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.

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God." "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her. (Luke 1:26-38)

Nothing is Impossible With God

In Christ's name and to his glory, dear friends: You can see that our central thought for this Gospel is NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD. This little Gospel is full of the amazing, the miraculous, which compels us to agree with Mary - nothing is impossible with God. We need this reminder because often we are like Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. When he heard that he and Elizabeth would have a child, a very impossible thing for this old couple, he asked, How can I be sure that this will happen? Deep down we are skeptics. Then sometimes we are like Mary. When she was face with the impossible she asked, How will this be? She did not doubt, but in her weakness and sinfulness she could not fully grasp the seemingly impossible and needed reassurance. I pray that our time with God's Word today will drive away doubt and let us understand and rejoice in the truth that nothing is impossible with God.

Mary saw that day that nothing is impossible with God. I pray that we understand each other when I say that there were three miracles, three seemingly impossible revelations, that God set out before Mary that day. The three miracles are progressively more amazing and wonderful, if we dare to compare miracles with one another.

The first miracles had to do with the earthly. Babies were on their way into the world. But these babies were special. Nothing is impossible with God. A couple can not be too old for God to accomplish his miracle of starting life through the natural means he set up at creation. Abraham and Sarah learned that as they were blessed with the boy Isaac long after they should have been able to have children. Mary now heard that her older cousin Elizabeth and Zechariah had found out the same thing - nothing is impossible with God. They were going to have a baby despite their age. And what is more...Mary herself would have a baby. This was a miracle of even greater wonder for she and Joseph had not begun their married life together as of yet. But nothing is impossible with God. The angel Gabriel explains that the child will be called the Son of God. As the Athanasian Creed says: This child is God, eternally begotten from the nature of God the Father, and he is man, born in time from the nature of his mother, fully God, fully man. Two babies, both miracles we going to be born, one a greater miracle than the other. This was the first set of miracles that make us say nothing is impossible with God.

The second set of miracles were even greater than the first. These miracles have more to do with the spiritual than the earthly. It's a wonder that miracle babies were on their way. An even greater wonder was what was bringing these babies into the world. Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you. These words were more than just a "Hello". These words announced a great miracle. God was smiling on his creation. More, God was coming to his creation. Even more, his creation was a rebellious, sin-filled, bunch that deserved no kind glance or visit, yet God was on his way. Even more, he was coming to pay a ransom price for sin, to restore sinful man to his original place as a being in God's own image. Wonder! Nothing is impossible with God. With man this would be impossible. No matter how hard he tried, mankind could not undo sin, restore himself to the status of God's child. But what man was unable to do, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man (Romans 8:3). Nothing is impossible with God.

Miracle babies...the gracious Lord smiling on his whole creation ...nothing is impossible with God. And now the third and even greater miracle - the Lord lets one person see these great miracles for what they were. I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you have said. Just as no gift is complete until it is in the hands of the one to whom you wish to give it, God is not satisfied until he has placed into the heart his gift of love. The Savior he gives to all he gives to each. What a miracle that Mary says later, ...my spirit rejoices in God "my" Savior. And so we see once again that nothing is impossible with God. A heart born blind to God can be made to see. A soul at enmity with God can be reconciled to him through faith. A soul without faith and hope in God and have that faith and hope planted in it by the creative work of God. Nothing is impossible.

Mary is one of those people in Scripture that we look at and say, I wish God would do great things for me like he did for Mary. If she could be here today and talk with you, she would say, The greater miracles he has done for you as well. Certainly the Lord was with Mary in a unique, earthly way. Mary was blessed to have spent more earth time with Jesus than any other human. But that puts her at no advantage nor we at any disadvantage when it comes to the great miracles of this Gospel. One time Jesus spoke out against that false idea that an earthly, physical closeness to Jesus was important. A person in a crowd yelled out, Blessed is the woman who gave you birth and nursed you! Jesus replied, No, blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!(Luke 11:28)

It was a miraculous blessing to be near Jesus while he was on earth. But there are greater miracles for which we all say nothing is impossible with God. The greater miracle is to see God's mercy behind his appearing. Even more to see our great need for that mercy as the Lord points out to us our sin and need for his rescue. Even more, to see the great wonder of knowing that God came to me, to you, to give us faith. What wonder to know Emmanuel, God with us, is also God with me. Ah, what great things God has done for me! Amen.