Luke 1:26-56

²⁶ In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, ²⁷to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’ ²⁹But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. ³⁰The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. ³¹And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. ³²He 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 ancestor David. ³³He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ ³⁴Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ ³⁵The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. ³⁶And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. ³⁷For nothing will be impossible with God.’ ³⁸Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her.

³⁹ In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, ⁴⁰where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit ⁴²and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. ⁴³And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? ⁴⁴For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. ⁴⁵And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’

⁴⁶ And Mary said, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, ⁴⁷ and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, ⁴⁸ for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; ⁴⁹ for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. ⁵⁰ His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. ⁵¹ He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. ⁵² He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; ⁵³ he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. ⁵⁴ He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, ⁵⁵ according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

⁵⁶ And Mary remained with her for about three months and then returned to her home.

A Strangle Kind of Greeting.

If you were going to tell a story about yourself you’d probably begin with your birthday. Of all the gospels, Luke spends the most time detailing the birth of Jesus. None of the other gospels, Matthew, Mark and John, tell the story of Jesus’ birth like Luke. In contrast, Mark begins with Jesus’ baptism; Matthew begins, after a long genealogy, with a quick acknowledgement of Jesus’ birth to the Virgin Mary and then quickly moves on to the only detailed account of the Magi who came from the East to visit a new born king. Last but not least, John begins his gospel with lofty talk about the Word (Jesus) that has become flesh.

Intent on giving an orderly account (Luke 1:1), Luke locates the birth of Jesus in the line of genealogy going back to David and Adam. Jesus’ connection to Adam shows that the birth of Jesus has implications for all of humanity. Jesus’ link to David shows that the birth of Jesus is the Messianic fulfillment of God’s covenant with Israel.

Throughout Luke’s gospel, Luke shows Jesus having a particular concern for the marginalized in society: poor, children, sinners, tax collectors, Samaritans, prodigal sons, shepherds and women. This brings us precisely to the text before us, as Luke’s telling of Jesus’ birth gives considerable focus to Mary and Elizabeth’s role in the coming of Israel’s Messiah and the salvation of the whole world.

What’s so special about Mary? There is no denying that for the Jewish-Palestinian culture, the last person expected to bring about the coming of Israel’s Messiah would have been a 13 year-old-peasant girl named Mary. She was not even married, only recently engage to Joseph. Apart from divine intervention there was little reason to believe that a pregnancy at this time would in any way be a welcome greeting. Would Joseph go along with this plan? Wouldn’t this young couple be publically scandalized by those who would not greet the baby growing in her womb with welcome? So, what kind of greeting had Gabriel brought Mary?

It’s difficult to fathom the pondering that went on in Mary’s heart. Why had she found favor with God and been chosen to conceive, by the power of the Holy Spirit, a child who would be the Messiah? In parallel fashion, why had Elizabeth, her elderly cousin who had been barren quite some time miraculously become pregnant? There is no doubt that Luke meant for us to see these two seemingly impossible pregnancies in light of the miraculous birth of Isaac to the elderly Sarah and Abraham. The point for us is that the God of Israel is up to something awesome and seemingly impossible in the birth of Jesus!

Luke tells us, with God, all things are possible. Therefore, Mary assents to become the mother of all the faithful when she acts in obedience to Gabriel’s words. She didn’t have to do it. Gabriel did not coerce her. She freely chose to open herself up to be the bearer of God. In the early Greek Christian tradition Mary is known as the theotokos, the God bearer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theotokos.

So, yes, Luke tells the story of Gabriel who brought a strange kind of greeting, but one that was also pregnant, for it was a greeting that invited Mary to give birth to the salvation of the whole world. Thanks be to God she was willing to bear this for us!

Isaiah 7:1-25

7In the days of Ahaz son of Jotham son of Uzziah, king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah son of Remaliah of Israel went up to attack Jerusalem, but could not mount an attack against it. ²When the house of David heard that Aram had allied itself with Ephraim, the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.

³ Then the Lord said to Isaiah, Go out to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller’s Field, ⁴and say to him, Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smouldering stumps of firebrands, because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and the son of Remaliah. ⁵Because Aram—with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah—has plotted evil against you, saying, ⁶Let us go up against Judah and cut off Jerusalem and conquer it for ourselves and make the son of Tabeel king in it; ⁷therefore thus says the Lord God: It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass. ⁸ For the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin.

(Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered, no longer a people.) ⁹ The head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you do not stand firm in faith, you shall not stand at all.

¹⁰ Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, saying, ¹¹Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven. ¹²But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test. ¹³Then Isaiah said: ‘Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? ¹⁴Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. ¹⁵He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. ¹⁶For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted. ¹⁷The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on your ancestral house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah—the king of Assyria.’

