Please turn in your Bible to the Gospel of Luke. Last week we covered through verse 25, so that leaves us at verse 26. We'll be reading verses 26-38. Luke 1, 26-38. Please give your attention now to the inspired and inerrant Word of God. 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, Greeting, so favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at this 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 of His kingdom there will be no end. 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 was called barren. 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. May God bless the reading of His Holy Word. We will deal this morning with verses 26-33, and then tonight we'll cover the rest of that section. A beloved congregation and our Lord Jesus Christ, between the two services last Lord's Day, we covered Luke's account of the announcement or the annunciation of the coming birth of John the Baptizer. In our text today, Luke turns our attention to the announcement of the coming birth of Jesus the Christ. Our inspired author, Luke, has intentionally placed these two announcements or enunciations in parallel. And this morning we're going to take some time to consider the significance of this parallelism we see in Scripture. Now one thing we can do which often helps us to understand the significance of the parallelism we see in Scripture is to be on the lookout for any differences or contrasts between the parallel accounts. And actually that's the way I'd like to begin this morning. So let's turn to our Scripture now. Look with me at verses 26 and 27. 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. Now these verses mark the beginning of a new section of Luke's account. Here we are brought into a new setting, a new location, and here we are also introduced to a new character. A scene shift has taken place in the drama of Luke's Gospel, and I want you to notice three aspects of this scene shift. First, we've moved from a temple setting to a non-temple setting. Now, why is that important? Well, you'd expect things of great consequence, of great importance in God's fulfillment of His promised plan of redemption to His people Israel. You'd expect those things to take place inside, or at least very near to the Temple in Jerusalem. This was true of the Annunciation of John the Baptizer, but it is not true here in the Annunciation of the Christ. This announcement does not take place in the Temple. This leads us to our second point. Where does it take place? We now actually find ourselves out in the middle of nowhere. Luke has shifted our attention away from the Holy City. He's brought it to rest upon this backwater town called Nazareth. Nazareth in Galilee. See, congregation, there is precisely nothing impressive about Nazareth. This town was so insignificant that it is mentioned nowhere in the Old Testament. It is mentioned nowhere in the rabbinical writings and it is not even mentioned in the histories written by Josephus. In fact, you probably remember what Nathanael said when Philip told him, we have found the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. How did Nathaniel respond? He responded with this biting skepticism. Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? See, congregation, we have to understand this. It really is a big deal that our attention is shifted away from Jerusalem, away from the holy city, away from the temple, to this pathetic little town of Nazareth. So keep that in mind. Finally, third. Our attention is drawn away from Zechariah, away from this old man, this respectable man, this man of the priestly order. And our attention is focused now on this young girl, Mary. Yes, Mary was a young girl. Based on the historical context, many scholars believe she was between the age of 12 and 14 years old. This young girl was unknown, she was insignificant and unimportant, at least in the eyes of man. But despite this, despite her earthly status or lack thereof, God has a plan for her. In fact, God has chosen her as the one who will give birth to the Christ, to the Anointed One, to the Son of God Himself, the King. Now if we knew nothing about how God works, then these things would indeed be puzzling and very surprising to us, very unexpected. If we expected God to work out His plan in the same way that men work out their plans, this is unexpected. If anyone dared to venture a guess as to how the eternal God of the universe would choose to come into the world you could hardly think of a more preposterous suggestion as what we see here in the Gospel of Luke. But what we see in Scripture today shows us something about how God works. This is a demonstration of how God fulfills His promises. As the Apostle Paul puts it, God will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever He will set aside. God chooses to do things Not in the way that we would do them. And not in the way that we might expect Him to do them. God does not operate, for example, in terms of merit or deserving. If He did, we would all be in trouble. But God operates in terms of His free choice. His free grace. Which He chooses to set upon Mary. So let's look now at what God graciously does for Mary. We can see in our text that God sends His angel. He sends His messenger, Gabriel, who in verse 28 comes to Mary and says, Now congregation, it's important that we understand these words correctly. Very sadly, some bad theology has given rise to a terrible distortion and a mistranslation of this verse. If you're at all familiar with Roman Catholicism, you've probably heard about a prayer that they pray called Ave Maria, or Hail Mary. Yes, Roman Catholics actually pray to Mary. They say, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women. Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. That's what the Roman Catholics prayed. And they claim to have a biblical argument for this prayer. They say that they're basically just following the example of the angel Gabriel in verse 28 of our text. But I ask you, congregation, is this what Gabriel is doing? Is this what he is saying? Is the angel Gabriel praying to the Virgin Mary? Is Gabriel saying to her, hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Well, no, of course not. And the Roman Catholics do not translate this verse correctly. There's two things they get wrong. First, they translate Gabriel's first word as hail, which they interpret as a term for the veneration or the worship of Mary. But this does tremendous violence to the text. The Greek word kaire is a common Greek greeting, which literally means rejoice. In other words, Gabriel is simply greeting Mary. He's not worshipping her. Second, Roman Catholics translate the angel's second word as full of grace. And thus they suggest that in herself, Mary possesses grace which she is able to bestow upon others. In other words, they believe that not only can you pray to God for grace, you can actually pray to Mary for grace. But if we look at how the ESV translates Gabriel's words We do not read that Mary is full of grace. Instead, we read, oh, favored one. This is the proper translation of the text. That Greek word, hekairito mene, is in the passive tense, meaning that Mary is the one receiving grace. She's the one getting grace. She's not the one giving it out. She's the object of grace, not the subject of grace. So the Roman Catholics get this completely wrong. Not only do they get this wrong, but their understanding of this passage completely contradicts the whole point of our text. The point is not to glorify Mary. It's not to say that Mary is great. The point is to emphasize how God is gracious. to small, weak, humble, undeserving Mary, whom the rest of the world sees as an insignificant nobody living in a nowhere town. See, congregation, it is the grace of God which is on full display in our text. The emphasis of verse 28 is the grace of God and don't you ever let anyone tell you otherwise. Notice that God's grace or his favor toward Mary is mentioned twice in this unit. In verse 28, Mary is identified as a favored one or a recipient of grace. Then in verse 30, Gabriel reassures her, you have found favor with God. However, that is not the only way God's grace is emphasized here. Luke has also set up a contrast between Mary and John's parents. Look back at verse 6 for a minute in your Bible. Verse 6 of chapter 1. Remember last week we read this remarkable statement about Zechariah and Elizabeth. They were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. What a remarkable expression of their personal holiness, their walk with the Lord. Not their sinlessness, but their true, genuine walk according to the commandments of God. But what about our passage today? Congregation, do we see any parallel to this in our text today? A discussion of the obedience, of the righteous walk of Mary. No, Luke does not say this about Mary. This makes it even more clear that Mary does not receive this good news or this privilege of bearing the Savior of the world as a result of her earning or meriting this privilege. It's not tied to her prior obedience. No, in fact, Mary is simply a needy and a humble person. She's a sinner just like us, desperately in need of the grace of God. But then if we believe scripture, it shouldn't be too surprising that God does give her this grace. For the word of God teaches us that God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. This is how God has chosen to work. He has passed over the seemingly most important places, Judea, Jerusalem, the Temple, and He's set His gaze on the despised Nazareth in Galilee. He's passed over the seemingly most important people. You know, why not the daughter of the High Priest? Why isn't she selected to bear the Messiah? God has passed over others to set his grace upon young, humble Mary from Nazareth. And so I hope it is clear to us that we must reject that idolatrous Roman Catholic view of Mary. Mary does not earn grace, she receives it. But on the other hand, while we must not embrace their poor theology, we also need to be careful not to overreact against the Roman Catholics. Look down for a moment at verse 48. I know we're looking outside of our text. This is a good time to deal with it, though. Verse 48. Notice Mary says, See, there's nothing wrong with us seeing that Mary is blessed. There's nothing wrong with us celebrating God's blessing, His grace toward her. In fact, for this reason, we ought to think very highly of Mary. Why? Not because she in herself is worthy of our high esteem, but we should think highly of her because God saw fit to bless her. God saw fit to show her grace. And that should be our attitude not only toward Mary, but toward all of our brothers and sisters in Christ, both in this church and throughout the whole world. We should think highly of all of those whom God has seen fit to bless with His grace. If God has set His favor upon them, then shouldn't we honor God by thinking highly of them as well? If God has seen fit to pour out His grace on a person, then shouldn't we aim to conform our minds to the mind of God? Treat that person with honor, compassion, and grace. I think so. Now looking at the second part of Gabriel's greeting to Mary. Notice he expresses a particular way in which God's grace comes to Mary through his presence. Gabriel says, the Lord is with you. And I think there's a certain profundity to these words, to this declaration that God is present with Mary. Earlier I mentioned to you that the announcement of John's birth took place where? Where did it happen? It was in the temple, right? And when you are in the temple, it is safe to assume that God is present there in a special way. Temple is the place of God's presence. But Gabriel's appearance to Mary does not take place in the temple. Nevertheless, even though she is not in the place of God's special presence in the temple, God testifies that the Lord is with her. In fact, the Lord will be with Mary in a most profound way. He will make Mary into a temple when He, the Most High God, chooses to enter the world through her womb. In fact, God is present with us as well. God is present with us by His Holy Spirit so that scripture can say that we are a temple of the Holy Spirit. We can be thankful that as the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world, He brings us a greater knowledge of the presence of God. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. And so the Lord is present with Mary, but I think that points ahead to the wonderful presence of Christ with us by His Spirit. Now let's turn our attention back to the narrative, though, and consider Mary's reaction to this greeting from God through the angel Gabriel. We can imagine that this angelic visitation came as quite a shock to Mary. Last week we saw how Zechariah was troubled when Gabriel appeared to him in the temple. And granted, that must have been quite the experience, having the Word of God come to you after hundreds of years of silence. But on the other hand, if an angel is going to appear to you anywhere, you probably expect it to be in the temple. For Mary, on the other hand, Gabriel just appears out of the blue. This mighty angel shows up right before her. So how is this young girl going to respond? When we consider and remember who Mary is, This response is really remarkable. Remember that Mary is a young, uneducated girl. Here you have a mighty, angelic being making an appearance to her, speaking to her. What do we read in verse 29? That Mary was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. I think we can understand her being greatly troubled. That makes sense. But notice the second part. She tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. Tried to discern. The word translated discern there means to reason, to consider, or to ponder. The Word of God has come to Mary through Gabriel and she responds, yes, fearful, troubled at this turn of events. But she is not scared out of her wits. She is not scared senseless. She immediately begins to ponder this word from God. She is determined to understand what God is communicating to her through his messenger. And I think this is remarkable. I think this is also something that we ought to do. During this Advent season, we should follow this example of Mary. We should take some time to ponder the things that really matter. Yes, admittedly, Mary's circumstances are quite a bit different from ours. She is greeted by this angelic messenger in the name of God. But are we not greeted in a similar way every Lord's Day? Every Sunday, the Lord greets us and brings a message to us. How do we respond to His saying, to His Word? Are we engaged in discerning, in pondering the greeting, the message that the Lord brings to us each Lord's Day? Do we listen carefully, not mindlessly, but like Mary, trying to discern, trying to figure out what this means, putting in thought and effort, taking notes if that helps us? Unless we are tempted to make excuses, Remember that Mary was quite possibly as young as 12 years old, but she has learned that when the Lord speaks to you, you listen. Boys and girls, children, if you remember one thing from this sermon, remember this. When the Lord speaks, we must listen. And He does speak to you. The Lord does speak to you. He speaks to you in many different ways. He speaks to you when your father leads your family in family worship. The Lord speaks to you through your pastor when he is preaching the sermon. The Lord speaks to you when you read your Bible or listen to the Bible on your own. And whenever the Lord speaks, it is time to wake up, it is time to listen, because the Lord never speaks for no purpose. He always has a reason when He speaks. He always has something to say to us. If you're not listening, if you're not paying attention, you might miss it. So wake up. Pay attention. God certainly has something to say to Mary. This brings us to the second section of our sermon. In verse 30, Mary's attention is fixed upon God's messenger and the words he begins to speak about Jesus, the great son. The angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. For one thing, notice that the angel calls her by name. Even though she's just a young girl, insignificant in the eyes of the world, God cares about her enough to send a messenger who will comfort her and call her by name. This tells us that Mary is no nameless servant, she is no pawn in God's great plan, but she is a beloved daughter of the king. And then God graciously lets Mary in on his plan, which he keeps secret from everyone else for the time being, by giving her some of the details about this boy to whom she will give birth. Now as we began this morning, I pointed out to you that the annunciations of John and Jesus are set in parallel. There are many similarities, many comparisons between the two accounts. Let me give you some examples of those similarities first. In both cases, it is the same angel, Gabriel, who makes that announcement. Both Mary and Zechariah have the same response. They find it troubling. But Gabriel urges them not to be afraid. In both cases, God reveals the name of the promised child. And in both cases, the child's conception requires a divine intervention, a miracle. To both parents, God reveals something of his purpose. for the promised child. And in both cases, the Holy Spirit is somehow involved in the life of that child. And so the parallelism, the