Isaiah 7:10-17
10 Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, 11 "Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven." 12 But Ahaz said, "I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test." 13 And he said, "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. 15 He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16 For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted. 17 The Lord will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father's house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah—the king of Assyria."
Here a maid was found with child,
yet remained a virgin mild.
In her womb this truth was shown:
God was there upon his throne.
Then stepped forth the lord of all
from his pure and kingly hall;
God of God, yet fully man,
His heroic course began.
Grace Mercy and Peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Our text is the Isaiah reading, especially this verse, "Behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel, which means God with us." Along with the third and fourth stanzas of our sermon hymn, "Savior of the Nations Come"
"That's impossible!" "That could never happen in a million years!" "There is no way!" Have any of these phrases ever entered into your vocabulary? Have you ever heard them? I have on several occasions this year. "Nebraska will never win a football National Championship this year! It is impossible!" Well sure enough, they were right. It is impossible, at least this year! There are other examples. We all know that if we hold up a rock in the air and let go, that it is impossible for that rock to float away into the sky. We know that if we drop a piece of buttered bread, it is impossible for it to land butter side up on the floor. The world is full of impossibilities.
We all know that if it is impossible, it will never happen. We know the very definition of impossible means can't happen. But with God, nothing is impossible. God can do all things, know all things, and be at all places. Nothing is impossible for him who created the heavens and the earth.
So what impossible things is God doing in our texts today? Our hymn we sang tells us this, "Here a maid was found with child, yet remained a virgin mild" And that is what our text says too, "The Virgin shall conceive and bear a child." That is impossible. WE all know where babies come from, and we know that they don't just randomly appear in young girls. And since this idea goes against our intellect, we often dismiss it, we often ignore it.
But God is in the business of the impossible. Even when we doubt it, he does impossible things. He came to Mary, and through the Holy Spirit, he created a baby within her, a baby that was not just a man, but rather the wholeness of God the Son living in human flesh. A baby who was God. A baby who was there at the creation of the world. A baby who will be there at its end. God in the flesh, or as our text says, Immanuel, God with us.
Even that seems impossible to us doesn't it? We can't get our minds around the fact that God would take on human flesh and dwell among us, live with us. We can't understand God being tired. We can't understand God having to eat and sleep. We can't imagine God talking one on one with regular old people in their daily lives. To us sinners, the incarnation, God taking on human flesh seems impossible.
But it happens, even though it seems impossible. As our Hymn says "God of God yet fully man". Even in the midst of our doubts, God does the impossible. He takes human flesh, so as to share in our lives in this sinful world. He gets down and dirty, in the muck and the mire of this sinful world, to be with you. He wants to be with you, and nothing will stop him from doing so.
And that leads us to our most impossible seeming thing that God does: Rescue sinners. It seems impossible that God could take away all of the guilt and sin that you and I have committed. It seems impossible that someone could atone for our guilt. For if we look at ourselves with open and honest eyes, we see that we are by nature sinful and unclean. We doubt God's word, especially God's word about being born of a virgin, or of taking on human flesh in the incarnation. God's word at times seems impossible.
And that is not the only thing that shows our sin, but we also see our sin in how we interact with our families, especially this holiday season. Often times we dread family get-togethers, we dread seeing our brother or sister with whom we always fight. We dread remembering things that we have said or done to one another. Our sin is there.
And on our own, it really is impossible for us to eliminate this sin. On our own, we can't manage to do enough good to outweigh those evil inclinations of our heart. We can't always one hundred percent of the time do good to our neighbors and our enemies. We don't obey God command to love one another. We are guilty, and it is impossible for us to escape that guilt.
But God is in the business of doing the impossible. As we already mentioned, through his word, God made a young virgin pregnant. Through his word, God himself took on human flesh, and the reason for God doing these seemingly impossible things, was to rescue you from your sin. To forgive you, and to lead you into his kingdom forever.
For that baby born of the virgin, God in the flesh, came to begin his "heroic course", leading up to Golgotha, the mountain where he would one day drag up a heavy splintered wooden cross, so that he might be nailed upon it. He came to pour out his blood, to be wounded so that we might be healed. He came to suffer and to die, giving up his spirit, so that you and your sin might die with him. IT is finished, he cried out from the cross your salvation – the impossible – has been accomplished by the work of the God man born to Mary. Jesus accomplishes the impossible, and makes you whole again in God's eyes.
God does the impossible. He brings life to where there was none. He takes on human flesh to be with you in the muck and mire of our lives, and he suffers and dies so that you might be forgiven. With God, nothing is impossible, with God you are whole again. Amen.
