Mary

The Gospel according to Saint Luke—in Chapter 1 we have a passage that is well known, and in this Christmas season it is fitting to take some time to remember the events, remember the details, remember the aspects of the Christmas story.

In verse 26, Luke, Chapter 1, the word of the Lord says: “...in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in to where she was and said: ‘Hail, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women.’ But when she saw him, she was troubled by his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her: ‘Mary, do not be afraid, for you have found favor before God, and now you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and you shall call His name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give Him the throne of David, His father. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.’ Then Mary said to the angel: ‘How will this be, since I do not know a man?’ And the angel answered and said to her: ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore, the holy being who will be born will also be called the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren, for nothing is impossible with God.’ Then Mary said: ‘Behold the servant of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.’ And the angel departed from her presence.” May the Lord bless His holy word.

I have set myself a simple goal this afternoon, and that is to remind all of us, myself included, of the principal aspects of the incarnation, the coming of Jesus into the world, why things happened as they did, why the writer Luke provides us with these details, and what they meant in terms of God’s overall plan for humanity. Luke is one of my favorite books, and of the four Gospels I would say it is the one that fulfills me most, although each one has its own beauty and its own special message. But Luke has the distinction of having been written by a historian, a man who enjoyed the study of history and who set out to record the events of Jesus’ birth just as they happened so that they would not be lost over time. He also did so with the very special purpose of recording events and details in a concise and reliable manner. And there are details that have the flavor of a historical account, but more than history, Luke is also a book that reveals the mysteries of why things happened in the way God caused them to happen. It is not merely history for the sake of intellectual interest, but also has a profoundly spiritual meaning for us. And at Christmas it is important for us to remind ourselves once again that Christmas is above all about those spiritual events, those events concerning the relationship between God and man, because it is so easy, amid all the hustle and bustle of buying one another gifts and preparing the house for visits from relatives and all of that, to forget that there is a whole, profoundly spiritual plot and that God was doing deeply mysterious things when He caused His Son Jesus Christ to be born into the world.

And this account, this passage here that we have just read, contains many elements that ought to be studied so that we may better understand what God was doing through this situation, and I am going to go through it this way, line by line, or concept by concept.

It says here that the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph. The first thing that strikes me is the name and identity of the one who brings Mary the news that she is going to have a son: it is Gabriel. And Gabriel is a mysterious figure; he is clearly an angel—an archangel, rather—of high rank and great dignity in the angelic hierarchy.

The first time Gabriel appears in the Bible, we see him in the book of Daniel speaking to Daniel and bringing him revelation concerning the events that are to occur at the end of time. And then we see Gabriel announcing to Elizabeth that she too is going to have a son, that his name will be John, and that he will be a forerunner of Jesus, a herald of the Messiah who is to come. And there, before Elizabeth, Gabriel identifies himself as, “I am Gabriel, who stands before God,” and evidently Gabriel is alluding in this way to his very special role. It seems that Gabriel was an archangel who had the special privilege of standing in the presence of the Lord and of being used for very great and powerful missions. From that moment, we can understand that we are not dealing with just another account in the history of Scripture, but with something very special and momentous that has to do with God’s plan throughout history.

We see Gabriel, then, with Daniel, speaking to him about humanity’s final days, and now we see him here bringing news to Mary—and to us as well—about the important, exceptionally important role that this mysterious being of whom he is speaking to Mary was going to play. That is, from the announcement alone and the figure who delivers it, we can understand that Jesus was not just anything. Jesus is not simply one more among a list of exceptional figures in history. Jesus is not merely an enlightened man of great spiritual skill, or a highly exalted spirit, as some have led us to believe He is. Rather, Jesus is, as He said, the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him. That is, something exceptional, something unique. Jesus is unique among every order of existence, and for that reason it was fitting that the announcement be made by a figure as important as the archangel Gabriel. And then Gabriel tells Mary, who is a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, that this mysterious being will be born to her.

Now, let us reflect for a moment on this idea. It says that she was a virgin. Why a virgin? Why not a woman who was already married and had children, to whom a mysterious and new figure would simply be born? In the fact that she was a virgin, there was something very, very important, and it concerns God’s dealings and transactions with humanity. Mary, in her virginity, was playing a key role: God needed a bearer; God needed a vessel for His Son. God needed an instrument that would give this mysterious being who was to be born a very important nature in the drama of the incarnation, and that was human nature. Mary gave, we might say, almost one half of the Savior’s identity, which was the human half. And for that reason Jesus could not be born of the union between a man and a woman, as a union merely blessed by God, so that He would be one more like Gideon, or like one of the judges, or one of the great prophets who lived on earth.

