Luke 1:1-4 · Introduction
Surely, Surely
Luke 1:1-4, Luke 1:26-38
Sermon
by Lori Wagner
Loading...

“The LORD Almighty has sworn, "Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will happen.” (Isaiah 14:24)

Prop: let dove fly through church (if you dare) OR celebrate an event, such as a baptism, or an ordination, or a blessing for mission

Today, as we prepare to celebrate the baptism of __________, I invite all of you children to come forward to witness this great event, as all of you too in the congregation bear witness to this momentous occasion.

[You can opt to do the baptism first, or you can give the first part of the sermon, and then insert the baptism later.]

What does it mean to be a witness? In our ritual of baptism today, you are an eye-witness and an ear-witness to an extraordinary event –an event that will change the life of ____ and will change the lives of all of us in our congregation as well. As a faith community, we are committing ourselves to nurture this young disciple into new life in Christ.

But does being a “witness” simply mean that you are here? That you are watching ____be baptized today? Does it mean just that you heard the words of the baptism liturgy and acknowledge that ____has been officially baptized by the church? You know THAT it happened, because YOU were here?

Well, it certainly does mean that. But it means so very much more. It also means that you believe in your heart that what you are witnessing is not just a ritual but something more. You believe in baptism as a “change-agent,” that in the ritual of baptism, something about that person changes, and he/she is transfigured with the power of Jesus. It means that there is something more than the physical taking place. There’s a supernatural element to baptism that you may not be able to see or hear physically, but that your eyes of faith see and your ears of faith hear. In the presence and in the voice of Jesus, something significant and magnificent happens.

In Jesus’ baptism, John describes the presence of God as “like a dove” descending upon the man in the water, as a voice declares, “this is my son with whom I am well pleased.” On Mt. Tabor, Jesus’ disciples describe a white cloud and a powerful voice that declares the same.

Although John and others surely witnessed a strange event of light and sound, their hearts and minds also witnessed a transfiguring event. They were witnesses to the presence of something indescribable and awesome –the presence of God. And in that witnessing, their lives were forever changed.

How many of you this morning have ever witnessed a traumatic or extraordinary event? You know then that to be an eye or ear witness to that event is much more than simply having been present to an event. The event has changed you. Your witness has become your awakening. Either an awakening to fear and anxiety, or an awakening to wonder and beauty, depending on what you’ve seen or heard.

Of course, to be a witness who can vouch for an event is of tremendous value. Our court system is based on witness verifications. How many of you have served as jurors already? OK: How many of you have watched a court drama, or one of the many crime shows on television today? Either way, you know that an eye or ear witness is a key contributor to the case made either for or against a defendant.

“I SAW her on the night of September 20th. I was WITH her. She was there.” That’s known as an alibi. An alibi frees someone from being considered as a perpetrator, if it can be proven that that person was not there, but was somewhere else. An eye witness can verify that fact.

“I HEARD the sound of gunfire. There were three shots. I heard his voice shouting. He was threatening her.” An ear witness can testify in order to authenticate the reality of a crime committed.

Short of other evidence, eye and ear witnesses are the most valuable assets in any court case. They can problematic, but where no forensics exist to prove one way or another, an eye or ear witness can make or break a case.

But not all events that you witness are easy to leave behind in that courtroom. Those events may well follow you in your mind and heart for years to come.

There are eye or ear witness moments that simply stun the mind and chill the soul and effect everlasting change upon your life.

Eye witnesses who witness a murder are forever changed, looking over their shoulder or perhaps valuing the transience of life.

Eye witnesses to the birth of a baby are forever changed by the wonder and the miracle of birth.

Some eye or ear witness accounts seem unexplainable and entirely boggle the mind.

An eye witness witnesses the birth of conjoined twins!

An ear witness hears the voice of his dearly departed wife a few days after her death!

Two eye witnesses see flowers begin to bloom from a long dead stump!

All of those “strange but true” events that make you second guess your own eyes and ears.

Witnessing can be a life-changing experience. This is the true value of an eye or ear witness. Witnesses to extraordinary events declare truths and wonders that may not be common, but surely are extraordinary.

The scriptures are filled with eye and ear witnesses to truths that cannot be proven in tangible ways about people and happenings that came long before our life spans. They witness to the strange and extraordinary in everyday life. They also witness to the truth and activity of God in the lives of people throughout history.

We may not have “hard evidence” for some of those events. But we surely have credible and changed witnesses! People whose lives have been changed by what they saw and heard!

Imagine what they must have felt when they witnessed these things!

Moses witnesses to the voice of God coming from a burning bush. He witnesses God’s power in wind and light, as God etches commandments into stone tablets on Mt. Sinai.

