Pastor Dan Eddy
Luke 1:39-45
“I need assurance”
12-19-10
THE GOSPEL
READING…………………………………………Luke 1:39-45 NIV
P:
The Holy Gospel, according to St. Luke, the 1st Chapter:
C: Glory to You, O Lord.
After Mary is told by the Angel Gabriel that
she is miraculously pregnant with the Christ Child, she goes to visit her
cousin Elizabeth.
39 At that time Mary got ready
and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40 where
she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted
P: This is the
Gospel of the Lord.
C: Praise to
You, O Christ.
I.
Introduction…we all need assurance
We all need
assurance.
A child learning
to ride a two-wheel bike needs his dad’s assurance that when he runs along side
holding onto the bike that when his dad lets go…he won’t fall over or crash. He
is assured when he pedals and the bike flies down the sidewalk as he feels the
freedom of biking.
That assurance
brings relief and great joy.
A student needs
assurance from her teacher that she is learning the material well. She is
assured when the teacher gives her an “A” in the class.
A wife needs
assurance from her husband that he is dedicated to her. She is assured when he
says, “I love you” and cleans up the
kitchen.
A soon-to-be
mother needs assurance from the doctor that everything is going to be alright
during delivery. She is assured when she holds her little girl in her arms for
the first time.
A pastor going in
for heart surgery needs assurance from the surgeon that everything is going to
be all right. He is assured when he wakes up from the surgery and is told everything
went well. His heart is strong again.
We all need
assurance. Assurances bring us needed relief and great joy.
II.
Mary needed assurance from
Mary, the mother
of Jesus, was no different. She needed to be assured that what the Angel Gabriel
told her was indeed true. That without being with a man she would miraculous
conceive the Son of God…Christ incarnate…the Messiah foretold over thousands of
years through God’s Word.
Mary needed to be
assured that of all women - a teenager, of all people – a peasant, and in all
places in a little village, she would be the mother of the Messiah.
Mary needed
assurance and she went to her cousin, Elizabeth, to seek it.
The Angel Gabriel
dropped into his message to Mary that barren
Mary couldn’t
wait. She rushed from her village near the Sea of Galilee all the way south, to
And what’s the
first thing Mary hears when she greets
The
sense from the text was that this wasn’t just a generic blessing for Mary and
her baby. Blessed here literally means
“Spoken well of.” Scripture has spoken well of the coming Messiah. This was confirmation of
everything the Angel Gabriel said to Mary. She was assured she was in
good company.
Needing assurance doesn’t mean we don’t
believe. Being assured affirms what we’ve been told. It affirms what we
believe. That’s important.
The assurance
brought needed relief and great joy as we see God’s loving Hand in the Christ
child.
Note in verse
41…Mary’s assurance was by fueled by the Holy Spirit filling
The last
component to assurance is faith…trusting in God’s Word provides the guarantee.
Look at verse 45: “Blessed
is she who has believed (having faith) that the Lord would fulfill his promises
to her!”
That day…
How does God reveal the
Sacraments are
for our assurance that we have God’s gift of grace that through faith alone He saves
you and me. That assurance is given at your baptism by the Word of God through
the water. It’s tangible and real.
But for most of
us, our baptism was some time ago…so again God assures you of His forgiveness
in the bread and cup of His true body and blood. The assurance again is tangible
and real.
What was Mary’s
response to God’s assurance delivered by the Holy Spirit through
How do we respond
to God’s assurance? By rejoicing like Mary did, singing joyfully, praising
God’s name, or in our confession of faith, giving witness to God’s name, like
Mary Anne did last week with her testimony. Her testimony was so re-assuring
for our faith.
The assurance
brings needed relief and great joy.
Hebrews
11:1ESV: “Now faith is the assurance
of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” How true that was for
Mary on that day she visited
III. What God’s Assurance
prepares us for…life’s challenges
Advent is the
season of preparation, for advancing our faith. This assurance from God prepares
us for the troubles and challenges ahead.
For example, Mary
needed that preparation. Can you imagine the challenges she would face over the
next nine months convincing friends, family, parents, and Joseph that the Son
of God was miraculously conceived inside her? The prejudices, the shunning, and
the disbelief of her story.
For us, this
assurance helps as the world wants us to doubt that Good is good. How many times
does our culture convince you that it’s wrong to speak about your faith in
Christ, especially this time of year? There was a small bank in
How often are we,
as believers in Christ, tempted to doubt the assurance of God’s commandments
for our lives? How often have you heard, “as
long as it doesn’t hurt someone else do what makes you happy?” Pretty soon
you are left to think good is bad and bad is good.
But the assurance
of God’s Word brings needed relief and great joy.
That assurance is
needed at the most desperate times in our lives. Just ask Diane Waterfield.
Here she was transported by ambulance to
Diane expressed
appreciation to me for that assurance, and was hoping her conversations she had
with me and others were being overheard by her roommate, Maureen. You see
Maureen is dying of cancer, but she did not express faith in Christ, and even repeatedly
rejected chaplains praying for her. Her disease is assured to kill her; now she needs the assurance of God’s everlasting life saving grace in Christ Jesus.
So as Maureen was
leaving the hospital to return home, Diane went over and laid her hands on
Maureen, prayed with her, asking God that the Christmas message would go with
her. And Maureen appreciated the prayer.
We are assured so
we can pass on this assurance to others.
How was that
assurance stated in the hymn, Mary did
you know? “[Mary] Did you know, that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you've delivered, will soon deliver you.”
God
bless you with the assurance of our Lord like Mary received, the assurance you
continually receive by God’s Word and Sacraments, confirmed by faith alone in
Christ Jesus. Let that assurance bring you needed relief and great joy this
Christmas season, so you can pass it onto others. Amen.