Loving - Incarnation

Loving - Incarnation

Luke 1: 57 – 66

Luke 1: 67 – 80

December 14, 2025

Advent III

Advent and Christmas is a unique season, is it not? It is a time when we anticipate and wait with great expectation. It is a time when we are filled with warmth as we remember and embrace once again special traditions and family memories. There is a special sea of emotions that wash over us during this time of year. Yes, the time of Advent and Christmas IS a unique season.

Advent and Christmas is also a time when particular words get thrown about. Words that are associated with Advent; words that get used year after year in similar fashion become commonplace. These words and phrases are part of our seasonal traditions. But, I fear, we use them so often, so commonly that they have almost become a part of the white noise of the season.

Like jingle bells, like carols played in the malls, like a single bell being rung over a red kettle these words and sounds lose their power in their familiarity. Words like hope, peace, joy, and love take on a common feel. We all know what they mean – right? We could all define them – if pushed. Every Advent season we light candles with these names and we grow numb to their power in their overwhelming familiarity.

Our first week we spoke of hope as more than just wishful thinking. We spoke of hope as more than something we just earnestly want to happen.

No….. hope – biblical hope is so much more than wishful thinking. On the first Sunday in Advent, we lit the candle of hope – biblical hope – as a reminder of the sure and confident hope we have that is grounded in the demonstrated faithfulness of God.

That confident hope, grounded in the character of God, then led us to a peace grounded in the knowledge that God owns the final page. There is a peace that comes from knowing that the God who knows you, the God who loves you, the God who is demonstrably for you has eternity in his hands. Our second candle reminds us of the peace that is available to us in Christ, a peace that is available when we know that the storms don’t have the final word.

Do you see the pattern here? The Advent season is redefining words and concepts for us. We are so used to seeing these words – hope, peace, joy, and love – everywhere: Christmas Cards, painted on store windows, on the coffee cups of our favorite shops.

But the God of Advent and Christmas brings new definitions – and power – to these words.

So it is true today as well. Joy is often misunderstood as a shallow feeling tied to happy circumstances. But Scripture shows us a joy that is deeper—a joy born not from changing situations but from the unchanging faithfulness of God. Luke 1:57–80 shows us three movements of God’s joy breaking into human life: joy fulfilled, joy shared, and joy proclaimed.

“Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son.” Our first text opens with an extraordinary depiction of an ordinary event. A child, long desired, long prayed for, long yearned for has come to a woman past her child-bearing years.

Luke 1 tells us that Zechariah and Elizabeth were both advanced in years. Like both Jospeh and Mary, Zechariah has had his own angelic visitation. His wife, Elizabeth, will bear him a son who will be named John. This miraculous baby will be the one who prepares the way for the coming of the Messiah.

The time came, and Elizabeth bore a son. This long-awaited child, this human impossibility has come….. just as promised. The joy of Elizabeth and Zechariah is not just about finally having a child; their joy is more deeply rooted in the faithfulness of a God who had promised it would be so.

Elizabeth had waited decades for a child. Israel had been waiting decades for a Messiah. You may be waiting now – waiting for healing, waiting for direction, waiting for clarity, waiting for some life breakthrough.

Friends, God’s timing is often slow, but it is never late. God’s delay is not a denial. The promises of God may take time, but God’s promises never fail. The joy that these parents are now feeling has been fulfilled as promised. Biblical joy is found in the completion of our hope, in our confidence that God would act.

Second, biblical joy – the deeply seated, sustaining joy that is so much more meaningful than simply happiness over events – biblical joy can’t help but break out in shared praise when realized.

Zechariah had been unable to speak for months. If you remember the story, Zechariah – unlike Mary and Joseph – had voiced disbelief when the angel had announced that the elderly Elizabeth would bear them a child.

Zechariah had months to think about what he had done. Zechariah had months to think, pray, reflect, and repent. Zechariah had months for his skepticism to be once again consumed by his faithfulness and when his child is born Zechariah can’t help but break out in thankful praise.  “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them.”

The promise has come to fruition and Zechariah, seeing the faithfulness of God realized, breaks out in joyful praise.

Friends, how many times do we take the faithfulness of God for granted. How is it that we have become so blasé about the faithfulness of God? Big things and small, in the extraordinary and ordinary God becomes the source and catalyst for both joy fulfilled and for joy shared.

Zechariah, after voicing praise, after reminding all who would hear of the faithfulness of God, in joy – Zechariah turns to his son and says, “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way.” Biblical joy is not just a personal sense of happiness and fulfillment, although it is some of that. Biblical joy is not just loud praise that many might join in, although it is some of that. No, biblical joy sweeps up all of that and can’t help but result in joyful witness.

Joy is not the finish line; it is the starting point. Joyful people become sent people. Joyful people who have experienced the faithfulness of God, who have shared their joy inevitably become light bearers in a darkened world. Joyful people have stories to tell, experiences to share, joy to proclaim.

Friends, our world today is filled with shadows – the shadows of loneliness, violence, division, and anxiety. Expressions of brutality and greed masquerade as leadership and wisdom. Wild-eyed promises, grounded in nothing more than ego and a desire to stay in power are voiced and fail every day.

But we worship a God who created us out of love and for love. We worship a God whose ways bring about peace. We experience a God who is faithful and whose word is true and so our joy – grounded in that biblical God – can’t help but sustain us in ways that are so very, very different than what the broken world promises.

The story of Zechariah, Elizabeth, and John teaches us the God’s keeps his promises. That joy deepens when grounded in God’s perfect will. And that biblical joy can’t help but break out into witness to a watching world. Biblical joy is more than a moment….. it is a lifestyle.

So where will you find your joy this Christmas and Advent season? Like hope, like peace, may we find our joy in the God who is faithful, the God who owns the final page, and the God brings light to our darkness and a path through our storms. Amen.