Jacob witnesses to God’s presence in a strange dream about a ladder leading from the earth to heaven and back with angels treading up and down.

Elisha witnesses to Elijah departing in an illumined chariot that rises into the heavens, never to return. Afterward, truly he is nowhere to be found.

Zechariah witnesses the presence of an angel telling him his barren wife will bear a son. Stunned is probably the understatement for this priest who, even though he served in the Temple for years, never expected the extraordinary.

In our scripture for today, young Mary, a girl of only about 10 or 12, witnesses to an appearance of the angel Gabriel telling her, a pre-pubescent girl, that she will soon have a son, born of the Holy Spirit.

Strange but true.

Was she shocked? No doubt. But her eye and ear witness filled her with an expectant joy. Her eye and ear witness changed her entire life.

It’s about to change yours too.

Dr. Luke, the writer of this gospel that we simply know as “Luke,” begins his account with a preface that authenticates the importance of all these biblical witnesses. Let’s read Luke’s preface again together:

Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

Luke, serving as a kind of “investigative reporter” of the first century (written approx. 70 CE, about 37 years after Jesus’ death), tells us that he has read and reviewed the accounts of others who have written about the events handed down by original eyewitnesses to Jesus birth, life, death, and resurrection. He has then taken it upon himself to test and investigate those accounts to verify the authenticity of them before presenting them to you here.

And he has found them sound and true. Extraordinary! Not forensic fact. But true. Quite true!

For Luke is looking at people not only whose eyes have read the accounts of the past or whose ears have heard about the eye witnesses of others. He’s reporting on the immense change that the truth of these eye and ear witnesses has wrought upon the lives of all of Jesus’ disciples and their disciples after them, disciples who have been assured, and stunned by the truth of the gospel account!

Luke in his lifetime has witnessed for himself the change going on in his society in the wake of Jesus’ resurrection. He has witnessed the birth of the early church, the willingness of hundreds to die attesting to the truth of Jesus birth, life, death, and resurrection, the passion of people like Paul and Timothy for the person of Jesus, those so sure of the truth of God’s salvation, that they had willingly walked away from everything to worship Jesus.

The Greek word we translate as “martyr” means literally “witness.”

Luke has witnessed phenomenal change. And he knows, it’s not based in myth, or hearsay, or false witnessing. He has investigated the claims. He has read the accounts. Luke, a highly educated doctor, has researched the Christian phenomenon, the miracle of Jesus’ birth, the truth of the resurrection. And he has found it all sound, found the witnesses true.

In Luke, we find someone who wants to assure us that this is no lie. This is no hoax. But surely, surely, God has done something amazing and extraordinary in the life and person of Jesus.

When Mary hears the voice of Gabriel, when Mary witnesses the light of the Holy Spirit upon her, Mary’s life is immediately and irrevocably changed. We know she tells Elizabeth. We know eventually, she also tells Joseph. Many others will not know until the time has come for Jesus’ ministry to begin. But Mary knows something in her witness about the power of God that she shares with all of us today in this account in Luke –that when you hear and know God’s presence, your life will never be the same.

“Surely, surely God was in this place,” said Jacob.

“Surely, God is my salvation,” said the prophet Isaiah. And there are so many more, “Surely, surely’s” in our scriptures and in our lives.

Being an eye and ear witness is ultimately about assurance --the kind of assurance that changes your life and alters your soul and stiffens your spine for persecution and humiliation. This kind of assurance you can’t keep to yourself, but must share with others here and now, and in the future to come.

You too are witnesses to something extraordinary here today. As we baptize this child, as you remember your baptism, and the baptisms of your friends, your family, your children, those who have come before you, I want you to feel the power and presence of Jesus in and among you. I want you to know the glory of God in the midst of you. I want you to be assured of the love of God for you.

For YOU too are eye and ear witnesses of an extraordinary, amazing gift. That gift is “Emmanuel,” which means “God With Us.” As one of our Story Team Members, Teri Hyrkas has put it, God has a middle name: “WITH.” God WITH Us. That is the ultimate Witness: Withness. Surely, Surely.

[optional ending]

Let’s say together the words of Isaiah:

[Optional liturgy to be repeated aloud below:]

“Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.” With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. In that day you will say: “Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted. Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world. Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel among you.” (Isaiah 12:1-6)


*The photo for this sermon is from Sight and Sound Theatre, Lancaster, PA. This sermon praises the efforts of this group of actors for bringing the gospel to life in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Branson, Missouri.

