Our Miraculous Lord - Luke 1:26-33

Have you ever watched Intervention? It was pretty popular on TV for a while. It may still be — I’m not sure. Typically the show would start out documenting an addict and the severity of their addiction.

And then it would cut to how his addiction was impacting his family. Normally, the family was at a total loss as to how to handle his addiction. They didn’t know how to help. How do you break someone free from an addiction that seems to have complete control over his life? It’s a very tough question.

Then an interventionist would step in to help the family. Basically, the interventionist would coach the family through staging a confrontation with their addicted family member.

Often, the interventions were very successful. Normally, the addicted person would agree to go to rehab and try to get clean and sober.

But everything really hinged on the family seeking outside help. They needed an outsider to step into their family crisis. Had not a drastic measure been taken, then his addiction would have likely killed him.

I think there is a great parallel here because, to put it crassly, we all have a spiritual addiction to sin. Jesus said it most clearly when he said, “no one is good except God.”

But the parallel goes a little deeper when you realize that you cannot fix this yourself. You and I need outside help. We need a spiritual intervention!

And I think that’s precisely what we see in our passage this morning. We see the Lord taking drastic measures in order to redeem sinful humanity. And how would he do it? By becoming just like you and me.

By leaving the heavenly throne room and taking on flesh.

Because ultimately, in order for there to be hope of redemption, God had to intervene. The God of the universe would momentarily suspend the natural laws that govern our world in order to miraculously create a life that would redeem us from our sins.

We see three things in our passage: first, there was a supernatural message (vv. 26-29), second, there would be a supernatural birth (v. 31), because Jesus is a supernatural Savior (v. 32-33).

The definition of supernatural is “attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.” Doesn’t that beautifully describe everything that happens in Luke’s account of Christ’s birth being foretold? But at the same time, it was quite ordinary wasn’t it?

It was extraordinarily ordinary.

A Supernatural Message (vv. 26-29)

Gabriel just appears on the scene in order to deliver an incredible message to Mary. She’s going to give birth to the Savior of the World, Jesus Christ!

But the way everything is introduced to us in verse 26 is quite interesting. There appears to be a lot of tertiary information, most notably, we’re told that the Lord sent Gabriel, “to a city of Galilee named Nazareth.”

What’s interesting about Nazareth is that it’s not interesting at all. In fact, it’s not mentioned at all in the Old Testament. It’s an insignificant city. And then you couple that with who Gabriel was sent to: Mary. A seemingly random woman who is betrothed to a village carpenter named Joseph.

Just to summarize what’s going on: you have this magnificent, sinless, creature, an angel named Gabriel, who was sent from heaven to deliver the most significant message ever to an insignificant woman, engaged to an insignificant man, who lived in an insignificant city.

It’s quite unexpected isn’t it?

You’d expect the Lord to send his holy messenger to an elite Jewish woman living in Jerusalem, right next to the Temple, wouldn’t you? After all, the Messiah would come from royalty and so he would need to live in the royal city, right?

And this is what I meant by extraordinarily ordinary. Extraordinary messenger, extraordinary message, delivered to ordinary people living in an ordinary city.

It’s so consistent with the Lord’s pattern: to use the weak to shame the strong.

It’s a glorious reminder that we don’t need status or a position for the Lord to work in and through us. There’s a temptation to think that once we have this job or this position, then I’ll have everyone’s respect, and then I am available for the Lord to work in and through me. Once I have influence then the Lord can use me.

Sometimes, I think this way of thinking is even worse in the church, because as we all know, the Lord only works through the pastors and elders, right? Obviously, I’m joking, but there is a temptation to believe that the only way you can make a difference in the church is through a “position of authority.”

I’ve heard of men leaving churches because they weren’t nominated to be an elder. I wish I was kidding, but I’m not.

I only mention that because this is a temptation! We think that influence, status, and authority are important in the kingdom of God, but they’re not!

Mary and Joseph were tasked with one of the greatest undertakings of all time – to raise the Lord Jesus. And what were their qualifications? I’m sure Mary had years of experience running daycares and ceaselessly attending to the needs of children and I’m sure Joseph’s qualifications were even better, right?

It’s quite ridiculous isn’t it? Of course Mary and Joseph weren’t qualified! Of course, they didn’t know what they were doing!

But there was one thing going for them. Look at verses 28 and 29 with me. “And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” 29 But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.”

