1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word for our 3rd Advent Midweek Service is taken from Luke 1:26-38, it’s entitled, “The Angel Gabriel Brings a Message of Hope in the Midst of the Seemingly Impossible,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it,” began the taped message that always ended with the warning that the tape would self-destruct in five seconds. The mission Phelps or Briggs was given was never easy—as the series title indicated. Mission: Impossible . . . and their team was appropriately labeled “Impossible Missions Force.” The series ran for years, reprised later by Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, and the challenges always seemed to rise to greater and more amazing feats that defied what normal people could ever hope to do.
3. Of course, in the end, the impossible turned out to be possible, even if it was nearly impossible for most. But some things even Phelps, Briggs, or Hunt would never be able to do, experiences we can only call miracles that come from God alone. Mary, the mother of our Lord, found herself at the center of one of the greatest miracles of the Bible, a true mission impossible. And given the important nature of this miracle, God again sent one of his heavenly messengers, the angel Gabriel, whom we first heard about in his visit to Zechariah. Gabriel comes again as God’s special messenger, this time to Mary, announcing a true message of hope even in the midst of the seemingly impossible. This message would bring the greatest hope to all: God was coming among us in the flesh-and-blood person of his own Son!
4. But, Gabriel’s greeting came as a shock to young Mary: “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, 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!’ ” (Luke 1:26–28). Completely unexpected, especially to someone as seemingly unimportant as she. As she would later exclaim in her great Magnificat hymn, God “has looked on the humble estate of his servant” (Lk 1:48). Who is Mary, that God should choose her? Who is she, that God would use her as part of his very plan of salvation? What made God single her out for such an amazing plan? Soon, the angel will reveal the answer.
5. “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” Gabriel announced. Favored one? Yes, Mary will take part in this miracle, but purely by grace. As the old Latin translation rendered it, she is “full of grace” (gratia plena). That is the first critical part. But the angel’s next words bring even more assurance: God is with her, an echo of the name of her Son revealed to Joseph also by an angel. He is Immanuel, “God with us” (Mt 1:23). She is not alone. God is not far away. He has come among his people. But how he will do that is even more amazing than Mary can possibly imagine. For God is about to come into her very womb!
6. Gabriel can see that this is overwhelming to young Mary and immediately calms her, telling her: “Do not be afraid” (Luke 1:30). Encounters with angels, as we have seen so often, frequently brought fear. Sinful man hesitates in the face of God’s holiness or of those holy because of association with God. But the great message this angel bears comes not from a God of judgment, but from a gracious God full of promise and hope. It is a message of a miracle of miracles, a miracle with abounding hope not just for Mary or for Joseph or for God’s chosen people, but for all people. “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus” (Luke 1:31).
7. As if this miracle wasn’t enough—Mary conceiving without a man, while still a virgin—the miracle will be that all the “fullness of God” would “dwell” in this one to be conceived in her womb (Col 1:19). God, the eternal, almighty, unending, creating Word, would take on human flesh within her and ultimately dwell, or tent or tabernacle, “among us” (Jn 1:14). He will live where we live. Work among us. Suffer with us. But he will also be great. He will be called “Son of the Most High” (Luke 1:32). The throne of King David will be given to him. His kingdom will know no end. All this would be contained in the still unseen child conceived inside Mary by the sheer power of God’s Word. Mary, God’s humble servant. Mary, a young woman betrothed in marriage, but a marriage not yet consummated. Mary, who will now face the unprecedented situation of being a mother without a human father to conceive her child. The questions raced in her head. How?
8. And indeed, there was no precedent for such a miracle. Never before had anything like this happened. Mary is overcome in complete amazement. How would God create a baby inside her without a human father? Gabriel, God’s angelic messenger, once more provides an answer: The Holy Spirit, God himself, will come upon her. The power of the Almighty will overshadow her, just as God did in the tabernacle when the cloud of his holy presence filled its space with his glory (Ex 40:34–35). Amazing! God’s presence in her womb! In her! God directly creating life as the heavenly Father! A virgin not only pregnant now with a child, but pregnant with the holy Son of God himself! Next to the resurrection on Easter morning, this stands among the greatest of God’s miraculous acts.
9. But how? By what means? We have no reference to compare. Then Gabriel notes why such a miracle can take place against anything we know or imagine: “Nothing will be impossible with God,” he tells Mary (Luke 1:37). God is a God of the impossible, the humanly impossible. The true “mission impossible” takes place right inside the womb of a simple, almost unknown Hebrew woman, chosen purely by grace. Jesus would later reiterate this truth when the disciples wondered how anyone could possibly be saved and inherit heaven: “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible,” he told them (Mt 19:26). All things are possible! All things! Or consider when God spoke with Abraham about the birth of a son in his old age and his wife’s advanced age, something that caused Sarah to laugh in disbelief. “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” he asked (Gen 18:14). No, nothing is too hard for God. Nothing.
10. One significant enemy of hope is the conclusion that all possibilities are exhausted. That no options still exist. That there is no solution, no way out. How often do we surrender to the seemingly inevitable, void of God’s possible intervention? How often do we throw up our hands with “This is impossible!”—never even considering how God might be involved, what plan he might yet have, how he might intervene? How often do we end up with Zechariah’s faithless doubt and Sarah’s laughter but disregard the simple, believing trust of Mary, who in the face of the amazing simply wondered, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34)—curious of how God might do what had never been done before?
11. And how often do we miss that God has announced this miracle of miracles by no less than the angel Gabriel, the powerful messenger of heaven who stands “in the presence of God” (Lk 1:19)? For many, Christmas easily becomes little more than a cute story suitable for a greeting card. A feel-good moment to lift the doldrums of winter’s cold darkness. Maybe a fleeting wonderment of yet another birth, as all births are inspiring acts of new life. But, the heart of the message from the angel Gabriel is that God is enfleshed within Mary’s womb, a foundational truth we confess in our creeds, a truth that underlies all truths, that lies at the heart of our faith. And at the heart of hope itself, a trust in the possibilities of what will yet be: “For nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).
12. If God can do this, then what can he fail to do? What in our lives lies beyond the power of the one who does the impossible? If he has come to live my life and take my place and on the cross pay the price of my sin and suffer my death and conquer the legions of hell—and not just for me but for the entire world, past, present, and future—honestly, what is he unable to accomplish?
13. Mary can only sit in amazement, willing to follow on a journey that leads to incredible possibilities. “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word,” she humbly says (Luke 1:38). Such humility and simple faith and openness to follow. An obedient servant truly inspired by hope. But not a hope of mere wishes or dreams or even confident optimism. This hope comes from heaven, announced by God’s chosen messenger, inspired by this God of the impossible, and underscored by an eternal promise. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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