A Place of Simplicity (Nazareth)

I find it interesting how we look at people who came from certain places and are like, OH, they came from there? For me, growing up in Cookeville, we thought that way about people from Sparta. White County is immediately south of Putnam County, and Cookeville and Sparta High Schools were always big rivals and really didn’t like each other. They had this cheer that they would do, spelling out their name in a way to gain excitement from the crowd, and we at Cookeville would mimic the cheer, changing some of it in order to disparage them. Neither school liked the other. Cookeville also had a much bigger population and had I-40 running through it, plus Tennessee Tech University to help it develop. AND…its residents were also a lot smarter and more talented.

I remember one day coming back from Sparta to Cookeville and I saw a huge sign and billboard stating, “Sparta Tennessee—Home of one of the greatest bluegrass musicians of all time: LESTER FLATT, member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and International Bluegrass Hall of Fame.” If you are not familiar, Lester Flatt was the “Flatt” in Flatt and Scruggs, the legendary bluegrass duo. He is one of the best mandolin players ever, and even if you never listened to bluegrass music, I bet if you are of a certain age you have heard him playing heard the theme song for The Beverly Hillbillies. I’ll tell you, it made me really think about Sparta for a minute. I had grown up saying CAN ANYTHING GOOD EVER COME FROM SPARTA?!

We probably all have those biases, but it is interesting some of the amazing people that came from inauspicious beginnings. I bet people from East Tennessee say that Knoxville for example may have had a negative attitude toward Sevierville back in the day: Can anything good ever come from Sevierville? We know now, though, that Sevierville produced one of the greatest singers, philanthropists, and all around best people ever in Dolly Parton. I’m sure there are plenty of those stories out there that we could pull up from our own contexts. But even with that knowledge, when we hear of a great musician born in Tennessee, most of us would probably assume they were born in Nashville because that is the hub of music. 

Today as we continue to travel to Bethlehem, we are stopping in Nazareth. We have moved from Rome to Jerusalem, and now we backtrack about 90 miles north to a town called Nazareth. We are going out of our way to get to Nazareth from Jerusalem on our way to Bethlehem, but that is fitting because Nazareth was out of the way. In fact, in John chapter 1, as Jesus is calling his disciples, Phillip invites his buddy Nathanael to come meet Jesus, saying, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law, and about whom the prophets also wrote: Jesus of Nazareth.” To which Nathanael responded, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

In our text for today, we see God sending the angel, Gabriel to Nazareth to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph. Her name was Mary. The angel greets her with this statement: GREETINGS FAVORED ONE. THE LORD IS WITH YOU. He continues on: you have found favor with God and now you will conceive and bear a son. What exactly did Mary do to gain favor with God? Well, we don’t know. Perhaps it was her faith that gained favor with God, or maybe it was her humility, or it could have even been that she was a good person. I know that our Catholic sisters and brothers hold Mary high and say that it was because she was without sin. There are no biblical texts to back that up though. In fact, the Bible does not tell us of her possessing ANY special qualities that merited her being favored by God. We do know she was of the lineage of David, but so were thousands and thousands of others. And if you or I were writing this story based on the way we felt it should go, I feel certain we would flip the script on the two sets of parents in the Christmas story. Remember last week we talked about Zechariah and Elizabeth, the older couple who had given their entire life to God, serving the temple and had been unable to have children? They would have been the perfect choice to be the parents of God, right? Then you have the teenage, unwed couple in Mary and Joseph. They would make more sense for the camel hair clothes-wearing, locust and honey-eating prophet, John the Baptizer. Yet that is not the way God orchestrated it. And I think the reason is God wants to bring us to a place of simplicity. 

Let’s look for a minute at the word FAVORED. The word used there literally translated is CHARIS which is the word for GRACE. Grace is God’s gift to us, unearned and unmerited. In fact, the best definition for grace is a special manifestation of God’s divine presence. It is God with us. Does that sound familiar? And he shall be called Emmanuel, which means GOD IS WITH US. But before God was with us, God was with HER. . . MARY. John’s Gospel account begins IN THE BEGINNING THE WORD WAS WITH GOD AND THE WORD WAS GOD AND THE WORD BECAME FLESH AND DWELT AMONG US. But again, before the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, the Word became flesh and dwelt in Mary in a tiny, no account place called Nazareth that most of the world had never heard of and those that had, questioned, “What good can come from Nazareth?”

We don’t do anything to earn or deserve grace. It is a git from God. We SIMPLY RECEIVE AND WELCOME IT INTO OUR LIVES. If there was anything about Mary’s character that caused her to find favor with God it may have been the simple fact that Mary was willing to say YES to GOD. She knew and articulated how far fetched this idea was. She wasn’t married, and she was a virgin. I can only imagine what she knew would come her way in the form of ridicule and scorn of others, yet she said yes. In fact, she said MY SOUL MAGNIFIES THE LORD, AND MY SPIRIT REJOICES IN GOD MY SAVIOR, FOR HE HAS LOOKED WITH FAVOR ON THE LOWLY STATE OF HIS SERVANT. SURELY FROM NOW ON ALL GENERATIONS WILL CALL ME BLESSED , FOR THE MIGHTY ONE HAS DONE GREAT THINGS FOR ME, AND HOLY IS HIS NAME; INDEED HIS MERCY IS FOR THOSE WHO FEAR HIM FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION. She received the gift, and she became the mother of God.

And I want you to think about this for a minute: wherever Mary went from that moment until the time Jesus was born, she carried Jesus with her. We hope that we take and represent Jesus in the world wherever we go BUT Mary literally did. Wherever Mary was, God’s presence was felt, Wherever Mary was - she brought GRACE. 

Were Zechariah and Elizabeth chosen as parents then most would say - OF COURSE and they would feel like doing something big like that for God would be unattainable to them because they are not people of status and faith like them. And if Jesus was born in Jerusalem then people would have said OF COURSE and would have though that NOTHING GOOD COULD EVER COME FROM THEIR LITTLE NOTHING TOWN. 

But because it was Mary and because it was Nazareth then the message from God is clear - no one is excluded from being a part of the purposes and plans of God. 

THAT IS GRACE. And grace is one of those things that is SIMPLE to understand what it means, but difficult to recognize that it applies to you and me. 

Friends, we are here on this fourth Sunday of Advent, and in two short days, we will find ourselves back here to light our candles and sing silent night and proclaim CHRIST THE SAVIOR IS BORN. I want to offer you a SIMPLE MESSAGE I HOPE YOU HEAR: God loves you! Your past doesn’t matter. Your status or feeling of inadequacy is irrelevant. God has plans for you. That is why he sent Jesus. That is why we celebrate Christmas. 

That is grace - God’s unmerited favor; God’s presence with us in a special way - EMMANUEL. I hope you will receive that gift this Christmas. 

Thanks be to God
AMEN