JESUS: THE BLESSING OF GOD

LUKE 1: 39-56

INTRODUCTION

Every Christmas Eve that I can remember as a child, my three brothers and one sister and I would awaken sometime between 3 and 4am. We would bring our pillows and our blankets from our bedrooms and spread them out on the living room floor in front of the brightly glowing Christmas tree with all the presents arranged neatly around the foot of the tree. Then we would drift in and out of sleep for the next couple of hours but by 7am we were jumping on our mom and dad to drag them out of bed to open presents. Probably for most children, the anticipation of opening presents on Christmas morning is one of the high points of their young lives. Most of the time, most children have very specific hopes of what they will find wrapped, with their names attached. Raise your hand if you have a particular gift you are hoping to unwrap?

For most of us adults, the best gifts we hope for cannot be found under the Christmas tree. While we enjoy the excitement of the children and appreciate the kind expressions of affection that accompany the gifts we receive, most of us know that the best gifts cannot be wrapped in Christmas paper. Let me ask you, what would be the best gift that God could give you right now? I think our answers would be varied if we were to sit around and take our turn answering that question. Some would wish for a new job or better pay. Some would want better health or better relationships with other people. Some would wish for some source of grievous pain to be removed or a relationship restored. If God really loved you, what would he give you? In our passage today we are going to see that the sending of Jesus Christ into this world of sin is the best gift that God could ever give you. If God gives Jesus to you he has given you the best thing he can possibly give. I want to reflect on three ways the story of Mary and Elizabeth show us that Jesus is the best gift that God can ever give to you or I.

MAIN POINT

Jesus Christ is the best gift God can give because…

I. Jesus is better than the best thing that you can imagine (vv. 39-45)

You cannot miss the exuberant joy that is expressed by both Elizabeth and Mary in this passage. In fact, two times there is a Greek word used that is hard to translate because of the intensity of the joy it expresses. It is used in v. 44 of the baby, John the Baptist, who is in the womb of his mother Elizabeth. He leaps in his mother’s womb out of exuberant joy. Then Mary, in v. 47 says, “…and my spirit rejoices with joy inexpressible and full of glory in God my Savior.” Neither of these women can contain themselves for the joy that is in them at this meeting. Elizabeth cries out with a great voice and Mary bursts into a song. I want you to consider the actual circumstances of these two women’s lives and then see how their joy contrasts with their circumstances.

First of all, Elizabeth is in at least her late fifties, perhaps older. She and her husband Zechariah have been unable to have any children during the course of their long marriage. The inability to bear children is a source of great sadness in our day but in her day, it was devastating. Remarkably, a little over five months prior to this meeting Elizabeth’s husband had returned to their small village in the hills of southern Judah from serving his term as a priest in Jerusalem. However, he could not speak when he came home. Through signs and writing he informed her that one day, while he was offering the daily sacrifice in the Holy Place, an angel appeared to him and told him that they were going to have a child in their old age. This was to be a unique child as he would be the one who would prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. Their son was to be named John and he would be the one who would announce the coming of the Messiah. Zechariah could not talk because he had not believed what the angel said but had asked how he could know for sure this was going to happen. The angel told him he would be unable to talk until the birth of the child. As the angel said, Elizabeth, in her old age became pregnant. She was very happy about being pregnant. Look at how she responds in v. 25, “The Lord has done this for me. In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.” Bearing a child after 40 years of barrenness and not just any child but one destined for great things was cause for great joy.

However, look at how Elizabeth responds to the arrival of Mary in vv. 42-45. The level of the joy is increased a hundredfold. The baby in the womb leaps for joy upon hearing Mary’s greeting. Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit and cries out with a loud voice. She is overcome with emotion. She declares how blessed is Mary and the child in her womb. Please note, Mary is only days pregnant. She is overcome with the enormity of the privilege of being visited by the “mother of my Lord.” She knows that the favor of God has been given to her but she knows that God’s favor has been poured out upon Mary in infinitely greater ways for she is the mother of the Lord. There is no jealousy in Elizabeth. There is only overwhelming gladness and worship because she knows that the birth of the Messiah is better news than a 55-year-old barren woman bearing a child. It is better news than bearing the prophesied forerunner to the Messiah. It would be hard to imagine more joyous news than a woman barren for 40 years bearing a son. Yet, the coming of the Messiah is infinitely better news than that. Jesus is better than anything you can imagine.

But then consider also the circumstances of Mary. She is most likely in her mid to late teens. She is engaged to be married. A week ago, she was informed by the angel Gabriel that she was going to bear a child who would be the son of the most High God. She was to be the mother of God as a virgin . The angel had told her about Elizabeth’s pregnancy. Elizabeth is her relative, most likely she is her aunt on her mother’s side. Mary knows that she cannot remain in her small town of Nazareth as an unmarried woman who is pregnant. She knows that she can tell no one what the angel told her except for her relative, Elizabeth, who also bears a miracle child. When she goes to Elizabeth she leaves behind the happy life she was planning to live with Joseph. She cannot tell him. She does not know what the future will hold. She only knows that what she has been told is the most amazing and joyful news ever announced.

