Hear what's written [The Annunciation of our Lord; Isaiah 7:10-14]

On each and every day of the Church year, the readings assigned are so rich, that it is impossible to talk about it all in one sitting, let alone one sermon. Quite a few days are more guilty of this than others. The Annunciation of our Lord is one of the more guilty.

If you look through your bulletin, you find allusions to the beginning of time, the Fall, the Promise of a son, Christmass, Epiphany, Lent, Good Friday, Easter, and even the Last Day. All of these are wrapped in swaddling clothes on Christmass and burial shrouds on Good Friday.

The Past, the Present, and the Future all come to a climax in the person and work of Jesus. Thus we can have Gabriel speaking to Mary and we can picture both Eve and Mary together and see them both believing in the Promise of the Messiah Who will trample sin, death, and the devil underfoot.

Suffice it for this evening, we will focus on King Ahaz and his false piety toward God as he says,

“I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.”

You will not ask? Who are you? God has told you to ask for a sign. You better listen to God, even though He says that only a wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign. Ask, even though you are the wicked and adulterous generation. Ask even though you think you are only testing God. Ask.

Ask and listen. Say your prayers, then hear God. But hear what? What are we to listen for? A still, small voice? A rush of wind and flame? An angel to appear? Then when you do hear, how do you know God has spoken or rather, how do you know its not satan?

Look to St. Mary! She was visited, she didn’t argue, she didn’t hold conversation, but simply said, “I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

She did not break out in the Magnificat here. It was only until after the word of Gabriel came to pass that she sang in praise and thanksgiving. She told Gabriel that she was a servant of the Lord, not of him, and that if it is the Word of the Lord, then let it come to be.

See it was not just a revelation from God that St. Mary trusted in. It was not every angel or bright shining person that was trusted. They needed authority behind them. They needed precedent. Gabriel’s word is ok, but if God hasn’t spoken, then it is the devil’s work.

St. Mary was not trusting in the angel until the Word proved true, for she and everyone else were waiting for the Messiah. They were waiting for the virgin to conceive and bare a son and I’m sure more than a few zealous mothers faked it.

Repent. King Ahaz did not trust in the Word, which had been written down for him. He did not trust in the fact that God can say whatever He wants, but what He wants to say, to you, is in His Word. All King Ahaz had to do was ask for the Messiah as promised. He did not have to think of something on his own.

St. Mary had prayed for the Lord’s Christ to come. St. Joseph also prayed for this sign from God and it came to pass. All believers pray for the sign that is deeper than Sheol and higher than heaven and the Lord speaks and answers.

Jesus is born of the Virgin Mary and foster fathered by Joseph, because the Word has said it. O evil and wicked generation that asks for signs, the Lord has given the sign and Immanuel has been crucified, died, and was risen from the grave never to die again.

The sign, the answer to all your prayers, and the Hope of Eve and all people is the Lord Jesus Christ dying for the sin of the world. Hearing God is none other than listening to His Son, for in these gray and latter days, God has spoken only through His Son.

Hearing Jesus is nothing else except listening to the Gospel preached in its purity and the Sacraments administered according to it. There is no fooling around with existential spirituality, transcendental meditation, or ethereal dreams. God simply cuts through it all, takes on a body and soul, and speaks to you with His own two, physical lips.

Thus He speaks to you. He tells you He has come, He does come, and He is coming again. He tells you that you are washed and fed. He tells you that in 9 months, you will have a savior born to the nations and He will be fully God and now, fully Creator and creation. God has joined Himself to us in order that we may be assumed in to Him, bodily.

For there is but one Christ, God and man; one, however, not by the conversion of the divinity into flesh, but by the assumption of the humanity into God. We know this, because we have the Word of God as Authority. We are sure and certain these promises are for us, because God’s Word is trustworthy.

You can believe God’s Word even though reason, emotion, and culture scream against it, because the Word was made flesh, dwelt among us, and rose from the dead.