Advent: The Feast of Favor

We are in the fourth Sunday of Advent.

So our text this morning is called the Annunciation.

It's in Luke chapter 1.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

Last week we looked at what's called the magnificant, which is in the second part of Luke chapter 1.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

These two passages pair together the annunciation, that which is announced to Mary, and the magnificant, Mary's response to what is announced to her, and she sings.

And that's what we talked about last week.

So this week we're back in the part one of Luke chapter 1, the story, this annunciation.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

So Luke 1, start in verse 26.

In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, the house of the house of David.

And the virgin's name was Mary.

And he came to her and said, Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you.

But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.

And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

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, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom there will be no end.

Point number one is this the gospel is a good announcement long before it is good advice.

The thing that leads in this story is Mary, you are favored.

Last week, Christy and I went out to eat with some friends.

I can be a little corona paranoid.

I know we have like green light, yellow light, red light.

Have you heard that?

We should all just like wear colors of what where we're at with this.

And I'm kind of like a yellow light guy at this point.

I'm kind of like, yes, but maybe, not sure, kind of judging everything.

So we're going out to eat.

So I'm yes, but then I'm like, where are we going?

What's that gonna look like?

What's going on there?

So we decide to go down to Atlanta because they'll just space you out completely down there when you go out to eat.

So we go to Atlanta, we picked a restaurant we knew would be like a million miles from anybody else possible.

And so we meet our friends down there, we get in the restaurant, they seat us, and sure enough, we're like a million miles from anybody else in the restaurant.

It's like a private room at this point.

And so we sit down, we order our drinks, uh, we're looking at the appetizers, right?

Getting your game strategy.

Like if you order that, I'll eat on that, you order this, I'll order this, we're getting that appetizer strategy going.

And while we're doing that, three waitresses come out of the kitchen, each holding an appetizer in each hand.

That's six appetizers, thank you for keeping keeping counting on the apps here.

Six come out and they just load the table with these appetizers.

I mean, these are like fries with parmesan, like gourmet fries, not like you know, chick-fly waffle fries, like gourmet fries, deviled eggs with ham, mussels, ricotto toast, burrado.

I mean, it's stuff I don't know the words, I don't know what it is.

I'm like, what is this?

But it's so good, and the table was just full.

We didn't order it, it just showed up.

And the waitress says, as she's leaving, like putting down the last plate, she says, This is the courtesy of Ryan.

And I say, Do we know Ryan?

And then my friend next to me, Katie, she looks at me and she says, Ryan's our friend.

And he's the GM at the restaurant.

And I'm like, oh, incredible! So by the favor of Ryan comes all of this food to us, right?

Like, Ryan holds the power, right?

Ryan holds the power, and because of relationship with Ryan, we get this feast.

Now that's an objective word, right?

That's an objective word to us in his restaurant because we didn't do anything.

We're not gonna pay it back, we're not gonna pay for it, we didn't ask for it.

It's just a gift, it's just a feast of favor from his Ryan's power and grace to us.

And you know what happened in my heart because of this.

Like I just loved Ryan.

I didn't even know Ryan.

But I just like automatically, just like because of the abundance given to me, just it just created, empowered inside of me, and created love.

See, we always need a good announcement before good advice because that's that's what causes the transformation in our heart is this objective word of the gospel to us.

See, God says to Mary, you're favored.

This was probably a 14-year-old girl.

She was not of the religious elite stature and society, she had no resume.

And isn't that good news for those of us who feel like we have no resume?

And God says to us, a good announcement in Jesus.

And I was just this week, I was like, where's a good announcement to Jesus that we could just hear this morning?

And I always go to Galatians 4, 3 through 7.

In the same way, we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons, and we can say daughters, adoption as children.

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba Father.

So you are no longer a slave, but a son.

And if a son, then an heir through God.

So the announcement to us is the same as Mary, and it says, Don't be afraid.

I mean, that'd be easy to be afraid to hear the voice of God to you because you don't quite know who this God is how does he regard me?

And what God is telling us through the scriptures and the ark of the scripture, the story of the gospel, is God says, if you want to think of me, think of me as a heavenly father.

Verse 34.

And Mary said to the angel, How will this be?

Since I am a virgin?

And the angel answered 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 called holy, the Son of God.

