FOURTH SUNDAY IN ADVENT

(Series B)
DECEMBER 24, 2023
Sermon Text: Luke 1:26-38
“Believe What?”

The word “believe” is all over the place these days. In big bold letters, often painted on a piece of old barn
board, leaning up against the wall outside someone’s door or storefront. The signs are quite nice. Not sure, however,
about the object. Believe in what? Santa Claus? The North Pole? The spirit of Christmas? The possibility of peace on
earth? Or perhaps believe in nothing in particular at all? Just believe for believing’s sake because it feels good?
Or, is it believe that a virgin named Mary who lived in a city of Galilee and was betrothed to a man named
Joseph, was visited by the angel Gabriel who announced to her that she was going to have a baby by the Holy Spirit?
And believe that this baby was going to be the Son of the Most High, the promised Messiah,the Saviour of the World
who would sit on the throne of His father David forever? If that’s the object of those signs, then, yes, we would
wholeheartedly agree. It’s certainly what we in the church think about when we see them. Unfortunately, that’s
probably not what many people have in mind who have those signs. Instead, they are thinking of all that other stuff
associated with Christmas – SantaClaus and eight tiny reindeer, a White Christmas, and, perhaps, Baby Jesus and
Mary thrown in for good measure.

For Christians, however, there is a big difference – a difference that makes us who we are. In fact, you
can’t actually be a Christian without “believing” in the annunciation by Gabriel to Mary that she would bear the Son
of God in her own womb. Without Gabriel and Mary and her Baby, Christianity doesn’t make anysense. It all falls
apart. Which sadly, has happened in some churches that have left this key biblical teaching behind, choosing to
believe instead that Jesus was really Joseph’s son, who kind of became the Son of God by being such a good guy . . .
that God, in other words, adopted him. Or that Jesus is a saviour because he shows us how we can also be adopted by
God. But then, the Christian faith becomes all about being good . . . with Christmas being a special time to live out
that goodness to the Tiny Tim’s of this world. But that is not Christianity, and that is not what Christmas is all about
for us Christians.

To be sure, it all does sound a lot more reasonable, doesn’t it? After all, how could a girl become pregnant
without a man being involved in one way or another? Human reason rebels at the thought. “Nonsense,” it says.

Reason would like to group St. Luke’s account in with all the other fairy-tale stories – with jolly old elves in red suits
and reindeer and the north pole. Reason is even willing to put up with the possibility of peace on earth if we all
would really work at it. But reason rebels against this virgin girl and her miracle baby. Reason wants to push aside this
talk of the angel Gabriel and the Holy Spirit.

Reason isn’t new to this game of course. Reason has rebelled against it from the very beginning. In Jesus’
day people reasonably said: “Isn’t this Mary’s son? Joseph’s boy? Isn’t this the son of the carpenter?” Martin Luther
in his sermon on this very doctrine laments over the know-it-alls in his own time who object to it saying that it’s not
reasonable, that it doesn’t make any sense. He says that his own reason could add a few more arguments just to show
the know-it-alls that they aren't the only ones who can be smart enough to argue against the truths of HolyScripture.
No, reason isn’t new to the game, despite what so many modern people believe . . . thinking that they are so clever in
rejecting what God has revealed. Infact, reason’s rampage goes back to the Garden of Eden where it got filled with its
own self-importance with Satan’s lying words, “Did God really say?”

To be sure, human reason was and is a blessed gift of God. God uses it for much good in our lives, in the
world, and even in the Church. Luther himself appealed to sound reason when he was on trial for his teachings;
asking to be shown byScripture and sound reason that he was in error. Reason is a good gift; but like all God’s gifts, it
too can be made into an idol. In fact, all idols start out as God’s good gifts, whether it’s the wood or stone that people
turned into statues that they worshipped, or whether it is the money, healthy living, family, sexual pleasure, food,
alcohol or pain killers of our own culture and world. The devil knows that good gifts make good false gods who are
anything but good to us. And following his lead we’ve become very good at making them too.

And although reason is a good gift from our heavenly Father, when it bumps up against His Word it
needs to be told to sit down and shut up. Yes, you are to think, use your reason. God, after all, gave you a brain so that
you could do just such a thing. But do not try to out-think God. What loving father would give a gift to his children
so that he could get them out of his life? A father who loves his children gives them gifts to draw them closer to
himself. To be sure, a father who hated his children, who wanted to be rid of them . . . that father might give them a
one-way ticket out of town as a gift, but not one who loved them. Yes, you are to think, to use your reason, but such
is given to you in order to draw you closer to God . . . and which only happens through thinking and meditating on
His Word and having it shape your thoughts.

And when reason bumps up against the Word of God, know-it-all reason needs to be told to sit down,
shut up and listen. It needs to be tutored. The Holy Spirit needs to be its teacher, its master. Otherwise, how are we
ever to believe that the Son of God became man in the womb of that virgin girl in Nazareth by the name of Mary?
And that He did so in order to live and suffer and die to save know-it-all sinners like you and me? As much as reason
might object to the incarnation of our Lord in the womb of the virgin Mary, which with all the goings on in
reproductive medicine (some of them truly horrifying) doesn’t seem that far out anymore; how much more so must
it object to this idea – that the almighty God would do such a thing for the likes of us sinners. And yet, there it is, as
plain as can be in Holy Scripture; prophesied throughout the Old Testament and announced in the Holy Gospel.

How humbling it is to see Mary this day bowing her head to the Word of God; setting her reason aside
which would have had powerful arguments against it. Think on what she is asked to believe and what it would mean
for her for a minute. After all, the Law of Moses sentenced a woman to death who got pregnant without a husband.
There can be no question that what we see in Mary is a Spirit-tutored reason, a reason that knows its teacher and
master and bows before Him. What a cause for rejoicing this day, as it will be on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day,
that the Spirit did such a work in her, that He stilled her reason before the Lord, that through her “amen” to His
Word we might have her child for our Saviour.

And today, the Spirit is still at work – at work through God’s Word to tutor your own reason, to teach it,
to master it; so that like Mary you too may give your ‘amen’ to the truth that the Son of God was made flesh for you,
that He lived, suffered and died for you. Today, He is at work through His Word, so that you, like Mary, might say
your ‘amen’ to the truth that He has joined His life to your sin, your baptism, and that He comes to give Himself to
you in His body and blood in His Supper. Yes, the Spirit is at work today, so that as the sign says, you might “believe”
. . . and in believing know the peace and joy of Mary’s Son, your Saviour, this Christmas and forever. Amen.

Sermon Read by Lance Ostrom.