In case you missed it, here is the text of my New Years’ Day sermon:

How many of you did some visiting this Christmas season? Let me ask you another question: were any of you greeted with fear? This morning we’re going to learn about a couple of visits that were welcome enough, but kinda freaky. Hopefully, you will get a better reception upon your arrival. We are gonna take a look at Luke, chapter 1.

All of us are familiar with Luke Chapter 2. You may not know you are, but you are. You are familiar with it because it is at the center of one of the great moments in television history. Let’s watch…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn10FF-FQfs

That is the perfect Christmas message. Now, really, if I had any sense, I would walk off the stage right now. But I don’t.

That was Luke 2. Luke 1 is a little less familiar. I want to look at Luke 1 because it teaches us a little something more than just the meaning of Christmas; if we look carefully, we can learn something about how we should respond to it.

It begins with a Jewish priest named Zechariah. He was married to Elizabeth, who just happened to have a cousin who lived in Nazareth. We’ll hear more about Elizabeth’s cousin in a second.

Zechariah and Elizabeth were faithful Jews but Elizabeth was ashamed that she was unable to bear Zechariah a child. They were very old, and the chances were about nil, but they prayed day and night for a child regardless.

One day, when Zechariah was on duty at the temple, an angel visited him.

Now Zechariah had been doing this priest thing for most of his life but he had never seen anything like this. So, understandably, he was kinda freaked out. But the angel told Zechariah to chill out.

Let’s pick it up there. Read with me…
“…your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord…he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will…make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”

The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”

So Zechariah lost his voice and all the worshipers in the temple were amazed and figured he must have had a vision. Zechariah went home, and just like Gabriel said, Elizabeth became pregnant.

About six months later, Gabriel paid a visit to Elizabeth’s cousin. Does anybody have a guess who that was? <Mary>

Mary was a virgin who was engaged to Joseph, a carpenter from Nazareth and a descendant of King David, a city in the region of Galilee.

Again, when Gabriel showed up, Mary kinda freaked out, but Gabriel told her to chill.

Let’s pick the story up there. Read with me…
“The Lord is with you…Do not be afraid…you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

So now Mary wanted to know what was up with her cousin, so she packed up and headed down to Hebron, which is in Judea, about 80 miles south over the hills of central Israel.

As soon as she got there something interesting happened. Let’s read…
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”

In response to this wonderful revelation, Mary sings this song…

MARY’S SONG (Janelle sang this)

My soul glorifies the Lord
My spirit rejoices in my Savior
For he has been mindful
Of his humble servant
All generations will call me blessed
The Mighty One has done great things for me
Holy is his name, merciful to all generations
He has done mighty deeds
He has scattered the proud
He has brought down rulers and
lifted up the humble
He has filled the hungry but has
sent the rich away empty
He has helped Israel
Remembering Father Abraham
Just as he promised our ancestors

Mary hung out in Hebron for about three more months then headed back to Nazareth. Now that should have roughly the same time Elizabeth’s baby was born, but Mary is not mentioned, so maybe she headed out just before Elizabeth reached full term. Regardless, the baby came.

Eight days later, as was the custom, they circumcised the baby and were going to name him Zechariah after his father, but Elizabeth said he was not to be named for his father, but rather named John, as Gabriel had told her.

Let’s read…
They said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who has that name.”

Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. Zechariah asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote, “His name is John.”

Immediately Zechariah’s mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God. All the neighbors were filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things. Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, “What then is this child going to be?” For the Lord’s hand was with him.

Then in response to God’s blessing, Zechariah sang this song…

ZECHARIAH’S SONG (I sang this)

Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel
Who’s come to redeem his people
He’s raised up a horn of salvation
for us in the house of David

He’ll save us from all who hate us
To honor our father Abraham
We’re rescued for fearless service
Before Him, holy and righteous

And you, my child
Will be called a prophet of the Most High
For you will go
To prepare the way for him

My son will teach the people
of salvation through forgiveness
Because of God’s tender mercy
Which brings the light of heaven

To shine on those
That live in darkness
And guide our feet
Along the path of peace

So John grew up strong in spirit and living in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel. For those of you who may not know this, John, Jesus’ cousin, would grow up to be John the Baptist, the man who recognizes Jesus for who he is and baptizes him in the Jordan River. John was the herald of Jesus and prepared the way for him, as was foretold by the prophets hundreds of years earlier.