God was doing something through this incarnation, and that was that He was solving a problem He had, so to speak, with humanity. Humanity had fallen; Adam and Eve had sinned, and from that time onward man and God had been divided, and man had become deserving of death and condemnation, and there could be no direct communication between God and man. And so man found himself in a state of separation, and from the beginning of time God had fully intended to solve that problem. Back there in the Garden of Eden, He had said that the son of a woman would crush the head of Satan, the serpent. And so God devised this plan whereby He Himself—perfect God, infinite God, God of total and infinite worth—would come into the world, would assume the form of a man, and, as humanity’s representative, God Himself would pay the price for all the sins of all men. From that time onward, anyone who availed himself of what God had done by dying for man and paying the price for man’s sin would receive salvation, would receive forgiveness, and would receive the possibility of communicating with God once again.

And that is why the birth of Jesus is not a neutral birth; it is not as though God were amusing Himself by doing something mysterious. Rather, it was something very carefully planned by God. God was resolving a spiritual situation of cosmic proportions, so to speak, and God was creating a being who would be capable of giving humanity what humanity needed, of resolving humanity’s dilemma. And for that, a woman was needed who would give her human nature to the Lord, to the Messiah, who would lend God her womb, so to speak, so that God could then enter into that human aspect and make a perfect union of the human and the divine. And from there the Savior of humanity would be born. That is why she had to be a virgin, because the being who was to be born had to open the womb; it had to be something... God always speaks of the first offerings to the Lord. In the Bible there is that teaching that the male who opened his mother’s womb was consecrated to the Lord.

Thus Mary had to be a virgin for two reasons: first, so that when God came into contact with her, He would impart His divine nature to the human nature that she would contribute; but also so that it would be clear that this was something consecrated to the Lord, that it was devised by God, that it would be something new, something unique in the history of humanity. Then God joins Himself to Mary, spiritually resting upon her. Mary asks Him, “But how will this be? How is it possible that I am going to give birth to a son, since I am a virgin?” And the angel Gabriel tells her: what is going to happen is that the Holy Spirit will descend upon you, He will rest upon you, and God will cause you to conceive a son. That is, there is nothing sexual here—let us understand that, brothers and sisters—there is no union like those unions we see in myths between a deity and a human maiden. There are such things in human history; there are accounts like that in the myths of religions. This is about a holy union in which God descended in the form of the Holy Spirit, hovered over Mary, and brought forth within her a being who was a perfect union of humanity and divinity. Both were perfect, and then that being who was to come forth, as it says here in verse 35—“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and therefore the holy being who will be born will also be called the Son of God”—was the precious union that God wanted to bring about at this moment: a union of humanity and deity. And that holy and mysterious being who was going to walk upon the earth would include these two natures. Christ was going to walk upon the earth; He was going to triumph over temptation, over demons, over nature, over death, over illnesses, over loneliness, over the betrayals of men, over every kind of thing. In His human nature, Christ was living the life that we were supposed to live, both in good things and in bad.

In the good, He lived purely and perfectly, refusing every temptation that came to Him; He completed what men were supposed to complete when God created them in the Garden of Eden. He did everything right; He did everything by the book; He fulfilled every requirement that God demanded of a human being. And as God, in Jesus’ divine aspect, He was able to pay the price for our sins. Because if He had been only a man, no man is valuable enough to save all humanity. Perhaps His sacrifice could have sufficed for Himself, but in His divine capacity, as God, by giving His life, releasing the life that was within Him, and taking our sins upon Himself, He could pay the debts of us all. And that is why today, when we look to Jesus, we look to that God-man, historically speaking, and say, “Lord, I believe that You accomplished that in Your incarnation; You paid the price for my sin, and now I can have the freedom to come before the Heavenly Father.” Then you too can be saved; you can receive communication with God; you can receive the forgiveness of your sins.

So when Gabriel announces to Mary that she, a virgin, is going to have a son, all of that is at work there. It is the fact that God was resolving this problem of humanity and, through that virgin birth, He was giving salvation to all humanity. And I am always moved by Mary’s reaction. When the angel tells Mary that she is going to have a son, Mary was getting herself into serious trouble, because it says that Mary was betrothed, which means that she was engaged to Joseph. She was not yet married, but in Hebrew culture, being engaged was equivalent to marriage.