When Luke describes Mary as “greatly troubled” he’s not saying that she was angry, upset or scared, rather, Luke is saying that she was seeking to understand what Gabriel meant. She was ready to receive Gabriel’s message, but was confused when he referred to her as “O favored one…”

She wasn’t rejecting Gabriel’s greeting, rather, she wanted to know what was going on. And this is an important point because many scholars understand Mary’s response in verse 29 as an expression of her humility and faith.

These verses are a little more implicit because she is very explicit with Gabriel in verse 38, (which is just outside of the sermon passage). She said to Gabriel, “Behold, I am the servant[e] of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

And you see, it’s for that exact reason, she was qualified for this glorious undertaking. Her humble reliance upon the Lord is what made her the perfect vessel for his use.

It wasn’t her title. She hadn’t spent years and years as a women’s director or anything like that. She was a sincere Godly woman, which qualified her for God’s use.

Yes, I know the Lord can sovereignly use anything to accomplish his purpose, but if you sincerely want the Lord to work in and through you, you don’t have to wait! You just need to have a humble reliance upon him. The Lord doesn’t care about your title or location! Despite what you might hear, the Lord isn’t only at work in major cities. And likewise, the Lord doesn’t only work through formal positions.

You don’t have to be a women’s director, you don’t have to be an elder, you don’t have to be a deacon in order for the Lord to work through you. In order to see the Lord work, you must first rely and depend upon Him.

A Supernatural Birth (v. 31)

In order for the Lord to work in and through you, you must view yourself as an empty vessel, or a mere lump of clay. And when you think of yourself in those terms, it’s much easier to receive the Lord’s direction for your life.

Gabriel calms Mary’s fears in verse 30 and then reveals her assignment in verse 31: “you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.” Gabriel tells Mary she’s going to give birth to the Lord Jesus Christ! The gospel of Matthew records for us why she is to name him Jesus, “he will save his people from their sins.”

Gabriel delivers the most incredible news to her, but the birth of the Lord Jesus would come about under the most curious of circumstances: she’d give birth even though she was a virgin.

Mary’s virginity is mentioned in passing both in verses 27 and 28.

It hints at the obvious issue, she’s going to give birth to Christ despite being a virgin. She explicitly asks Gabriel this question later in Luke 1:34. She asks, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

It was a great miracle. The Lord Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit! It’s so significant that both the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed both make explicit mention of the virgin birth.

But have you ever considered the fact that Mary had to be a virgin. It was absolutely necessary that Mary was a virgin in order for the Lord to carry out the plan of redemption.

Because original sin stains each and every person. If Jesus would have been born naturally he would have been born into sin just as we are. There is great theological significance to the virgin birth.

Because in order to not be born into sin as you and I were, Jesus had to be conceived by the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of total depravity has affected everyone since the fall, except for Jesus.

But not only that, the virgin birth was required for the two natures of Christ: the fact that he was fully God and fully man.

So the miraculous nature of the virgin birth was absolutely necessary because the gospel depended on it.

But the virgin birth is sort of one of those doctrines of the Christian faith that we assume. We take it for granted. Rarely, do we stop and pause and think about its significance. We just think, “yeah, yeah, I know, I know.”

The virgin birth is one of those doctrines that confounds the mind and cuts against nature because according to human standards it’s impossible. How does a virgin conceive and bear a child?

Therein lies the miraculous nature of it. In order to have our sins atoned for, a perfect sacrifice was required. A lamb without blemish. The birth of the Savior required a miraculous birth, so that he could remain untainted by man’s fall into sinfulness, to take away our sin.

We need a perfect substitute to live on our behalf. God has to atone for our sins, the Lord must graciously take away our sins. A person born under natural conditions is born into sin. You cannot live perfectly and neither could I!

The doctrine of the virgin birth swirled around amidst the modernist vs. fundamentalist controversy of the 1930s. The reason the doctrine was a serious flashpoint was for the obvious reason that it’s miraculous and by definition runs contrary to science. The virgin birth is a scientific impossibility.

And you see, the modernists wanted to, well, modernize the teachings of the church. They believed that Christianity needed to conform to scientific standards. They were trying to make Christianity more palatable for a world that was becoming more secularized.

In the American mainline Presbyterian denomination, it was at one point acceptable for ministers to deny the virgin birth. And in many ways, this was sort of the end for mainline Presbyterianism. American Presbyterianism began to fracture and now we have many Presbyterian denominations.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I read somewhere not that long ago that Presbyterians are like dry cedar wood because they burn up quickly and split easily.

