Umm, sorry its late kids. It’s been a year.
Luke 1:39-45; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:47-55; Micah 5:2-5a
When it comes down to how God acts, I think it’s safe to say He’s predictably unpredicatable. Or would unpredictably predictable be more accurate. I’m not quite sure which order it’d be. What I’m trying to say is that you can almost always count on God to do something unexpected.
Take for an example, King David. David started out as a shepherd boy, the youngest and least impressive of a reasonably unimportant man’s eight sons. His family comes from an obscure line containing a foreigner (Ruth), a prostitute (Rahab), and a rather sordid encounter between Judah and Tamar. But this nobody came to rule a nation through the help of God, and was promised an eternal dynasty which would culminate in the reign of Jesus Christ.
When you look at the ways in which Jesus came into the world, it’s really not all that different. Let’s start by looking at Micah 5. Bethlehem is a small community that could almost be considered a suburb of Jerusalem; that is, at least, if they had suburbs back then. (They didn’t.) The town itself was so small that it was barely significant, and about the only thing it was known for was being David’s hometown and as the setting of much of the book of Ruth.
But from this small town would come the ruler in Israel, foretold in ancient times. This ruler would reign not over Israel, but over the whole world, and all of that would be done in the name of God. And the text says that “He will be their peace”.
So we have these images of this great king who will be born in Bethlehem. Big king, little town. Things are a little strange, but this won’t be the first time a great king was born in Bethlehem. So far this still kind of makes sense, but it’s not exactly what one would expect.
Then there’s this thing in Hebrews 10, where it says that Jesus declared, “I have come to do your will, O God., as it is written of me in the scrolls.” That seems fairly obvious, but what is God’s will? And in what scroll is it written? Let’s take a trip to something we’ll read in a few weeks, Luke 4:16-21. I’m going to paraphrase a bit to give you the scene. Jesus goes back to Nazareth, where he grew up, and like the good Jew he was, he went to synagogue on Saturday. He was apparently the lector for the day and he read a passage from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Jesus read that, sat down, and said, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” I think jaws hit the floor at that point, and it carried enough weight to be at least alluded to in Hebrews 10. But if you look at the things mentioned, it’s very much like what Mary sings about in the Magnificat.
God works in ways contrary to human priorities. God scatters the proud, casts down the mighty, and sends the rich away empty. Yet He lifts up the humble, fills the hungry, and fulfills His promises to all people. He gives sight to the blind, frees the captive, and eliminates oppression.
Yet one of the biggest ways God acts unexpectedly is through Mary herself. Now there are a lot of things about Mary that would make us think she’s an odd choice to be the mother of God, not the least of which is that she is a virgin. Even her introduction in Luke’s gospel is less than passionate. An angel was sent to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David. Oh yea, and her name was Mary. Yet this young woman will bear a son who will be called Son of the Most High, and the heir to the throne of David.
Now in one sense, God isn’t doing anything too strange. Jesus’ legal father is of the line of David, and thus fulfills a prophecy. Some scholars think Mary is of a line of priests, given her relationship to Elizabeth. But then look at what happens in our Gospel. Mary goes and visits her cousin, whose pregnancy is used as an example that all things are possible with God, and when Mary walks in the house Elizabeth’s unborn baby leapt for joy at her presence. And then Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, says, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” Mary’s response is the song we chanted for our Psalm, and that I mentioned earlier.
Through all of this, God worked in unexpected ways, and yet did things that He already said he would do in other prophecies. It should be no surprise that Bethlehem is Jesus’ birthplace. It should be no surprise that God works to reverse the fortunes of those who are in need. It should be no surprise that the son of God came to Earth to be born as a human, live as a human, and die as a human. It should be no surprise that Jesus’ didn’t stay dead, but instead was raised to new life, a new life that is also for all those who believe and confess that Jesus is Lord. All these things are so outside of our usual thinking that, even when we know they’re coming, we’re still surprised by them. It’s just God’s way of staying predictably unpredictable.