However, can’t you imagine the uncertainty and doubt that must have come to her the day after Gabriel’s visit? In the light of day, the visit of the previous night must have seemed like a dream. She would have no physical evidence of the pregnancy. So when she gets to Elizabeth’s home and simply at her calling out to Elizabeth she hears these amazing words, how her heart is filled with joy. The leaping of the baby and the Holy Spirit inspired words of Elizabeth are the second witness to Mary. God has given her assurance that what she was told by the angel is indeed going to happen. Mary, at this point, does not know that God is going to send an angel to Joseph and that he will marry her. She is presuming that she is going to bear and raise this son without the protection of a human husband and father. Yet, look at her joy. The arrival of Christ is to Mary, better than having a husband and family. It is better than being known as a respectable woman. She is willing to suffer the loss of every human aspiration and to endure all manner of poverty and ill-treatment for the sake of the Son of God, whom she will bear.

There is no earthly good that you can imagine that can compare to the greatness and goodness of Jesus Christ. If you are possess Jesus Christ you have infinite and eternal wealth that cannot even be compared to the best thing that earth has to offer. If Jesus has come to you, you can say with the Psalmist, “Whom have I in heaven but you? Earth has nothing I desire apart from you?”

Jesus Christ is the best gift God can give because…

•  Jesus is better than the best thing you can imagine

•  And …

II. Jesus came to rescue us from our humiliation (vv. 46-49)

I want you to see why it is that Mary magnifies the Lord and rejoices with great joy in God. Notice it is not first of all because he chose her to be the mother of the Son of God. She rejoices because God is her Savior, because he looked upon her humble estate. The word that Mary uses for “humble estate” does not refer to the fact she is a young, poor, unmarried virgin. This is the word that is used throughout the OT for the misery and humiliation of God’s people under the curse of sin and Satan. It is the word used to describe Joseph’s 13 long years of slavery and persecution in Egypt. It is the word that is used to describe the condition of Israel in their slavery in Egypt. It is the word that is used to describe Israel’s misery under the oppression of the Philistine’s. It is used in Psalm 25:18. “Look upon my humiliation and my distress and take away all my sins.” In short, Mary is full of joy because she knows that the child in her womb is her Savior from sin and the miseries of sin. This is what is overwhelming to Elizabeth as well. These women know that their greatest problem in life is their own sin and all the misery in their life due to their own sin. Therefore they are full of joy because the one who will save them from their sins is now in Mary’s womb.

I have spent over 25 years of my life talking with individuals about their personal lives and their relationship to God. I have lived as a Christian for almost 30 years. I can tell you without any hesitation that the greatest barrier I experience in my life to experiencing the joy of Christ is my unwillingness to see my own sin as my greatest problem. It is also the greatest barrier I encounter in the lives of those with whom I talk. I can tell you without any hesitation that is the greatest barrier standing between you and your full enjoyment of the good news of Jesus Christ. We do not truly understand the depth of our humiliation. We are depraved people, slaves to sin, lost to God and we are completely helpless to do anything to save ourselves. We by nature hate God and his ways. We are his enemies. The primary source of Mary’s joy is not that she gets to do this great thing for God. Rather her great joy is due first to the fact that God is sending a Savior to rescue her and all of God’s people from the humiliation due to their sin. I beg you to not view anything else as your greatest problem. Your sin and all the misery due to you for sin is your greatest problem. Therefore Jesus Christ, who has come to save his people from their sins, is the best gift you can ever receive.

Jesus Christ is the best gift God can give because…

•  Jesus is better than the best thing you can imagine

•  Jesus came to rescue us from our humiliation

•  And …

III. Jesus turns the world right side up (vv. 50-56)

The second half of Mary’s song is astounding. She uses the most expansive language to describe the consequences of the birth of the baby she now carries. Look at the tense of all the verbs. She is one week pregnant and she is declaring that God has already done mighty deeds. He already has scattered the proud. He has already brought down rulers from their thrones and lifted up the humble. He has already fed the hungry but sent the rich away empty. He has already helped his people, Israel and been merciful to Abraham and all his descendants. She captures in these few statements the effect of the Messiah’s birth upon the universe. All that is wrong has been made right by the coming of Jesus Christ. All who have lived as though life can be found on planet earth have been overcome by the birth of Jesus. All the humble, those who renounce life in this world as the goal of living are filled up by the coming of Christ. The last verse connects the child in Mary’s womb with all the promises God has made in the OT. This child is the one who fulfills and will fulfill every promise God has made to his people.

Mary uses thrones and wealth and food as symbols of those whose hope is in this world. All who worship creation, rather than the creator will be destroyed by this child in her womb. However, all who worship the Creator above the creation will be rescued and set on high. Jesus repeats Mary’s song when he says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” This is what Paul says in Philippians 3: “As I have often told you before and now say again, even with tears, many live as the enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction. Their god is their stomach. Their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

There is a day coming which has in one sense already arrived when all who have suffered the loss of earthly good for the sake of Christ will be full of joy and all who have made the possession of earthly good the goal of their life will experience eternal loss. There is a day coming when all the proud will be destroyed and all the humble will live forever in the enjoyment of God. I beg you to not believe that you can receive a better gift than Jesus Christ. When you have Christ, you have everything. When you lose everything but have Christ, you have lost nothing.

Jesus Christ is the best gift God can give because…

•  Jesus is better than the best thing you can imagine

•  Jesus came to rescue us from our humiliation

•  Jesus turns the world right side up