But hopefully, you can see the significance of the virgin birth, the gospel hinges on it. You no longer have a perfect Savior if his birth is exactly like ours because he’s under the curse of the fall. But not only that, it denies his deity: the fact that Jesus was both fully God and fully man. He was both. All of it is necessary for salvation! He had to be like us, and yet, without sin!

The gospel is a beautiful tapestry, but if you begin to pull on a thread you can destroy the whole thing.

The only reason why anyone would be interested in denying such an important component of the gospel is in order to make Christianity more palatable to the world. Because it’s hard to be taken seriously if you believe something that contradicts the natural order of the world. I recently read somewhere that if you attempt to make Christianity conform to the whims of the world you will fail at both. You won’t have Christianity and people will still find it unpalatable.

I know people, very intelligent people that are believers, that waffle on central aspects of Christianity that may conflict with nature or reason because they fear the scorn of the world. They have competing desires. They want to be viewed a certain way, and sometimes their faith disrupts the way they want to be viewed.

Miracles are impossible to understand! And perhaps that’s the point! ladies and gentlemen, that’s the point!

Yes a miracle, divine intervention was absolutely necessary for our salvation! That’s what we need to remember. Our salvation is dependent upon the deity, humanity, and sinlessness of our Savior. He has to be all those things in order to save us! Praise God he did it!

A Supernatural Savior (v. 32-33)

The supernatural message and birth indicates that we have a miraculous Savior.

It’s what Gabriel told Mary in verses 32 and 33. “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Gabriel describes Jesus in a majestic way. He uses royal language. “Son of the Most High.” “The Lord God will give him the throne of David…” He will “reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end.”

The clear idea that Gabriel communicates to Mary is that Jesus is a King. Not just another temporary King over time and space. Not just another ruler that will be here today and gone tomorrow. No he is King but a different sort of king. An eternal King. A forever King.

He’s the one that Psalm 2 spoke of! Psalm 2 is a great Messianic Psalm that describes the Messiah in Kingly terms. In fact, Psalm 2 tells us that the Messiah will be sent directly by God. In Psalm 2 verse 7 the Lord speaks and says, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.” Not “begotten” in the sense that he was created, rather, “begotten” in the sense that he’s being sent out.

This Kingly Messiah wasn’t going to be another earthly King like David, or Solomon, rather, he was and remains the heavenly King. And he wouldn’t just rule Israel, he would rule the whole world. Everything rests in his sovereign hands.

And this King was going to redeem his people. His mission was much bigger than anything that Mary could ever imagine.

And this is why what Gabriel is telling Mary is so significant! He’s the promised one! The One that Israel had been waiting on for so long. He’s finally here!

The long-awaited, much anticipated King is here!

An ordinary announcement wouldn’t be sufficient. This Kingly God-Man required heavenly pomp and circumstance. An angel needed to announce his anticipated arrival, because Jesus wasn’t just going to save Israel from political domination, he would save the world from their sins!

A few weeks ago, my nephew made me laugh. He went to wrestling practice and I asked him how it went? Did you learn anything? Was practice hard? And he just told me, “no, it was all review.” Apparently, he had it all figured out.

I hope that everything I’ve said has been review. Hopefully, you’ve thought about Christ, his incarnation, and how He came to earth, lived perfectly in our place and died on the cross to atone for our sins.

But sometimes, review gets stale. It’s so familiar it loses its significance. It loses its meaning. We must pray that the Lord in his mercy allow us to receive this with fresh eyes that are just as enamored with this glorious truth as the day we heard it for the first time.

The message of the gospel can get stale. And it’s easy to forget about it and live our day-to-day lives in our own strength.

Because here’s what Gabriel is announcing: In order for there to be hope of salvation, God was going to have to do something. He was going to have to act.

After all, how exactly are we washed whiter than snow? How are we made clean? How do we remove the moral stain of our grievous sins that haunt our memories?

We don’t! The Lord does! We need divine intervention.

That was the glorious plan of redemption that was hatched in eternity past. God was going to save his people from their sins by sending Christ to die as the perfect sacrifice on their behalf.

And it’s that perfect sacrifice we must receive and rest in by faith.

This isn’t anything new! This is, to quote the hymn, that old, old, story. And may we never forsake its beauty.