“He has done great things…”

What is the greatest thing you have ever done?  As you think about your life and the things that you have accomplished is there anything that you would say is great?  Is there an accomplishment in your professional life that could be considered great; maybe a job landed, a project managed, or a successful career?  If you can’t think of anything great in your professional life than how about your private life?  Is there something in your private life that you are proud of and might even call great?  Maybe a degree earned, a goal achieved, an obstacle overcome? 

Professionally for me it would be my ordination.  To be called into the public ministry is a humbling honor for the best of men, for such a thing to happen to a guy who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks – great.  Privately for me I would like to say it was a race I ran but I should probably take this opportunity to get some husband tokens and say the greatest thing I have ever done is convince Michelle to marry me.  Especially since all my friends and family repeatedly remind me how lucky I am that she showed up to the church and said yes.  The greatness of this achievement has recently been reinforced by y’all.  As I deliberate my call to Minnesota the number one question I have been asked is, “if you go to Minnesota does Shelly have to go with you?”   

What is the greatest thing you have ever done?  How do you think God would answer that question?  When you think about all the great things God has done what thing do you think would be the greatest?  Creating the universe would have to be near the top of the list.  To create something out of nothing, to simply will something into existence, to speak a word and have a thing come into being, that is a great thing.  As the creator of all things, it does not surprise us that God had the power to command His creation to do great things whether that be parting of the Red Sea, commanding the sun to stand still in the sky, or causing the earth to quake beneath men’s feet – God has done great things with His creation.  Also, among the great accomplishments of God would be the times He defied death.  Without the aid of Lidocaine or defibrillator He brought Lazarus back to life with the sound of His voice and if that were not impressive enough, He Who was beaten to death and was sealed in the grave by a boulder, rose from the dead, tossed the boulder aside, and showed up at His friends house just in time for a fish dinner.  God’s ability to defy death is absolutely at the top of the list of great things God has done.

God has done some great things and arguably one of the greatest of them all was the incarnation.  That true God became also true man… every year in the season of Advent I contemplate the greatness of what God has done and yet every year I fail to fully comprehend it.  Every year I imagine the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay and I hear the song of the angels ringing in my ears and I know that this little baby is the Son of God.  It is a simple thing to say, “the Son of God became also the Son of man”, yet the simplicity of that statement confounds me.  The infinite became finite.  The eternal became temporal.  God became also man.  Such a thing is unimaginable.  It is impossible.  It cannot be done.  Yet God did it.  God became also man.  Of all the great things God has done, one could argue, this is the greatest.

And the occasion for this great thing that God has done is His love for you.  Romans 6:23, “the wages of sin is death” is one of the fundamental laws of existence. Not only were you and I conceived in sin, but we have further spent a lifetime accumulating a deadly debt.  The law demanded a payment from mankind and no amount of cattle slaughtered or coin surrendered could pay our debt of sin. The wages of man’s sin is man’s death.  A man had to die and so, because He loves you, God became also man.  God did this great thing so that He could pay sin’s debt; He did this great thing so that you could be saved, He did this great thing because He loves you.  Mary knew God had done this great thing for her and it caused her to sing.  I hope and pray that you know He also did this great thing for you. 

Our reading for tonight is Luke 1:46-49. 46 And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.  From now on all generations will call me blessed, 49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me— holy is his name.