20th Sunday after Pentecost LWML Sunday, theme: “Ready to Serve”
October 6, 2024 Luke 1:38
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Dear brothers & sisters in Christ,
To recognize the faith, the mite-giving, the mission, & the effort of the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League, our church body offers us a theme each year. It helps remind us of the work of the gospel that’s being supported thru the LwmL, to the benefit of many souls, for both their spiritual and physical lives. This year’s theme is simple, not complicated:
‘ready to serve.’ So, I hope this is a simple sermon.
The Bible personality we have as our example today is also an easy one to recognize: Mary. Mary was ‘conscripted’ by God; her assignment was simple & straightforward = altho from a human standpoint, it was impossible: to be the virgin mother of the one & only Messiah, that the world had been waiting for, for 4,000 yrs. She had one question for the angel-messenger, who gave her a basic answer. And Mary responds simply: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38).
We don’t usually use that word, ‘conscripted’; most often, we say ‘drafted.’ The ‘draft’ into military service is a recruiting tool. It’s not unfair for a nation to expect its young men to defend their nation from enemies. Men were drafted in every time of our wars, from between the Civil War to the Vietnam war. Our Congress has had a few draft-acts thru the years.
Until I looked it up, I didn’t realize this: The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 was passed by Congress on September 16, 1940. It required all men between the ages of 21 and 64 to register with the Selective Service. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese military launched a surprise attack on the Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Following the attack, Congress amended the act so that -in practice- only men between 18 & 45 were drafted into service.
After the Pearl Harbor attack, & for the duration of WWII, 16 million men served in the military; 10 million of those service members were drafted, 6 mill. were volunteers.
To help & encourage the recruiting process for both WWI & II, there was that famous poster, the one with ‘Uncle Sam’ dressed in a red, white, & blue tux & top hat, pointing to the viewer with the words: “I Want You for the U.S. Army.” Today in our text God points His finger at Mary and says, “I want you!”
So, God calls on Mary, and she responds in faith & trust in her Lord as a servant = ready to serve. She was not given a week or even a day to ponder her answer. She was greeted by Gabriel as ‘the favored one,’ who was already chosen for this assignment. While she wondered about God’s choice & expectations, by her trust in God, she was ready to serve on short notice for this unique task of being the mother of the ultimate & suffering servant; who would be God’s Son, who would trade His life for the life of the world.
We remember Mary, this willing servant, every time we make our confession of faith with the one of the three ecumenical Creeds. Like Mary, as God has given us our life, He has also drafted us into assignments we didn’t ask for, but He expects us to carry them out.
Those assignments might include certain illnesses in ourselves, or in our family members.
It may include caring for one or more special-needs children, or parenting a rebellious teenager.
Our draft=assignment may have included being sent to places we didn’t want to go, or to work with people that were extremely difficult, or to face unique problems no one in their right mind would choose to face. Mary reminds us that God conscripts us to serve Him; and she models to us that, as His children, reborn by water & Spirit, we need to be ready to serve.
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People are sometimes concerned over what age Mary was at this time, but God doesn’t express any concern with her age. She was His choice; her female body & faith is ready for His assignment; her maturity is enough to have saved her virginity for Joseph in marriage.
So, perhaps Mary was about 15, a young, Jewish woman in Nazareth, with dreams of having an ordinary & enjoyable life with Joseph. That’s when the angel Gabriel comes with the message that would change her life. “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus” (Luke 1:30–31).
We confess that Mary was a normal, sinful human being. Which is why God has Gabriel lead-off His message with ‘don’t be afraid.’ Mary, in herself, is not worthy of God’s favor or grace; no sinner can expect God’s undeserved kindness. It is the same as when God chose Abraham to give His covenant to, or when that deceiver Jacob was chosen instead of Esau for being the father of the 12 tribes of Israel. No human being since Adam & Eve deserves God’s favor.
But God had chosen her to bring His promised Savior into the world; He would save mankind from the eternal condemnation we earned by our sin.
Our Small Catechism sums up Jesus’ assignment this way: He’s the one ‘who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death.’ After all these years of waiting, God was going to make it happen. Why now? Because the ‘time was right’, says Romans 5; ‘the time had fully come’ says Galatians 4; all the right pieces were in place, including -especially- servant Mary.
Out of all the faithful, young women God might’ve chosen, He chose Mary; and humble person that she was, she was perplexed. If you put yourself in her position in that moment,
I wonder what questions would be going thru your mind. Maybe your first thoughts would not be questions, but rather complaints, such as ‘no way!’ I didn’t ask for this; why are you picking on me? I’m not ready for this; I’m not doing this.