And behold, your relative Elizabeth, in her old age, has also conceived a son.

And this is the sixth month with her, who is called Baron, for nothing will be impossible with God.

And Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord.

Let it be to me according to your word.

And the angel departed from her.

So Mary says, How can it be?

This doesn't add up.

You know, like this doesn't work.

And Gabriel says, For with God nothing will be impossible.

Now these are almost the same words that an angel spoke to Sarah, Abraham's wife.

Now, the interesting thing about that is this helps confirm to Mary and to us that covenant that was created with Abraham for the people of God, that covenant that this is the Son of God to fulfill that covenant.

Now, all of that is a all that to say this.

We have a loving, secure relationship with God based on his pursuit and relationship to us, his covenant to us.

And point number two is this faith, so our faith, your faith, is loving, covenant, secure relationship with our Heavenly Father, not an insecure, anxious, manic relationship.

In the New York Times last week, Ben Dolnick wrote a piece called Library Books: A Small Anecdote to a Life of Perpetual Dissatisfaction.

So here's what it says.

It's a little long, so hang with me.

I think we'll have it on the screen so you can read through with me.

In dispelling my fantasies of permanence, the library does more than save me the cost of a paperback.

It provides me with a template for navigating the great sea of longing and disappointment that is life.

The library, in addition to its many civic duties, can function as a great engine of personal clarity, of facing facts, of recognizing that life is not, in the main, a pristine hard cover with decal edges.

It is a threadbare thing from a few decades ago whose binding is barely hanging on, and in which someone unstable once went to town with a lime green highlighter.

Library-induced realism is a great thing, one that can do much to increase your happiness, because the world in which you are perpetually under the impression that the next book purchase, the next apartment, the next significant other will be the one that will finally deliver the goods is not a life of happiness.

It is a life of perpetual dissatisfaction, a life of thin and sugary highs followed by long and unlightening lows.

The library is, with its care worn and temporary offerings, as lovely and as poignant a reminder of our actual human condition as the tides or a forest in fall.

To quote Penelope Fitzgerald, our lives are only lent to us.

Now that nails me because I have 19 books on my desk right now.

There's 19 books on my desk right now, many of which I have not read.

But I'm so hoping that they will make me whole.

Like it'll be the next one.

I'll order more before I even read these, right?

Like that's just what I do because it's gonna be, I'm pretty sure it's gonna be the next book that's gonna do it for me.

Or we're thinking about some new lamps in our den.

And I'm pretty sure perhaps some new lamps could do it.

Like that's gonna finally fulfill me and help me be at peace in my life, right?

That's so easy to do.

I just pulled two books off of my desk this morning, and this was one I bought last week.

Pristine, hardback, perfect, nothing's marked, deckle, edges, everything is perfect, right?

You've ordered a book like this, a hardback, and it's so lovely.

And then I pulled off my bookshelf this.

This is an old prayer book here, and I ordered it off of a used, it was Amazon, it was used, it showed up with paper clips inside of it.

They're still there, paper clips, and people have been writing in it for years, and the bindings all worn and the edges are worn.

Now, I I I think I can be this.

Like I want my life to feel like this, but the re the reality is I'm a lot more worn than that.

Right?

The reality is I'm uh I'm a worn paperback.

Now, at first that can feel offensive, it can feel offensive to your potential, but man, it's freeing.

If you can come into the reality that you are not the supremacy of the world, and you are not the supremacy of your world.

It's always freeing to come into the grace of Jesus and the supremacy of God over the story of the world and over your story.

And what this means is it means our seeking of God or any transformation we might have in our lives, that's inside of the grace of God.

And his seeking of us.

Point number three is this our singing to God comes after God's announcement to us.

That's the structure of Luke chapter 1.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

That's the structure that we have here.

This good news.

God's pursuit of us is before our pursuit of Him.

And this is where Mary becomes for us a gospel example.

Not a moral example, not something that we have to strive to be, but an example of how does gospel transformation change happen in our lives.

And what we see is Mary being announced upon, that is, she's favored, and in response out of gratitude, she sings.

Here's what we get.

Two things.

Number one is we get that she pauses and sings, we get to pause and sing.

That's part of that's part of our response to the gospel.

A question to you would be is this Christmas, what would it mean for your heart to find greater space to pause and sing?