¹⁸ On that day the Lord will whistle for the fly that is at the sources of the streams of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. ¹⁹And they will all come and settle in the steep ravines, and in the clefts of the rocks, and on all the thorn bushes, and on all the pastures.

²⁰ On that day the Lord will shave with a razor hired beyond the River—with the king of Assyria—the head and the hair of the feet, and it will take off the beard as well.

²¹ On that day one will keep alive a young cow and two sheep, ²²and will eat curds because of the abundance of milk that they give; for everyone that is left in the land shall eat curds and honey.

²³ On that day every place where there used to be a thousand vines, worth a thousand shekels of silver, will become briers and thorns. ²⁴With bow and arrows one will go there, for all the land will be briers and thorns; ²⁵and as for all the hills that used to be hoed with a hoe, you will not go there for fear of briers and thorns; but they will become a place where cattle are let loose and where sheep tread.

No Ordinary Child

It’s hard to understand exactly what Isaiah is talking about in this text of conquering kings, wondrous signs and rather odd prophesies. But one thing is clear: God will be with his people. “14Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.” Immanuel literally means, “God with us.”

We do know that the God of Israel has been known to bring about his will and purpose through a woman who gives birth to a baby. Sarah was quite the unexpected mother in her old age; and yet, God gave her a son as promised. Isaac was born to Sarah and Abraham in fulfillment of the covenant God had made with them.

We don’t know the identity of the young woman about whom Isaiah prophesies in his historical context. We, along with biblical scholars, can only argue and speculate about her identity. Perhaps she’s Isaiah’s wife; perhaps she’s King Ahaz’s wife; maybe she is an anonymous woman who is pregnant. Regardless, the point is that Isaiah sees a divine sign of hope in this expectant young woman. Her son will mature and become a wise leader who will remove foreign threats to Jerusalem.

We do know, retrospectively, that Isaiah’s prophetic words find their ultimate fulfillment in the young woman Mary, who submits to giving birth to God’s own Son. Jesus will not be just another wise leader, but to a Savior-King, who, in his very flesh and bone, is Immanuel, God with us!

Jeremiah 23:1-8

23Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord. ²Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord. ³Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. ⁴I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the Lord.

5 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ⁶In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

7 Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of Egypt’, ⁸but ‘As the Lord lives who brought out and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the land of the north and out of all the lands where he had driven them.’ Then they shall live in their own land.

Who’s Your Daddy?

Ancestry.com has become quite the thing these days. With advances in DNA testing one can readily learn about his or her family tree. Perhaps you always believed your ancestors came from northern Europe. Now you might very well find out that they came from southern Europe. Who would’ve guessed?

Ancestry was quite the thing for Israel too. Recall that God had promised to make Abraham and Sarah ancestors of a numerous people so that they might be a blessing to others (Genesis 12:1-9). While it’s clear God was committed to seeing his family tree grow, it wasn’t so clear God’s people were committed to this. Therefore, God called Jeremiah to speak a word of truth to the people of Judah. The trouble was that the prophet Jeremiah had something not so nice to say about God’s family tree—a tree with lineage going all the way back to Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Jacob, to name a few. In so many words, Jeremiah told the kings, priests, and prophets of Judah that they were threatening to chop down the family tree because of their unfaithfulness to God’s covenant. Under their misguided leadership the people of Judah had turned to worship other gods and failed to keep the covenant God outlined in the Ten Commandments. Most sinister of all, Judah’s leaders, a.k.a. shepherd-kings, had not faithfully protected and cared for God’s people.  As a consequence, Jeremiah warned that God would permit the destruction of Jerusalem, the city upon which the family tree was rooted; but the people of Judah would not listen to him.

Sure enough, Jeremiah’s words came to pass. God allowed the people of Judah to be conquered by King Nebuchadnezzar, scattered, and exiled from Jerusalem. Their new home would be in a foreign land called Babylon. As Jeremiah had warned, the family tree would be uprooted, broken, and unable to branch out in blessing to others.

To a despairing, exiled, and shattered family, Jeremiah also spoke words of good news. He proclaimed that God will one day raise up a righteous branch in the line of David. This shepherd-king will do what the other shepherd-kings failed to do. He will be the “Good Shepherd” (John 10:11); one who will execute God’s justice and righteousness. This shepherd-king will restore Israel and Judah to their homeland where they will live in safety.

Today we believe that the family tree has been replanted, rooted at the foot of the cross, and raised with a righteous branch in the person of Jesus Christ. Therefore, as God promised Abraham and Sarah, their descendants are as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand upon the earth. This is so all people on earth might know who’s their Daddy—the God of Israel. Who would’ve guessed?

Psalm 110

¹ The Lord says to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.’ ² The Lord sends out from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your foes. ³ Your people will offer themselves willingly on the day you lead your forces on the holy mountains. From the womb of the morning, like dew, your youth will come to you. ⁴ The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek.’ ⁵ The Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. ⁶ He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter heads over the wide earth. ⁷ He will drink from the stream by the path; therefore he will lift up his head.