In Hebrew culture, if you were a young woman, you could be friends with a young man, and once that friendship became something more serious, it immediately had to be formalized with an engagement. And that engagement was equivalent to marriage. If that woman was found committing adultery, even though she was not yet formally married, it was an offense as though she had been married, an extremely serious one. And in ancient Hebrew culture, it was an offense punishable by death. So when the archangel tells Mary, “Mary, you are going to have a son, and it is going to be a mysterious, virginal birth; God himself is going to do it,” I imagine Mary immediately thought, “Wow, what a mess I’ve gotten myself into. What is my family going to think?” Imagine if they asked her, “But Mary, how did you have this child if you aren’t married yet?” “Oh, the Holy Spirit caused him to be born in me.” No one was going to believe her. Mary had to put herself at risk; she had to believe that God would resolve that dilemma somehow, and that reminds us, brothers and sisters, that Christmas is also a time to resolve to live in faith, to live by faith, to live in obedience to God. Mary is a woman who represents faithfulness to God, who represents faith in the Lord, who represents the spirit of service to the Lord. At the end of that account, Mary says, “Behold the servant of the Lord. Let it be done to me as God wills.”

And at Christmas we have to ask the Lord, “Father, help us to accept and adopt that spirit of obedience to God, so that even if you ask us to do things that are terribly strange and threatening, things that bring insecurity into our lives, we may be able to say, ‘Lord, your will be done.’” When the Lord Jesus Christ had to go to the cross of Calvary, unsure of what was going to happen there—he had some idea, but the only thing he knew was that great suffering awaited him—he said, “Lord, if you are willing, take this cup from me; but if you prefer to do something else, then let your will be done in my life.” That spirit of surrender is what we see throughout the entire account of Jesus’ journey: his mother receives him in obedience, he comes in obedience to the Father, and then he surrenders himself in obedience once again to the Father, to the cross, and to the arms of death.

And that is what Christmas is about: surrendering ourselves to the Lord in obedience, renewing bonds of submission and surrender to the Lord, and remembering that God who says, “Look, I want to bless you. You may not be sure how I am going to do it, but I have a plan. Don’t worry about how this will happen; I know how I do things, and you simply trust in me and place yourself in my arms.” Perhaps God wants to bless you in some way this Christmas. Perhaps God wants to bring something new to you in the coming year, but perhaps God is saying to you, “Trust in me, take steps of faith, resolve to serve me better. Resolve to give me your time, to seek me more deeply each day, to consecrate yourself more fully to me, to study my word better, to pray more, to pay the price beforehand,” because many times, before blessing us, God asks us to be crucified, humbling our intellect, humbling all our questions about how this will happen, how it will come about, and what will happen if it does not work out. God continually tells us, “Leap into the abyss, and I will be with you. I will see you through; don’t worry. I know what I am doing.”

So it is important for us to see that fact there. God was resolving a great problem, a tremendous situation for humanity, and he had his plan, and Mary was necessary; and many times each one of us is necessary so that God can do something in humanity, and he needs our obedience, he needs an open heart that says to the Father, “Lord, do with me as you will. I am willing to do it.”

Then verse 28 says that when the angel entered where she was, he said to Mary, “Greetings, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women.” I like that passage, that part of this account. And it is important that we not overlook it, because here we have a key to who Mary truly is and what importance we should give her. We know that this has been a cause of controversy for many years, especially between the Catholic Church and the evangelical church, concerning Mary’s role, Mary’s true importance, and the level of respect that should be given to Mary.

I find enough information here in these verses to resolve that dilemma. We, as evangelical Christians who love Mary, respect Mary, and venerate Mary because Mary was a woman whom God used for a special role, unique in humanity—and I want any Catholic brother or sister visiting us this afternoon to know that in our hearts we do not encourage any kind of irreverence—evangelical Christians give Mary a very special place in the spiritual order. God chose Mary because she was a woman of great character; she was a respectable maiden; she was a woman who, I imagine, if we met her today, would cause us to say, “This woman has the fruit of the Holy Spirit in her.” He did not choose Mary because she was highly educated; he did not choose her because she was a member of an exclusive, highborn family. He chose her for her character; he chose her for her inner beauty.

In the same way, he chose David from among the flock of sheep, tucked away so far in the back that not even his father thought David could ever be the king of Israel. When Samuel came to Jesse’s house to look for the next king, because God had told him, “Look, that house is where the next king who will replace Saul is,” Samuel went there without knowing who it was, and David’s father presented all his brothers to him, one after another, and each one was very promising, very strong, very handsome, tall, muscular; and every time Samuel saw one of them, he said, “Oh, this must be the one...” and God said, “No, that is not the one; that is not the one.” All of David’s brothers passed before him, and God’s approval did not come.

