SERMON OUTLINE 007--24 DEC 2006

HOPE is a PLAN

Fourth Sunday in Advent
FOB PALIWODA
24DEC06

Scripture
Luke 1:39-56

Timeline
1:5-25 Jonathan promised to Elizabeth and Zacharias in their old age
1:26-38 Gabriel visits Mary

I. Introduction:

A. What was your best Christmas? Why?

B. A common theme, I would guess, with all these stories is that the Holy Spirit was at work. More specifically, we were surprised by God. Sacred surprises are what Christmas is all about. Illustration: little children waiting for Santa. The attraction is not the gifts, as witnessed by a child’s fascination with a box rather than the toy that it housed, but the magic of the day.

II. The Holy Spirit at Work

A. Mary’s surprise


1. Betrothal back then was the same as getting married. Mary was, essentially, already married to Joseph. We also must remember to show up pregnant before your wedding day was legal grounds for punishment by stoning.

2. Gabriel appears to this girl who is about as near the bottom of the social totem pole as one could get. She was a girl, she was poor, and she was a Hebrew.

3. The miracle is not only the conception but in the fact that she said yes, without asking why. Moses asked why, Abraham asked why, David asked why, but not Mary.


B. Unconditional promises bring unpredictable futures


1. When a couple says their marriage vows, do they put conditions on them? Well, if you are in an unconditional relationship with someone, get ready for a wild ride.

2. We want conditional promises. Why? Because we want to limit our risk and control our futures. This is great if you are an investment banker, but it is impossible if you act with people and with God. Illustration: if we build enough clinics, schools, and take out enough HVIs, we will have success. We want to have benchmarks.

3. God does not give us benchmarks

4. Mary said yes because she did not care about what God promised to her but who He was.

III. Holy Imagination

A. Where has our imagination gone?

B. We cannot limit the Holy Spirit.

C. Part of our faith is the inherent God-given dignity in every man or woman. We have a probably illiterate peasant girl, barely out of puberty, who has the audacity to think that God can work through her.

D. “Faith,” says theologian James Whitehead, “is the enduring ability to imagine life in a certain way.”

E. We are imagining what Christmas could be like at home, but let us imagine what Christmas could be like here. Illustration: we need to see the Holy Spirit working around us. Chaplains do not control God.

IV. Looking Ahead

A. Country music star Travis Tritt spent many years playing out-of-the-way joints before he made it big in the music industry. He reports that many of the bars were dangerous places, with drunk fans starting fights over the smallest matters. But Tritt found a unique way to keep the peace in such situations. He says:


Silent Night proved to be my all-time lifesaver. Just when [bar fights] started getting out of hand, when bikers were reaching for their pool cues and rednecks were heading for the gun rack, I'd start playing Silent Night. It could be the middle of July—I didn't care. Sometimes they'd even start crying, standing there watching me sweat and play Christmas carols.[1]



B. They cry because something from home comes back to them. Either something that was or something that should have been. The song sparks the imagination, a memory of how life could be.

V. Conclusion

A. What are we doing here? Why are we here? God can use this place, this time to make us better, to use us to make the people around us better.

B. Remember what John the Baptist said, making the roads straight; we are witnessing the great leveling. It is not the worldly way in how you relate to your brother or sister that is important; it is how you relate to God.

C. With the incarnation, the coming of Christ, God becomes personal. God is not distant. If God is distant it has everythng to do with us and nothing to do with Him.

D. Imagine


1. Imagine: Roman soldiers watching the children play in Nazareth. Those girls would not look much different than the girls who wave at us every day we go out on mission.

2. Imagine: the how the local religious, cultural, and political leaders would have reacted if they had known that God had put so much trust into such a girl in their presence.

3. God put the future of the world, the salvation of the world, into the hands of a peasant girl from the Middle East. When you see the girls playing alongside the road, this is who Mary was.


E. It is not hard for soldiers to imagine any of this. Perhaps this is why soldiers can be so easily swayed into believing. We place our lives, our futures, into the hands of those around us every day. Bullets do not know rank, skin color, gender, or social status.

As we imagine the world, if we imagine with God’s heart of faith, hope, and love, then what does God have for our future, what trust, what faith does he have in us? Amen.


[1] Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations, compiled by Raymond Obstfeld and Sheila Burgener (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997)