So, we have two visits. First Gabriel visits Zechariah, then he visits Mary. Two different visits, lots of similarities, but a couple of significant differences.

Both visits were unexpected.

Both were greeted with fear.

Both included prophecy.

Both prophecies were questioned.

But then they diverge ever so slightly.

Because he and Elizabeth are both old and she is apparently barren, when Gabriel tells Zechariah that he will have a son, Zechariah responds by saying, “That’s impossible! Prove it.”

But when Gabriel tells Mary, who is a virgin, that she will have a son, she responds by saying, “That’s impossible! Tell me how it will happen.”

See the difference? In the face of this frightening and awesome angel, one responds with complete faith and trust, the other with a hint of skepticism. And Gabriel responds in kind, blessing one and cursing the other.

In all fairness, Mary responded with childlike faith partly because she was little more than a child herself, and it is hardly shocking that Zechariah’s first response is doubt after years of failure to reproduce. So is Gabriel being unfair? I don’t think so. I don’t think this is about fairness; I think God, through his messenger, is trying to make a significant point. Let me explain…

Both of these people, Zechariah and Mary, are devout Jews, observant of their religious traditions and reverent to their God. Both were favored by God to give birth to the men who would usher in the church age that is the whole reason we meet here in this building some 2000 years later.

Both were blessed and mightily used of God, but one sang her song of praise before the miracle began, and the other sang his song only after the miracle was complete.

Here is the lesson I think we can take from this: God can and will use us to further his kingdom and his plan. He will use all of us, warts and all. He can use those who question and those who don’t. There is a place for both.

Do you ever find yourself questioning whether you are following God the way he wants you to? Do you ever question the things you think you know about God? Do you ever feel like your faith is too small? Are you ever annoyed at those who seem to have no struggles with their faith? That’s okay. So did Zechariah.

Do you ever feel guilty for not questioning enough? Do you ever feel like you don’t think deeply enough about God stuff? Do you ever feel like a lightweight amongst the theologian-types? Do you ever feel comfortable without digging deeper? That’s okay. So did Mary.

We need to be careful not to demonize Zechariah or canonize Mary, but rather recognize that both were faithful, both were used of God, and God set off waves of spiritual curiosity by the way he used them.

Like Gabriel, I am visiting today. Hopefully that doesn’t scare you, but I am going to give you a bit of prophecy, because in this age, the church age, the prophets are the men and women God has called to preach the gospel to you, the people of God. Are you ready? Here goes:

God loves you. He trusts you. He has given you all the tools you need. Because of this, in this coming year, God intends to use you. In ways you don’t expect. Doing things that make you uncomfortable. He is going to open some doors, and close others. He is going to show you things as long as you are looking for them. And he will do great things through you. This is my promise to you as God’s prophet.

Here is my CHALLENGE to you: how will you respond? When will you sing? Will you sing today or will you sing when you see what he has done? Will you sing in ANTICIPATION of what God will do or CELEBRATION of what he HAS done?

Either way, he will use you because he has plans for his KINGDOM, he has plans for his CHURCH, and he has plans for YOU. He fully intends for you to play an integral part in those plans.

Will it be easy? Was it easy for Mary? Do you think Gabriel gave Mary a halo to wear around? Everyone except Elizabeth and Joseph probably thought Jesus was conceived out of wedlock. Most people probably had other words for Mary than “blessed.”

How about Paul? Was everything smooth after he started singing? Paul was beaten, stoned, imprisoned, bitten by snakes, and shipwrecked.

But before Paul was singing, he was involved in other activities.

But look at the impact they had on the kingdom. Do you want to be a blessing? Do you want to have an impact? Start singing…