It’s Coronation Day

My five and a half year old daughter has finally gotten interested in something other than the Disney movie Frozen. It may be surprising to you that my reflection on Psalm 110 would have any relation to Frozen, but it does. As the film unfolds, Elsa, following her parents’ tragic death, is the royal heir, the next one in line to become the Queen of Arondale. Recall Elsa’s coronation day. In ceremonial fashion Elsa is crowned Queen before her people. At that moment she reaches to grasp the scepter, but only after she places her gloves on her hands to guard against wielding the scepter through fear.

Psalm 110 anticipates the coronation of a righteous leader who will rule over Israel. The psalm clearly anticipates a messianic ruler, one who is not only the king of a nation, but a priest for the people, specifically a priest according to the order of Melchizedek. Unlike a priest according to Levi, a priest according to Melchizedek would have no successor; he would be priest forever. As the writer of Hebrews explains: ‘King Melchizedek of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham as he was returning from defeating the kings and blessed him’; ²and to him Abraham apportioned ‘one-tenth of everything’. His name, in the first place, means ‘king of righteousness’; next he is also king of Salem, that is, ‘king of peace’. ³Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever (Hebrews 7:1-3).

At the time this psalm was written it’s clear that Israel was longing for a leader who would be their king and priest. It’s difficult to suggest that the writer of the psalm would have had Jesus in mind. At the same time, it’s equally difficult for Christians today to read this psalm and come away from it not seeing Jesus as the fulfillment of its messianic expectation. The gospel writers themselves, Mark in particular, proclaim Jesus as the one who is the priestly king described in the psalm, i.e. ³⁵While Jesus was teaching in the temple, he said, ‘How can the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David?  ³⁶David himself, by the Holy Spirit, declared, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’  (Mark 12: 35-36).

The royal priest and king described in Psalm 110 anticipate Jesus, the Son of God, who takes a position of authority at God’s “right hand.” In this position of power Jesus’ rule subdues Israel’s enemies, making them “a footstool” as he dies on the cross. Unlike Elsa, the scepter is not wielded through fear, but executed through justice as Jesus is crowned with thorns. Jesus, the Messiah, sacrifices himself for his people; therefore, his people do not offer themselves to him out of fear, but out of a willing heart.

Numbers 21:4-9

4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. ⁵The people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.’ ⁶Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. ⁷The people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people. ⁸And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.’ ⁹So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

Both Troubling and Saving.

This story from Numbers raises troubling questions. Why would the Lord send poisonous serpents among the Israelites in order that they might die? This biblical revelation makes you wonder why anyone would worship a god who does something so capricious and morally suspect. This is troubling.

To give us some perspective, I suggest we interpret this “bronze snake story” as though it is another variation on the theme of Genesis 3. Recall that in this Genesis story Adam and Eve committed the first sin, original sin.

In the book of Numbers the setting is not the Garden of Eden, but the wilderness into which the Israelites have been led by Moses out of Pharaoh’s bondage. At this juncture in Israel’s history is necessary to recall that God has just proven his faithfulness: God has rescued the Hebrew people from Pharaoh, a wretched political oppressor. Shouldn’t the Israelites be praising the God of Israel? One would think so, but instead the Israelites grumble and complain about their state of affairs. Their grumbling goes so far as to suggest that the God who had rescued them from slavery did so for the express purpose of bringing them into the wilderness to die. This is troubling.

If we take a step back, it’s apparent the Israelites have composed their own variation on Genesis 3. The human propensity to disbelieve God’s word is passed from one generation to the next. The serpent presented Adam and Eve with a question suggesting doubt about God’s word: ‘Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden”?’ Similarly, the Israelites doubt God’s purpose for their lives: “‘why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?’”

The Israelites fell just like Adam and Eve. They doubted whether God desired life for his people, not death. It is against this backdrop that I think we must interpret that the Lord’s “sending of deadly serpents”. The intrinsic consequence of sin, of disbelieving God’s word leads to death e.g. “killer snakes”. This is troubling.

The takeaway from this reading from Numbers is not that God arbitrarily sent snakes to make the Israelites die. The takeaway is that human sin as expressed in unbelief leads to death. The good news is that God desires for us to have life, and have it abundantly. This good news is that God is good. God is trustworthy, and God has our best interest at heart. The takeaway is that even when we refuse to believe God’s good purpose for our lives; God still gives us a way out of death to life. God takes the serpent, a symbol of death, and turns it into an instrument of life, healing and salvation for the Israelites. Here we can begin to imagine how a cross, a symbol of death, might be turned into a symbol of salvation. This is hardly troubling. In fact; it’s downright saving!