angel’s answer wasn’t meant to be a scientific, medical explanation, one that would be printed in the New England Journal of Medicine.  It is theological!  God will do it!  That is how a virgin will have a baby!  That is how the Son of the Most High will become flesh!  That is how David will have a son who will sit on the throne forever!  It will be a kingdom of power, and grace, and finally, never-ending glory!

And as proof that God will do this impossible thing, the angel points Mary to an impossible thing God was doing.  Listen, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age even though she was called barren, and this is her sixth month. (v. 36)  Now, Elizabeth’s baby wasn’t conceived by the Holy Spirit.  But Elizabeth and Zechariah had tried for years to have a baby.  But Elizabeth couldn’t have babies.  And now they are old.  But as Gabriel spoke, Elizabeth, a barren, postmenopausal woman, was six months along!  Impossible?  Nothing will be impossible with God. (v. 36)

And now, one more impossible thing.  Mary said, See, I am the Lord’s servant. May it happen to me as you have said. (v. 36)  Mary believed what Gabriel said!  He had said unreasonable, illogical, impossible things to her, and she believed it!  She believed it because God worked faith in her which took him at his Word.

Shame on us for ever doubting our God!  What our God says may not always seem to us to be reasonable, scientific, rational, logical.  But it is always theological.  It is always the Word of our God, and it cannot fail.  It is the Word of the God who did the impossible.  He had a plan to get sinners like you and me into heaven.  A plan that allowed him to be just and punish all sin, and yet let sinners into heaven.  Impossible?  Behold, Jesus, Mary’s son and the Son of the Most High, who sits on David’s throne forever!  Onto Mary’s son, God placed the guilt of all our sin.  And in Mary’s Son, sin was punished.  And since Mary’s son was also the Son of the Most High, his payment on the cross could count for us all!  In Jesus, God has done the impossible!

May Jesus always be for us the proof that nothing is impossible with our God!

Amen.