And Samuel finally asks Jesse, “Hey, is that all? Don’t you have another son?” Jesse says, “Oh, yes, there is another one back there in the kitchen, whose name is... but it can’t be him because he is too small and too young.” Well, he was the one God wanted. Why? Because David had a heart like God’s. David had a personality that pleased God. David was tender toward God. God simply seeks the human heart. He does not necessarily seek high birth, nor does he even always seek the great works you may have done; rather, God seeks a tender heart, and I believe that was what Mary had. Mary had a personality that pleased God. She was a virginal woman, not only in her body, but also in her thoughts and in her heart; and God’s eyes ranged throughout all Israel, and he went to the palace, and there were many princesses there who would have been ideal for God, who would have been worthy of his Son. But God said, “No, no, that is not the one,” and he came to that humble kitchen, and there was that maiden with a simple heart devoted to God, and God said, “This is the one I am going to use.” And that is why he chose Mary.

That is to say, this is why we respect Mary and will always give Mary a special place in our hearts. But having said that, we also understand that Mary is not that being to whom we have sometimes assigned an importance almost equal to Jesus Christ; indeed, in the religious sensibilities of some Christians in Latin America and in other parts of the world, Mary is sometimes almost above Jesus in their hearts and affections. And they pray more to Mary than to Jesus, and Mary is regarded as a mediatrix; and nowadays, in certain Catholic theological circles, there is the idea that Mary is the mediatrix between God and humanity, and that flies in the face of everything the Word says, because the Bible clearly says that there is only one mediator between God and humanity, the man Christ Jesus.

The only one who can occupy that role of mediator between God and humanity is Jesus. That is why God went through this whole business of coming into the world and emptying himself of his glory. Imagine if something more had been needed—why go to so much trouble? Don’t you believe that God was sufficient, that if he was going to come into the world and assume his role as mediator, why would we need angels, saints, or anything else? God is sufficient as a man, in the person of Jesus. He says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Whoever enters through the gate that I am may enter the sheepfold.”

So Christ did not need anyone else. God built that entire plan around his Son Jesus. Mary is an instrument, and like all the actors in a drama, when her role is over—what do actors do when their role is over? They leave the stage so that another may come on; and that is what we see in the pages of Scripture: when the Lord ascends to heaven, Mary disappears from the pages of the Bible. The last moment when we see her is in the upper room in Acts with the apostles, with other apostles, but that is all. Because, of course, she was Jesus’ mother and needed a certain recognition; she occupied an important place, but that is all. And here in this account we can see that set forth in a very natural way, and because Mary’s role is so implicit, to me it is even more convincing and more important, because when the angel enters where she is, he says to her, “Greetings, hail, highly favored one.”

What word do we see there in “favored”? Favor. In the original Greek, the word the angel uses is kecharitomene, which means, “You have been the object of God’s grace,” charitas, of God’s charity. You have had the blessing that God has found something in you that pleased him. What he is saying is that Mary won the lottery, so to speak; God chose her. God decided that it would be her; it was not because Mary did something extraordinary or because she had some inherent right to be Jesus’ mother, but because God chose to favor her. When you favor someone, you do it because it comes from within you, not because the person demands it of you, requires it of you, or compels you, but because it comes from your heart. It came from God’s heart that Mary should be chosen. She had nothing in herself; she was a maiden. The Bible says that God always chooses the humble things, the things people reject, the things that are not so attractive—that is what God chooses. Many times God chooses us not so much because we deserve to be chosen, but precisely because we do not deserve for him to choose us.

Then he tells her, “Highly favored among all women,” and he also tells her, “The Lord is with you; blessed are you.” Eulogemene, which also means, once again, “God has decided to call you blessed. God has praised you with his favor; out of all women, God has chosen you.” Now, what is Mary’s reaction to all this? Mary is troubled; Mary is confused: “But what kind of greeting is this that he is giving me? I am nobody. I am simply a maiden from a small village. I have nothing. How can I be blessed among all women if I do not belong to royalty, I have no academic pedigree, I have no money?” She is troubled and confused, wondering what kind of greeting this might be. And the angel then has to clarify it for her again: “Mary, do not be afraid, because you have found grace before God.” In other words, it has pleased God; it has pleased God to tell you that you are going to bear his Son.