Mary might’ve wondered: why me? But she doesn’t ask that. She did ask a question, but it was not like the question of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, when he asked the angel for a sign. Mary is confused & asks for an explanation concerning ‘Biology 101,’ which takes one male & one female. In the Greek, her question is: ‘how will be this thing, since a man I know not?’ (Luke 1:34).
A simple Q gets a simple answer: your child will not have a human father. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” (1:35).
That means that this child was not to be conceived and born in sin, in the fallen image of a fallen man; this holy child was going to the called the ‘Son of God.’ This child that Mary would conceive, carry & bear was going to be God’s Son. He would not be sinful.
The title ‘son of man’ is found in the OT prophecies referring to the promised Deliverer & Redeemer. And even tho the title ‘son of God’ in the OT can refer to a believer in God, Jesus is the only one who can properly bear both those titles, because He is both God and man in one Messiah. And when He proclaimed the salvation news to Nicodemus, He said: ‘God …gave His only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.’ (John 3:16).
It was just as the angel said: “nothing will be impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37). Without a human father, a virgin would conceive & bear a son, who would be called ‘Immanuel’ = God with us. Simple, impossible, and true. Who would believe it? Mary did. And in childlike faith, she responds: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38a). At a moments notice, this woman of faith was ready to serve.
What was the basis of her being ready to serve? Mary doesn’t credit herself, but credits God’s Word. “Let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38). The angelic messenger had come to her in the name of the Lord, with a message that God had an assignment for her, and she believed God’s Word. Her involvement was to be unique & unusual, and yet it fit with what the Holy Scriptures has proclaimed, from Adam & Eve, to Noah & Abraham, to Moses & king David. God was consistent in His promise of a Redeemer, and Mary believed that promise. At this point, she probably wondered if Joseph would also believe this word from God; but that, too, she would have to trust God to work it out. She was ready to serve.
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As God’s Son, Jesus came ready to serve. Altho he began as simply an obedient son to his mother & guardian father, his job description got more complicated as time went on.
With his disciples, Jesus summarized his draft-assignment: ‘For even the Son of Man came not to be served – but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’ (Mark 10:45).
God became man, and came to serve man. He taught people, healed people, and then went to the cross, died, & walked out of the tomb =not for himself, but= to secure our salvation. He was a true servant. St. Paul sums up this true servanthood in Philippians 2: ‘Christ Jesus … emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.’
As a true servant, under the Father’s grace & favor, He was able to accomplish the impossible. He open up eternal life to sinners; He would forgive all, the whole world; and then that good news would be proclaimed to all, so that whoever believes & is baptized in Him will -in the end- be saved. Jesus served, because our salvation was the ‘joy that was set before Him’ in His mission. Because this baby she would birth would be the Messiah that would serve her, Mary trusted God’s Word and was ready to serve Him
And now because Jesus’ mission has been accomplished, will YOU also trust God’s Word to you, and be ready to serve Him? By the Spirit’s promise, by water & the word, you have also been conscripted. This is a confession we make by the teaching of Scripture: ‘the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.’ For what purpose are we drafted into this faith in Christ Jesus?
‘…that I may be his own and live under him in his kingdom and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness.’ Paul wrote it this way in 2 Corinthians 5: ‘(Jesus) died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised.’
God’s Word, His gospel calling & instruction, prepares us so that we are ready, each day, to serve Him – by serving those around us. This life we have, and those people around us, are the assignment God has given. If the example of Mary seems too far back in history and too unique for us to imitate, since 1942 we have had the example of many other women to follow and be encouraged by. We have the LwmL who are Lutheran Women in Mission, and we can see first hand their faithful response to serving the Son of God & His mission.
They’re not just giving their small copper coins, or ‘mites’ to support the work of the gospel to the tune of $144,000 in our MNN district, and funding various national mission work to the tune of $2.3 mill$, they are also serving in the home, in the congregation, & in the community with the same willing faith as Mary did.
For that, we give thanks to God that He continues to have the good news of the Savior Jesus Christ proclaimed, and He continues to call women & men, young & older, into the service of His mission of bringing the lost & the erring into eternal fellowship with Him.
You & I have been ‘drafted’ = called up for service. No matter what various tasks He has chosen for us to do, may God grant us the willing faith to respond: ‘I am the servant of the Lord.’
Amen.