Month: January 2022

Luke 1:79 To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Zechariah continues his blessing and prophecy about his miracle baby, John. He will prepare the way for the “dayspring from on high” to visit us. The sunrise from heaven will break into human history on earth = the Son of God will come in human flesh to our world of darkness and death.

For us, the promise is that this light from heaven will come into our earth, and he will give light to us who live in darkness surrounded by death. And this light will guide us into the way of peace. “The Word has become flesh and dwelt among us.” Jesus, the Light, has come, and continues to come every day, to shine on our path and to be the Way. He brings us from darkness to light, from death to life, from conflict and strife to peace.

Jesus gives us two truths to confess and believe: 1) confess and believe that we sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and 2) confess and believe that Jesus is my Savior and Lord who brings me into the way of peace. First, we admit that we really are in darkness and under death, and my own sin is the cause of my predicament; and furthermore, I cannot grope my way out. There must be a better way, a better life. This admission is repentance, worked by the Spirit through the Word. Second, we accept Jesus as the only Way, the only Light, the only Life. He is the One who brings me into the better way, the better life. This is faith, worked in us by the Spirit through the Word.

This is God’s daily promise, and our daily task. At least once a day Sunshine comes to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Luke 1:77 To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins.

Zechariah continues his prophecy about his baby boy, John: He will be called the prophet of the Highest, and he will go before the Lord to prepare his ways. Then he gives this prophecy: he will prepare the way for the Lord to come by repentance and baptism for the remission of their sins. This John did. And this is the promise: he will give his people knowledge of salvation.

We have been promised the knowledge of salvation. Jesus is salvation. He is the Savior. We know Jesus by faith, after hearing the gospel of grace. God promises knowledge: we “know” Jesus. We know who He is and what He did. We know the salvation He is and the salvation He gives. We do not just hope, wish, dream, or just want it to be so. We know. We know what He saved us from; we know what He saved us for.

Faith is a personal relationship with Salvation and with the One Who Saves. We live in a different world; we live in the world of salvation; we live the life of the age to come. Indeed, we still live in this sin-cursed world that we can see, but at the same time we live in the sin-free spiritual kingdom that we can’t see. We know this world. We live in this world. And we live from this world, for we have the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of sins.

Luke 1:74, 75 That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.

Mary, through inspiration of the Holy Spirit, gives us the promise from her Son: Jesus will grant unto us the desire and ability to serve the Lord without fear. And we will serve Him in holiness and righteousness all the days of our life.

Jesus has come to deliver us from our spiritual enemies for a purpose: that we might serve the Lord. “We are saved by grace through faith for good works that we should walk in them.” We don’t serve God nor do good works naturally, so we must be transformed by grace to become what we were created to be: holy, righteous people that love and serve the Lord all of our days.

Martin Luther says in the Catechism that the Father gives, provides, and protects us out of goodness and mercy. And then, “For all this it my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him.” He also says that the Son is my Lord who has redeemed me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, so that I may be his own and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

Luther also says that the Lord doesn’t need our service, but other people do. Therefore we serve the Lord by loving and serving others. This is the privilege and the promise: we want to love and serve people, and we get to do so without fear of our three spiritual enemies constantly harassing us.

Luke 1:72 To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant.

Jesus, the Virgin-born Messiah, came into our world to perform the mercy that was promised to our spiritual fathers of the faith. He came to remember (to resurrect and make active in the present) His holy covenant promises. This Jesus did do. He fulfilled the promised mercy and brought the covenant to life.

Mercy is vital to our life and well-being. It is even more important and needful than we think it is. The proud Pharisee within us does not think we need so much mercy since we already “have a lot of good in us.” The Sinner within us admits we do not deserve mercy. The Pharisee is wrong: there is no good in any of us. Mercy is absolutely necessary. The Sinner is wrong: mercy cannot, by definition, be deserved.

Mercy is unearned, undeserved, unmerited by us, or it wouldn’t be mercy. But mercy actually was earned, by Jesus’ perfect life and innocent death. Mercy was earned for us, but not by us. Then it is given by grace and received by faith. Jesus “performed, accomplished, finished, completed” or in the Greek “did, made” the mercy. The truth is, we could not live another day without mercy. We are dead in sin, born that way, and act that way. Mercy takes away sin and death and gives life. Boy, do we need it, and Hallelujah, does Jesus give it!

”Remember” means to make something from the past alive, active, effective, and real in the present moment. Jesus remembers the covenant promises made to Abraham, David, etc., and makes them alive to us. And when we take communion we “do this in remembrance of me.” Mercy comes anew, and keeps alive.

Luke 1:71 That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us.

Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin and became human for the purpose of saving us from our enemies. Mary may have thought that the Christ would come to save the political and religious people group of Israel from the Romans and other political, earthly enemies. However, what Jesus did was save all of us from our spiritual, eternal enemies.

The promise came true in a much more powerful way than Mary or her contemporaries could even imagine. Our enemies are not human people. “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, bu against spiritual evil….” The enemies we have (and those who hate us) are dangerous, relentless, and deadly. Their purpose is to destroy us and keep us away from God and life. Sin, Death, and the Devil are continually working to steal, kill, and destroy.

But Jesus was born to destroy the works of the devil, the lethal effects of sin, and the reign of death. These are the enemies that Jesus has come to save us from. These three enemies of the soul have been defeated at the cross and the tomb, and in the End they will be cast into the lake of fire.

Meanwhile, between those times we go into spiritual warfare daily, but we live and fight from a position of strength and victory. The Savior, the Victor, is living in our life saving us from our enemies every day.

