SPEAKER_00: Today we celebrate the Annunciation of our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Since the early days of the church beginning in the sixth century, the body of Christ has celebrated when our Lord Jesus Christ was conceived.
SPEAKER_00: She recalls the Word of God spoken, the Holy Spirit overshadowing, the Virgin receiving, the eternal Son of God putting on human flesh, Emmanuel, God with us.
SPEAKER_00: And so the church commemorates the feast of the Annunciation of our Lord on this date every year.
SPEAKER_00: The day when the angel Gabriel brought the performative word of the Lord, which conceived the word made flesh nine months before his birth.
SPEAKER_00: So if the church celebrates the birth of our Lord on the 25th of December, it's only good, right, and salutary that the church should celebrate the conception of our Lord on the 25th of March.
SPEAKER_00: But why was this feast day so important to consider?
SPEAKER_00: Because it's important for you to recognize that God keeps his promises.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's important for us to see this promise kept at the moment that our Lord Jesus Christ was conceived in the womb of Mary.
SPEAKER_00: Because you can't have a birth without a conception.
SPEAKER_00: You can't have a God man without the word of God spoken and the Holy Spirit hovering over the one who would conceive and be eternally known as the Mother of God.
SPEAKER_00: And God tells us in Scriptures that Mary is what the ancients called Theotachos, which means the God-bearer, because the moment Mary conceived the word of the Lord, it was the moment she bore God in her womb.
SPEAKER_00: This is why her cousin Elizabeth exclaims upon her greeting later in Luke, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb?
SPEAKER_00: And why is it granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
SPEAKER_00: For what Lord is there to her but God Himself?
SPEAKER_00: And what else would John the Baptist leap for joy at the sound of Mary's voice than the appearance of Christ Himself?
SPEAKER_00: And what fruit of the womb would be so exalted but the promised Messiah?
SPEAKER_00: For the seed of the woman that God promised to Eve was fulfilled, and the one who would crush the head of the devil was now present in time.
SPEAKER_00: But maybe there's more for us to consider.
SPEAKER_00: We live in a day and age where everything around us is called into question, where every fact is broadcasted by television and proposed by social media feels so evilly contrived, where the seeds of doubt are planted by the voices and influences of a world directed by Satan.
SPEAKER_00: We need certainty.
SPEAKER_00: We need to hear the truth of God spoken and the promises of God kept.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be reminded of the promises that have no variation or change from the one who does not change with the seasons of culture or the whim of society or with the tide of trend.
SPEAKER_00: We need the seed of the woman promised right after creation.
SPEAKER_00: We need what Eve says in Hebrew, a Godman.
SPEAKER_00: We need one who can crush the head of the serpent, one who can destroy death on our behalf, one who can buy us back from sin, not with money or gold or jewels, but his own precious blood, one by whose stripes we are healed.
SPEAKER_00: We need the one that was begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.
SPEAKER_00: We need Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so we remember on this day the annunciation of our Lord, the day that Gabriel brought the word of the Lord to the Virgin Mary promised by God long ago.
SPEAKER_00: The sign proclaimed to the face of King Ahaz, amid his cowardice heart and his evil ways, but nonetheless foretold.
SPEAKER_00: This sign not only for him, but for the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: This announcement not only for Mary, but for you and me as well.
SPEAKER_00: The sign and the promise, the Son of God is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Man is sinner.
SPEAKER_00: God is perfect.
SPEAKER_00: Because of Adam, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: We're all born natural enemies of God.
SPEAKER_00: This is the reason Mary is troubled at the greeting of Gabriel, the angel of the Lord, at the sight of this heavenly being who is sent to deliver into her ears and into her heart God's perfect word for her.
SPEAKER_00: A sinless, holy angel that can stand in the presence of the Most High and live, but a sinful human fears for their life.
SPEAKER_00: She's highly favored, not because she's perfect or without sin, but because God chose her to carry God Himself in her womb at exactly the right time and the right place.
SPEAKER_00: She needn't fear, she needn't be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: God is not there to destroy her, but to fulfill his promise to mankind and to her, to you, to give her a future and a hope, and to you.
SPEAKER_00: For behold, she will conceive in her womb and bear a son, and she shall call his name Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: 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 of his kingdom there will be no end.
SPEAKER_00: But this is far beyond Mary's comprehension.
SPEAKER_00: And so she asks the question any woman would rightly ask, How can this be, since I'm still a virgin?
SPEAKER_00: A maiden cannot give birth unless she is made one with a man.
SPEAKER_00: But she, like us, neither know nor understand the mind or the works of God.
SPEAKER_00: For his ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord will bring about what he has promised.
SPEAKER_00: He will fulfill the word he speaks to his people, regardless of whether we comprehend it or not.
SPEAKER_00: So the angel of the Lord tells Mary, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren, for nothing will be impossible with God.
SPEAKER_00: And Mary responds with the faith that the word of God created in her heart.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, I am the servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.
SPEAKER_00: Elizabeth and Mary, two seemingly impossible conceptions, one lesser and one greater, one who was barren but conceived with a man, one a virgin but conceived with God.
SPEAKER_00: And why?
SPEAKER_00: Because nothing will be impossible with God.
SPEAKER_00: But what is impossible for man to do, it is possible with God.
SPEAKER_00: For man cannot atone for his sins with his own machinations, and it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to satisfy the payment of sin.
SPEAKER_00: We could not give one hair of our heads for it, or our entire lives of in servitude, in order to buy back ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We lack what is necessary to appease God's wrath against sin.
SPEAKER_00: For the wages of sin is death.
SPEAKER_00: Payment must be made.
SPEAKER_00: Life is accountable.
SPEAKER_00: Man cannot pay its price, even if every one of us fell dead.
SPEAKER_00: If God did not break into time to pay this debt in our place, we would have no hope.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, we would not have life or salvation.
SPEAKER_00: For who can stand before the most holy God and live?
SPEAKER_00: We are all sentenced to die eternally.
SPEAKER_00: But God does not desire the death of the sinner.
SPEAKER_00: Nor does he desire your life to end.
SPEAKER_00: Although you were born enemies of God, yet while we were still sinners, God loved us with an eternal love.
SPEAKER_00: Not because we were somehow more special than the rest of creation, each one of you, but because God Himself is love.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore we celebrate the Annunciation, the Word of God spoken, the Holy Spirit overshadowing, the Virgin receiving, the eternal Son of God putting on human flesh, Emmanuel, God with us.
SPEAKER_00: But what is even more is that the Lord brings this same word of promise to each one of you.
SPEAKER_00: Do not be afraid, for you have found favor with God, because He loves you and sacrificed Himself for you on the cross of Calvary.
SPEAKER_00: He has loved you with an eternal love.
SPEAKER_00: He took on human flesh for your sake at the moment the word of God was spoken to Mary.
SPEAKER_00: For the Lord's word is performative, it makes a thing what it is, it delivers what it says, it turns water into wine, it calms the stormy seas, it gives sight to the blind.
SPEAKER_00: And so it is his word that delivers the forgiveness of your sins to your ears and into your hearts when you are absolved of your sins.
SPEAKER_00: For nothing is impossible with God.
SPEAKER_00: So when you hear these words, I forgive you all your sins in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, here on earth, know that they are forgiven before God in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And then with a faithful heart respond, let it be to me according to your word.
SPEAKER_00: For your Lord has delivered on his promises.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: We continue with our hymn.