similarity is clear. But despite all these similarities, it is the differences or the contrasts which are most important. By setting these two accounts in parallel, the evangelist Luke is encouraging us to ask and to answer this greater question Who is greater? Is it John or is it Jesus? Which one is greater of the two? And the contrast between the two annunciations make this pretty clear. First, consider the different circumstances surrounding each conception. On the one hand, John's mother is barren. But Jesus' mother is a virgin. Both conceptions require God's supernatural work, but John's conception still involves the participation of Elizabeth's husband, Zechariah. On the other hand, Jesus' conception takes place by the power of God without any man at all. Second, obviously there's a difference between the name or the identity between John and Jesus. Last Lord's Day, I spent a good time discussing the meaning of some of the names and how that was important in the narrative. Actually, our text here draws a lot of attention to names. It shows us the importance of names. Four times the word name shows up. Look at your Bible in verse 26. Verse 26 we read that Gabriel was sent to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph and the virgin's name was Mary. And then dropping down to verse 31 we read you shall call his name Jesus. Our text draws attention to names and as we've seen the meaning of those names is something very important and it will continue to be important. The meaning of John's name is God is gracious. But the meaning of Jesus' name is Savior. Why? Because Jesus is the gracious God who comes to save His people from their sins. Verse 32 tells us more about the Savior and His identity. He will be called the Son of the Most High. Now, obviously, the Most High refers to God Himself, which we confirm if we look at verse 35. Gabriel informs Mary, the power of the Most High will overshadow her. Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. What about John? Is John the son of the Most High? No, look down at verse 76. It's on the next page here in the Pew Bible. Verse 76. And stay there for a moment. Speaking of John, Zechariah says, and you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High. John is merely the prophet of the Most High, whereas Jesus is the Son of the Most High. Indeed, as God's only begotten Son, Jesus shares the very nature of God. He himself is God. Now third, there's a difference in the role between John and Jesus. Look again at verse 76 here. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways. John's role, John's mission, is to prepare the way for the Messiah. Prepare the way for the Lord, God's anointed King. Jesus, on the other hand, is himself this Messiah. He is God's anointed king. In verse 32 we read that 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. Jesus is the anointed king of an eternal king. We get further confirmation that Jesus is the Lord if we look at verse 43. Take a look there at verse 43. Here we have confirmation. Jesus is the Lord. Because Elizabeth says to Mary, why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? John prepares the way for the coming of the Lord, but Jesus is the Lord. Finally, fourth, there's a difference between John and Jesus in terms of greatness. This may seem obvious by now, but our text emphasizes it. So look at verse 14. Verse 14, speaking about John. Whoops. Oh, verse 15. In verse 15, Gabriel testifies of John that he will be great before the Lord. So John will be great. before the Lord. But now look at verse 32 in our text. What does Gabriel testify of Jesus? Gabriel simply says, He will be great. John's greatness receives a qualification. John will be great before the Lord. But Jesus' greatness receives no qualification. He will be great absolutely. He will be great, period. End of story. Jesus' greatness needs no qualification. For His greatness is equivalent to the greatness of God Himself. Jesus is very God of very God. And so these differences between the annunciation of John's birth and the annunciation of Jesus' birth make it clear that Jesus is unique. Jesus is one of a kind. Jesus surpasses John, is greater than John in his identity, in his role, and in his greatness. He is far greater than John, for Jesus is himself God in the flesh. And in these last few verses, we see that He's also the One who's come to fulfill God's promises to His people. Look with me at verses 32 and 33. First, the text takes us back in time to the kingdom of David, to the promise that God made to David. It tells us that Jesus is the Son of David to whom the throne belongs. Thus, Jesus brings the fulfillment of the Davidic kingdom. But then we go back in time even farther. Farther than David. The text goes on to say that he will reign over the house of Jacob. Thus Jesus brings the fulfillment of God's promises to the patriarchs, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But then our text takes a different turn. It says, he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom there will be no end. It takes us into eternity future. You see, Gabriel began by taking Mary. back into the past, showing how Jesus is the fulfillment of God's promises to David and to Jacob. But Gabriel ends by leaving Mary with an understanding of what Christ comes to do. He comes to secure for himself an eternal kingdom, an everlasting kingdom, a kingdom with no end. And this is the greatness of Christ. What could be greater than God himself coming down to earth to earn righteousness for us so that we can spend eternity with him as citizens of his kingdom in heaven. Brothers and sisters, this is what we celebrate at Christmas. This is the greatness of Jesus, our Savior. Let us therefore rejoice in the coming of this King. Amen. Let's pray.