Advent 4
Micah 5:2-5a; Hebrews 10:5-10; Psalm 80:1-7; Luke 1:39-45, 46-56
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I.
Let us look at these words spoken by Elizabeth to Mary in the third chapter of Luke, the forty-fifth verse.
And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.
Let me emphasize especially these words:
“...there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken….”
Believers and non-believers alike are challenged by these words: “there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken.”
The unbeliever is liable to dismiss these words altogether and to say he doesn’t care a bit if they’re fulfilled or not.
What have millennia-old prophecies to old Israel got to do with him today and whether he’ll be able to pay next month’s bills?
The believer is liable to say he’s glad these words have been fulfilled, he admires Mary and her faith that brought Jesus into the world but he doesn’t always see the hungry being filled with good things or the mighty being cast down from their throne.
He will say, “I have faith in these past fulfillments of God’s word that I read about in the life of Jesus, but if I’m honest I am still waiting for things to get better in my own life.”
Therein lies the problem for many Christians today, and, perhaps, this also helps to explain why the Church has fallen on such hard times in our part of the world.
To put the matter bluntly: where is the fulfillment of what was spoken?
It’s all well and good to have a feeding and a clothing ministry. It’s wonderful to have a church ministry that can help out the needy in a pinch.
But these things can hardly be called fulfillment, at least not in the maximalist terms that Mary speaks of when she says:
He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts…He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity for ever.
Mary isn’t speaking about Israel’s future, she’s describing promises made by God in Israel’s past that somehow are being fulfilled in Israel’s present, in the moment in which she is speaking, within her very womb.
This is the culmination of the history of Israel, of God’s chosen people.
They are exhausted, in exile, scattered to the four corners of the Roman empire, while those who have returned to their ancestral homeland live under a foreign yolk.
But Elizabeth says, “blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken.”
Mary describes how her child is that fulfillment:
“...he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name,” she says in Luke 3:49.
The “great thing” God has done is choose Mary to be the mother of the Messiah.
II.
This is the fulfillment of the first prophecy found in the Bible.
The first prophecy is also a prophecy of the coming of Christ.
We can read it in Genesis 3:15. Speaking to the serpent – and last week I preached about the viper and the brood of vipers – speaking to this, the original viper, God says:
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
Here is the promise that there will one day come a descendant of Eve who will decapitate evil, who will cast down the mighty from their thrones.
Yet this will cost Him, because these vipers, themselves descendants of that ancient serpent, will succeed in bruising Him — but only in the heel, a survivable wound — as opposed to His crushing blow to their heads.
Now, let’s look at the scope of this first prophecy.
It is made to the first woman, whom Adam later names Eve, “because she was the mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20).
The scope is, therefore, universal.
The promise predates Israel and the Jewish people.
This is why Mary, millennia later, and herself a Jewish woman, can say, “My soul magnifies the Lord,” because through her, God sends the Messiah, the one promised to the whole human race.
Therefore, He will not be a local, or an ethnic Messiah.
St. Luke tells us what the angel of the Lord says to the shepherds near Bethlehem on Christmas night, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people” (Luke 2:10).
“...which shall be to all people…”
Today’s lesson from Micah 5:4 also says of the Christ that, “he shall be great to the ends of the earth.”
The transcendence of time, culture, religion, locality, and ethnicity are all understood when Mary says, “My soul magnifies the Lord.”
The point is that the realization of this universal hope is fulfilled in Mary’s son when Jesus is born in Bethlehem.
Micah 5:2 says: “But you, O Bethlehem Eph′rathah… from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.”
Later in 5:4, Micah tells us that this ruler “shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord.”
Luke tells us that Mary goes in haste to a city in Judah to see her cousin, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth’s own son, who is John the Baptist, leaps in her womb, signifying that John knows fulfillment has come to him, even before he is born.
Elizabeth understands that fulfillment has come to her as well. She says “why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”
Already, Elizabeth understands who and what this child is Mary carries in her womb.
Elizabeth blesses Mary and Mary’s son, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!”
Elizabeth then adds, “And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”
Christ’s birth of Mary in Bethlehem means the Old Covenant is ending, however the magnification of the soul of old Israel, what we now call the Church, throughout the world has only just begun.
“For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed,” Mary says.
Indeed, wherever the gospel goes, these words of Mary have gone with it.
III.
It’s hard to live through the end of something. There can be a kind of sadness and a longing for what once was.
Mary and the rest of the Jewish people had to face this ending the moment she spoke these words. Once the Messiah came, the promise of Israel had come true.
It was hard for many in Israel to accept this, to accept that their time had come, that their special purpose in God’s plan to be the race that gave birth to the Messiah, had finally arrived.