Luke 1:68, 69 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; He hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.

Mary’s Magnificat was inspired by the Holy Spirit to praise God for the promises fulfilled in the miraculous birth of her son, and to declare to all the Promise of Salvation through Him. Mary could not know naturally who this child was and what He would do, except by the revelation of the Spirit. So God, through Mary, reveals the significance of this Virgin Birth.

This is what happened: the Lord God broke into and entered our stream of human history from the spiritual, eternal world. God became a human. What for? To save a people for himself: “He has visited and redeemed His people.” When God “visits” it can be to bring a good promise or to inspect for judgment. In this case the visit is to “redeem.”

God Himself has come in the human flesh of Jesus of Nazareth to buy His people back from the slavery, ownership, and control of Sin, Death and Satan. That’s the promise of this Virgin-Born Child: He Redeems! He brings us back to God, to Life, to the Family, and to the Kingdom where we belong.

Jesus is the “horn of salvation” from the dynasty of King David. He is the promised Messiah, who has come to rule the people of God forever. A “horn” in the Bible symbolizes both authority and power. Authority is the right to rule, as absolute monarch, and power is the military force to back up the authority. With Jesus, the Kingdom (authority) has come to save us from the evil reign of Sin and Death; and with Jesus, the Gospel (the power of God unto salvation) has been proclaimed to save us. And so it ends up that for us every day we are saved.

Luke 1:51, 52, 53 He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.

Mary’s Magnificat Song is a prime example of the Great Reversal theme that runs through the Bible. Things will not always remain as they are now; we can be sure they will change and be reversed. “The proud will be humbled, and the humble will be exalted.” That’s the promise. Mary praises God for what He promises to do through her son.

The proud, the mighty, and the rich in this age will all be brought down, some even in this age, but all certainly in the next. Those of low degree in this age will be exalted, and the hungry will be filled with good things. The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus illustrates the great reversal.

Things will turn around, and all thing will be put to rights in the end. Meanwhile, we wait with confident trust and patient hope for God’s time and way. We are willing to be humbled, weak, and lowly while trusting the Promise.

Luke 1:50 And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.

Mary breaks out in the Song of the so-called “Magnificat,” after she greets her pregnant cousin Elizabeth, who was previously barren in her old age. The Magnificat is a wondrous song of praise and thanks to God for what He has promised and done, for what He is doing in her lifetime, and what great salvation this child will effect in His lifetime.

Mary begins with the first great Promise: Mercy! It is given as a conditional promise: if you fear Him then mercy will be upon you. Mercy is actually extended to every sinner who ever lived, as Jesus died for all, but it is received and actualized by those who “fear God,” that is, believe Him. The Good News is that the Spirit creates the faith (fear of God) along with the hearing of the Gospel. Thus the hearer has received mercy.

Mercy is actually “earned” by Jesus and then given to us for free. Mercy is “on them that believe.” Mercy covers them, as a shroud or a fog. Mercy swarms over them, surrounding and filling. Mercy chases them until it tackles them. Mercy restores, fixes up, repairs, renews, and works together for good. “Mercy triumphs over judgment.” Mercy is an extremely powerful force that arises from the most powerful force in Creation, God’s Love.

No one is excluded from mercy because of when or where he was born. It is “from generation to generation,” extended to all peoples until the end of the age. This means personally that mercy is for me. Jesus is the Mercy of God for me. Mary could see it and praise God. So can we.

Luke 1:37 For with God nothing shall be impossible.

This is quite an amazing promise for us to take hold of when we need to believe it. In the context, it is a concrete promise of the angel Gabriel to Mary that she will indeed, as a virgin, bear a son. So also, the “impossible” has already happened: your barren cousin Elizabeth is pregnant in her old age. And now, the “really impossible” will happen to you.

The wider promise for us is that saving us, forgiving us, bringing us into the kingdom of heaven, and granting eternal life is impossible. The Virgin Conception is just one of many impossible events that the the Almighty, Loving, Father had to work out in order to bring me to Himself. God’s love for me drove Him to do impossible things in the history of mankind and in my own personal historic life. And He did it! He impossibly fulfilled His Promises for my Salvation. He is making holy people out of evil sinners. He is making something out of nothing.

But an even wider promise is open for us: the same God of Love who worked out our impossible salvation also tackles intractable problems in answer to our prayers. He richly and daily provides for all my needs according His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. He knows how to, and He does, work out all things together for my good. He finds a way when there is no way. Our Lord is doing the impossible for us every single day. Thank God for this promise: we have a “God of the impossible.”

Luke 1:32-33 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

The angel announces to Mary that she will have a son. Keep Him. Call Him Jesus. He will be great. He will be called Son of the Highest. He will be King on the throne of David. His Birth fulfills the covenant Messianic prophecy given to David in 2 Samuel 7. This prophecy is for all people.

The unconditional promise for us is that He will reign over God’s people forever and His kingdom rule will never end. The never-ending kingdom of God has come to take over our life. Jesus promises that we shall enter the kingdom by being born of water and the Spirit, from above. We are in that kingdom now. We are under God’s beneficent reign now. One Day we will experience it in its fullness and enjoy its pleasures forever without end.

We don’t see it now for it is real in the spiritual world, to which we are blind and dead. We don’t see it yet for it is for us still in our future. But we have the promise, and we have faith, which makes the promise real and present and alive. Faith is the “substance” of things hoped for. The very God who died for us is ruling our lives for our good, right now and into the eternal future.