So what we see throughout this process is a process of undeserved grace, of God’s favor, God’s love, God’s preference for this humble young woman. There is nothing here suggesting that Mary is something extraordinary or that God had no other option. God chose this woman, and Mary then receives the favor bestowed upon her; but, again, we have to give Mary that place, that space. Even saying that Mary is a perpetual virgin goes against what the Word says, because I do not know whether it is in this passage, but elsewhere it says that Jesus was her firstborn. Jesus was Mary’s firstborn, meaning that he was the first, but not the only one; he was not the last. Mary had other children. Mary took up her normal life as a married woman and had a natural and normal relationship with her husband, Joseph. And the Bible is very clear that she had other children as well.

We can dance around what the Bible says, but it is very clear that, no, Mary had a relationship; after her role, she continued her normal life. And even when the angel told her all these things, and later we see that Jesus is born and shepherds come and tell Mary and Joseph that they saw angels who told them that this is the Savior of humanity, along with all these magnificent things, the Bible says that Mary pondered those things in her heart. She herself did not fully, completely understand what that meant. She was a humble young woman with little theological understanding, and the truth is that any of us, no matter how much we were told that this was something exceptional and that God was going to do this, that, and the other thing, would find the event so great, so exceptional, that all she could do was ponder it and ask herself, “What could this be?”

In fact, the Bible tells us that Jesus’ brothers and his mother seem never to have fully understood this matter of his being the Savior of humanity. At times they thought that perhaps the Lord Jesus Christ might be a little crazy, and Mary was part of that drama. She was simply an instrument God was using for a specific purpose, but that was all. She was neither more nor less than that.

And finally, I want to direct your attention to verse 31, where the angel says to Mary: now you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and you will call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David, his father, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end. There are two things here; let me put the second first and the first last. The angel says to Mary: this wonderful being who is going to be born will be given the throne of David, his father. The Bible is very clear that Jesus is born from the lineage of David. If we read the book of Matthew, Matthew traces the genealogy—that is, the ancestry of Jesus—through the lineage of Joseph. In human terms, Joseph was the adoptive father of Jesus, because Jesus’ true Father was obviously God in divine, spiritual terms, but in human, legal terms, Joseph was Jesus’ father. So Joseph gave Jesus his Davidic lineage, because in Scripture, in the ancient prophecies, there was a prediction that the Messiah would come through the lineage of David. God gave King David a promise and said to him: I am going to make your throne an eternal throne, a permanent throne. There will never cease to be a descendant from your house, and ultimately I am going to bring a descendant who will reign forever, as Jesus does.

So when the angel tells Mary here that he will reign over the house of Jacob, that God will give him the throne of David, his father, and that he will reign forever and his kingdom will have no end, he is alluding to all these things: the Messiah, whose kingdom would be eternal and whose kingdom was linked to David’s kingdom, because God had promised David that his descendants would inherit the land, that his sons would permanently be kings over Israel, and that this mysterious being would come and reign forever in his place. So all of this was unfolding here in this account.

And finally it says: and his name will be called Jesus, meaning..... the name Jesus means God is salvation. This alludes to the special role, the unique role, that this being was going to play. The very essence of Jesus is that he was the Savior of humanity; that is why the entire Christmas story revolves around the saving role of Christ Jesus. The only reason God comes to earth is to save us, to heal us, to bring life and salvation into our lives. That is why this Christmas we must direct our minds and our spirits toward that singular fact: Christmas is above all the story of God’s dealings with humankind in order to heal us. Jesus has come into the world to save you, to save me, and if we want Christmas to have true meaning, we must have entered into that direct relationship with Jesus, surrendered our lives to the Lord Jesus Christ, and invited him, as that hymn says, into our hearts so that he may reign in our lives.

If you know Jesus in any other way except in his special and specific role as Savior, you do not truly know him, because the very word, the very name that was given to him—which was not a name chosen by men, but by God himself—alludes to the sanctifying, saving nature of Christ Jesus.

I am going to invite the musicians to come up here for a moment, and I want to wrap everything in that fact. This entire account, all these details we see here—and we could spend even more time explaining different aspects of the narrative of the Incarnation—but everything points toward one thing; one detail after another, all the details revolve around that fact: that God was directing the birth of his Son toward the salvation of humanity, toward bringing reconciliation between God and man. And that is the only way for us to understand Christmas this year and every year. I encourage you, my brothers and sisters, to set all the other things aside. It is good to buy gifts, it is good to prepare the food, it is good to invite relatives and friends, but as Christians we must value above all else the element of salvation that God was bringing into the history of humanity. And we must make sure that we have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

This Christmas, if you have not taken that step of faith, of opening your heart to Jesus and inviting him to enter your life, I want to invite you, if you have never done so before, to take this opportunity to say to the Lord Jesus Christ: Lord, I would like you to enter my heart, and I would like to receive you, and I would like you to be my God and my Savior, and for this Christmas to have special meaning because you have entered my life.