Based on the Story Lectionary

Major Text

Luke’s Statement of Purpose and Mary’s Encounter with Gabriel in Nazareth (Luke 1:1-4; 26-38)

Minor Text

Handmaiden Hagar and Ishmael Her Son, Sent Into the Wilderness, Encounter God (Genesis 21)

Handmaidens Bilhah and Zilpah Bear Sons Who Will Become Lost Tribes of Israel (Genesis 30)

Psalm 34: I Will Glory in the Lord

Psalm 63: You God are My God

Psalm 73: Surely God is good to those pure in heart

Psalm 121: The Lord Will Watch Over You

Psalm 139: Lord, You Know Me

The People Walking in Darkness Have Seen a Great Light (Isaiah 9)

My Servant in Whom I Delight, My Chosen One (Isaiah 42)

Your Light Has Come (Isaiah 60)

Faith and Witness (Hebrews 11-12)

Faith in the Witness (1 John 5)

Luke’s Statement of Purpose

Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

Mary’s Encounter with Gabriel in Nazareth

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.” “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

Image Exegesis: Eyes and Ears

“A good eye and a humbled spirit and a lowly soul, those who have these are disciples of Abraham our Father.” (Mishnah, Aboth, 5.19)

“The eye is the lamp of the body, so if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.” (Matthew 6:22)

“God will always have a witness.”

The longevity of the faith depends upon the veracity of witnesses to God in ways that have changed individuals and communities, peoples and places.

In the scriptures, eye and ear witnesses are the seeds that bear the good news of God’s salvation to people throughout generations.

But these witnesses are more than simple relayers of sights and sounds. They are conduits of change, witnesses that in their own transfigurations, transfigure the future.

“Eyes to see and ears to hear” Jesus said.

He meant more than a literal sighting and listening. He meant that when we “see” with our spiritual eyes of the heart and mind, we comprehend or understand something in the depths of our soul. The eyes in Hebrew scriptures and metaphor are the seat of all that is perceptual. They signify intimate relational knowledge of God, the noticing of “spiritual light” within darkness. The eyes reveal the attitude of the heart.

And when we have “ears to hear,” we don’t just hear words, but we hear The Word of Jesus, the voice of God, the presence of the divine within our mind and heart in ways that guide us, inform us, reveal to us, drive us to obey, resound, and proclaim the gospel message.

In scriptures, seeing and hearing, the visual and the auditory is always combined into a kind of synaesthetic experience.

You see light; you heard voice. Whether Paul in his conversion, Abraham and Sarai in their visitors, Moses and the burning bush, John at Jesus’ baptism, Jesus’ disciples at the Transfiguration of Jesus –light, dove, fog, clouds, sunlight, white, blinding brightness combines with sound –thunder, voice, shofar, rumbling, trumpet call, music, to reveal the presence of God.

Often, an “eye-witness” is described as hearing a voice, even though no specific “figure” is seen.

But there is no doubt that something extraordinary had happened that seared meaning, intimacy, and message into mind, heart, and soul.

Some experience this kind of synaesthetic energy in prayer; others in the sacraments; still others in meditation or music. But most every time, it happens in some kind of experiential (or as Len Sweet calls it..EPIC) witness.

Witness indicates relationship. A witness to the extraordinary is connectional and relational in a very intimate sense. To witness to the presence of God is to experience God intrinsically as well as extrinsically….in other words, holistically.

Whereas those witnesses may be described metaphorically, the truth of that eye witness is not a metaphor, but a true experience of the One True God.*

The power of witness is in the change that follows. In the scripture involving Mary, she both sees the light of the angel Gabriel, as well as hearing his voice and message. But afterward, she is also physically changed and altered, by the “pregnancy” of God’s salvation message/plan. In a sense, Mary IS God’s salvific medium, just as her son will be the conduit that seals God’s kingdom harvest.

Yet, she is not a metaphor but a true witness (in her pregnancy and birth) to God’s covenantal promise. She carries the incarnation. She IS the basket that carries moses, the ark that carries noah, the chariot that carries Ezekiel, that earth that births being. She is the mother of hope.

And her witness is tangible as well as relayable.

Her conception will be the conceiving of a covenant of the heart and spirit, mind and body.

Her body will yield the miracle that others witness, that others confirm.

She provides the assurance of God’s promise, and the foreshadow of the resurrection, a birthing, a baptism, and a witness to life.

The light of Mary’s experience is the Light of God come into the World to bear the light. The voice of God will be the voice of Jesus, priest, prophet, and Son, judge, and savior.

*For more on metaphors of eyes and ears, see Tropoligia by Benjamin Keach or Types and Metaphors of Scripture.

ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc., by Lori Wagner