It could be a Bible study, it could be a walk, it could be to sit quietly on your porch, it could be to drive down I-75 differently than before.

Number two is this Mary lives in surrender and stewardship.

That's what we see when she says, Behold, I'm the servant.

Have your way, I'll have that baby, I'll be a part of this story.

Another question: this Christmas, what would it mean for your heart to embrace humility enough to live in stewardship?

Stewardship to be able to say, Behold, I'm the servant.

Whatever, whatever I have will be unto stewarding to you my resources, my opportunities, time, energy, money, gifts.

What freedom to know is God's children, so we don't have to hoard those things.

Last Saturday, our little one was outside and she's playing all day.

All day.

She didn't come in for lunch.

We think maybe she had a bag of potato chips for lunch.

We're not sure.

That's the kind of parenting that was going on that day.

Finally, it was late in the evening.

Dinner was coming soon, it had gotten dark, they were all out on the trampoline, and our girls and some other girls from the neighborhood, a whole bunch of them were out on the trampoline, and she comes in and she was upset because it was it was late in the day.

I mean, she'd been out all day just playing and playing and playing.

One bag of potato chips was all she had, right?

Like there's nothing left, and she comes in and she's upset, and you know, I'm like, what's going on?

There's no blood, okay?

No blood.

Okay, so we're in good shape, okay.

So what's going on?

And she tells me, you know, they were playing Dead Man on the trampoline.

Don't know if you're familiar with Dead Man.

I learned Dead Man yesterday on the trampoline with my girls.

And so it's a game where one person lays in the middle, and then you run around, the dead man tries to touch the other people.

Anyways, somebody sat on her head, right?

Like, and that's just that's funny unless you're the one who gets sat on, and it's not funny.

That's when you cry because nobody likes their head to be sat on.

And so I'm teetering as a parent.

Tough love, gentle love, right?

Like that's the teetering you're going here, but like there's a fragile state going on here, and finally she just sweetly says, I just want someone to love me.

Right?

Like, just in that, like that's just like that childlike honesty and faith that we all need.

So I went over and I sat on her head.

No, I didn't.

I went over and I went over.

Of course I didn't, right?

Like, I'm not a perfect father, but I'm reasonable in the you know range of reasonableness, and I went over and I hugged her, right?

And you remember the prodigal story, the prodigal son?

That reckless boy comes home, he's worn and beaten like a paperback, not a perfect hardcover.

The father wraps him up.

Jean Veneer, a philosopher and theologian, he said this.

I do not believe we can truly enter into our own inner pain and wounds and open our hearts to others unless we have had an experience of God.

Unless we have been touched by God.

We must be touched by the Father in order to experience, as the prodigal son did, that no matter how wounded we may be, we are loved.

And not only are we loved, but we too are called to heal and to liberate.

This healing power in us will not come from our capacities and our riches, but in and through our poverty.

We are called to discover that God can bring peace, compassion, and love through our wounds.

So veneer is saying exactly Mary's story and our story, that we are loved and favored in our poverty of wounds.

And that is the wounds caused by our sin and the wounds caused by others' people's sin into us or on us.

And what we have in Jesus, in our poverty, what we have in Jesus is God moving toward us in this covenant promise to love us and redeem us.

Our sin put upon Jesus on the cross, his righteousness given to us, so we're forever beloved.

That's the promise we have.

So what we have in Jesus is we have an objective word from outside of our condition and outside of our emotion.

It's like the favor of Ryan bringing the appetizers, right?

Like it was outside of us and given to us is an objective word, and we have an experience of presence inside of our condition and our emotions.

And you know what?

I need both.

You need both.

We need the security of the promise, objectively, as our emotions and anxiety and craziness is all over the place.

We need the security of the covenant promise of God to us in Jesus, and we also need the experience of the presence.

And promise and presence.

That's the feast of the favor that we have in this Jesus.

My brothers and sisters, in Jesus, you are favored and you are loved by promise and my presence.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for your good news to us.

That is good news before it's good advice, but it's such powerful good news that it transforms our hearts and our lives.

For so many of us here, help our hearts to hear it in a greater way.

That we would be moved into places of being astonished by your love for us.

That you look at us and you call us children, and may we look in response and call you Abba, Father.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.