I invite you to bow your head for a moment as a sign of prayer to the Lord and quiet reflection. Meditate for a moment on these aspects of the Christmas story. The magnificent angel sent to the home of a humble maiden to tell her that she had been chosen to bear a mysterious being, designed and fashioned in his divine and human nature to bring salvation and redemption to humanity. And through this, God was also fulfilling a promise that he had made hundreds of years earlier to a person who, like Mary, was also humble: that his throne would remain forever. And God was fashioning a wonderful being whose essential function was to be the Savior. And Jesus is still in the business of saving—of saving those who surrender to him, who open their hearts to him and say: Enter my life, Lord. I want you to be my personal Savior.

I would like to invite you this afternoon, if you have not yet done so, if you have not yet invited Jesus to enter your life and be your personal Savior, to do so this afternoon. And I am going to ask you to raise your hand if you want to receive Christ, to raise your hand or come forward here, however you wish, and invite Jesus to enter. Is there anyone? I see a hand back there inviting Jesus in. Glory to God. Is there anyone else who will say, “Lord, I invite you into my heart,” right here before me? There in the back, another hand. Is there anyone else? This has been a very simple message. God bless you, young man. There is nothing spectacular or striking about it; it is simply a straightforward Christmas account of things as they happened. I invite those brothers and sisters who have raised their hands to come forward for a moment. Come; we want to pray for you. Come up here, and have that person accompany you. Do not be ashamed to come up here for a moment, present yourselves before the Lord, and say: Father, I receive Jesus as my Lord and Savior. If you still have not raised your hand and want to do so, if you want to come up here to the front, I invite you. The only thing we are going to do is pray for you and ask the Lord Jesus to be figuratively born in your heart, born into your life.

The Lord says in his Word that he stands at the door of our heart and knocks, and if anyone hears his voice and opens the door, he enters and shares intimacy with you. It is interesting that one of the accounts says that no room was found for Jesus at the inn where Mary and Joseph wanted to stay; there was no space. And I believe that God—again, all the details of the birth have something to do with God’s plan—chose that because he wanted to make it clear that, I don’t know, Jesus is always looking, as it were, for a place to stay, and the only place where Christ wants to rest is in your heart. He already has his place up there in heaven, but here on earth he likes to dwell among us; he likes to dwell in our hearts. And he is always offering himself and saying: Hey, I would like you to give me lodging in your life so that I could eat with you and you with me, so that we could share intimacy. That is the Christmas story, brothers and sisters. It is not about joining a religion and becoming Evangelicals or Catholics or whatever; it is about inviting Jesus to enter our hearts and making him our Lord and our Savior.

I would like you to repeat after me softly, right there in your own personal intimacy. Say these words to Jesus: Lord Jesus Christ, I invite you to enter my heart. I open the doors of my house to you. Be my Lord and be my Savior. I repent of my sins, and I believe that in your blood, in your death, and in your resurrection, I have eternal life. Thank you for taking the form of a man, though you yourself are God, and for paying the price for my sins. I receive your sacrifice and declare you the owner of my life, the Savior of my soul. Reign in me forever, in your name, Jesus. Amen. Amen.

I can tell you, my brother, my sister: you have been made a child of God. The Word says that to all who received him, he gave the power to be called, to be made, children of God. So that is the best gift you can give the Lord Jesus Christ on this day; it is the best gift you can give yourself and your loved ones: the fact that you have a new nature because Jesus has taken up lodging in your life. Amen. Congratulations. I give thanks to the Lord for each one of you. Give the Lord a round of applause this afternoon. Amen. Glory to God. Amen. Amen. Thanks be to the Lord. Let us stand, brothers and sisters. Let us sing that hymn again, “You Left Your Throne and Your Crown for Me.” At Christmas we ought to sing the good Christmas hymns from time to time; that is beautiful. And now, understanding the Christmas story a little more, we are going to sing that hymn with intentionality and spiritual wisdom as we tell the Christmas story.

Sermon by Dr. Roberto Miranda, recorded December 18, 2005, at Congregación León de Judá (51 min.)

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