But the time had come, and that is why Elizabeth says truthfully, “blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”
Along with the sadness, I think we also have to acknowledge the individual and cultural exhaustion of old Israel.
You can hear the echo of both when Jesus is presented as a baby in the temple. After seeing Jesus, Simeon, a righteous and devout man, says:
Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to thy people Israel (Luke 2:22-38).
In saying this, Simeon shows he understood two things.
First, the Messiah is for all people. He is the light to the Gentile nations.
Second, the Messiah will magnify the glory of Israel the world over, even as Israel is passing away.
Luke also tells us that Simeon, in addition to being righteous and devout, was “looking for the consolation of Israel.”
Well, here he’s got it. The consolation will be Christ, in which the glory of Israel will be fulfilled forever.
IV.
Now, I know many of you are looking for consolation as well.
You hear these words about blessings and fulfillment and you say:
“It’s all well and good that Simeon got his consolation, but I am not sure what it means to me to say Israel got its glory magnified the world over. I’d settle for just a little more glory here in Woodbury, thank you very much.”
I would say to you that Mary’s words have just as much to say to you now as they did back then. Mary says:
...for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation.
Yet you still say:
“What great things has he done for me? He hasn’t paid my bills, hasn’t bought me a house, my career is in the ditch, and no matter how I vote, things never change.”
Well, I think Jesus has an answer to that.
“Things never change?” He asks you. “Well, then, how about I change places with you. See that cross? See the law written in hard tablets of stone? Do you hear the dreadful verdict of that law that condemns you to hang on that cross? How about I take your place? Would you like that sort of change? Is that a change you can embrace?
“As for these tablets of stone,” He continues, “let me smash them. Let me write the law of God on your heart instead. Let me make you a real man. Let me make you a real woman. You say you’ve always wanted to be one.
“Well, you’ve got to have a real man’s heart. You’ve got to have the strength of a horse and the courage of a lion if we’re going to get anything done, if you want to see this world change for the better.
“You’ve got to have a real woman’s heart. You’ve got to have the gentleness of a dove and the purity of a virgin if we’re going to make a home in this world that’s worth living in.
“But you can’t have any of it until I’ve washed you and clothed you in my own righteousness.”
V.
You see, He knows. Jesus knows that the great things that need doing are not Him solving the problems we can solve ourselves, but restoring to us what we were deprived of by the curse.
Back in the Garden, the prophecy of the Messiah who is to come was pronounced as part of a curse: first, as a curse on the serpent, second as a curse on the woman, and finally as a curse on the man.
Now, that curse is both fulfilled and lifted.
Fulfilled, because the head of the serpent has been crushed by Christ on the cross.
Lifted, first on the woman, Mary, who is blessed for all generations, and then, according to Mary’s words, the curse is lifted on the men and women of every generation who fear God.
Mary says, “...his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation.”
God’s mercy has taken the place of His curse.
But, you see, even God’s curse was never lacking in mercy.
Mercy was there from the beginning, embedded and encoded in the very words of the curse itself, “he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
“Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken” and, likewise, blessed are all of you who believe there has been a fulfillment of what has been spoken.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin: Grant that we, being regenerate and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit ever, one God, world without end. Amen.
Preached on December 22, 2024 at the First Congregational Church, Woodbury, Connecticut.
Questions for reflection and discussion:
Believers and non-believers alike are ____________ by these words: “there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken.”
These words are spoken at the ____________ of the history of Israel.
God chose Mary to be the mother of the ____________.
Christ is the promised ____________ of Eve.
The transcendence of time, culture, religion, locality, and ethnicity are all understood when Mary says, “My soul ____________ the Lord.”
Christ’s birth means the Old Covenant is ____________.
It’s hard to live through the ____________ of something.
Once the Messiah came, the promise of Israel had come ____________.
The Messiah is for ____________ people.
Like Simeon, many of us are looking for ____________.
Jesus knows that the great things that need doing are not Him solving the ____________ we can solve ourselves.
God’s mercy has taken the place of His ____________.
Parents and Grandparents, you are responsible to apply God’s Word to your children’s lives. Here is some help. Young Children – draw a picture about something you hear during the sermon. Explain your picture(s) to your parents or the minister after church. Older Children – Discuss with your parents one or both of the following: 1) Think of a time when something big changed in your life. How did you feel? 2) What big thing are you waiting for now in your life? What will change when and if it finally happens? Will you have to give up anything?
(1) challenged; (2) culmination; (3) Messiah; (4) seed; (5) magnifies; (6) ending; (7) end; (8) true; (9) all; (10) consolation; (11) problems; (12) curse
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