There’s a word that I’ve used many times in the past which comes up with this lesson again and again: Theotokos. It’s a Greek word that means God-bearer, though it is often translated, for the sake of simplicity and impact, Mother of God. If such a term makes you feel uneasy, that’s unfortunate, but it’s understandable that it would cause some level of unease.

Mary was officially given the title by decree at the Council of Ephesus in AD431. It’s not that she wasn’t referred to as God-bearer or Mother of God before this, but at that council the doctrine was officially codified. Given the Lutheran Church’s respect and admiration for the past, and the deep connection she still maintains to the past, the doctrine codified at Ephesus is Lutheran doctrine. Codified or not, however, it is still meet, right, and salutary to call Mary Theotokos, God-bearer, and the Mother of God.

In using that term, I’ve also stated that it says more about Mary’s Son than it does about Mary. Mary is the bearer of God, the birth-giver of God. Whom she bore in her womb is God—God-in-the-flesh. Yes, He is God, “of the substance of the Father,” but He is also man: flesh like yours, bones like your, blood like yours, but conceived and born and lived without sin. Jesus is man and God, and that is why the Council of Ephesus decreed that Mary is to be called Theotokos. Jesus is unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, and inseparably God and man, and the title Theotokos confesses this in opposition to teachings condemned at Ephesus, specifically that Mary is the mother only of the human nature of Jesus Christ which the divine later mysteriously inhabited.

There is a bit that is lost in most English translations of what Jesus said to John’s disciples before they departed. It’s one thing to be offended by Jesus and what He says. I’d wager that everyone here has been offended from time to time by who Jesus is and what He has said. The very idea of someone else dying in your place for your sins SHOULD be offensive to you: after all, He didn’t deserve it, but you did! No, Jesus isn’t cursing those who are offended by Him.

Jesus said, “Blessed is the one who is not scandalized by me.” To be scandalized by who Jesus is, what He has said, and what He has done is something that goes beyond mere offense. It goes right to the heart of what John’s disciples asked Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

So, Molly already gave you a preview of tonight’s sermon. I’ll expound on that a little more tonight.

One of the things you might notice as you read through the Scriptures is the important roll food and eating play throughout the history of creation. And not just in the history of this creation, but also of that in the world to come.

In the beginning, when God created living creatures, He gave them, including Adam and the woman, every plant yielding seed and every tree with seed in its fruit for food. (cf. Genesis 1:29) As slaves in Egypt, the Israelites lived in the fertile land of Goshen where they ate well. Abraham rushed to have a great meal prepared when the Angel of the LORD appeared to him. (cf. Genesis 18:1-8) Isaiah prophesied great feast of rich foods and fine wines (cf. Isaiah 25:6) And in the New Testament, Jesus was often condemned by the scribes of Pharisees because he ate with the wrong people, implying that there was right people with which to dine. (cf. Matthew 9:11; 11:19) Many of the apostles wrote about love feasts at the various New Testament congregations (think potlucks and hosted dinners held here, but more frequent). The apostle John was allowed to get a glimpse of the marriage supper of the lamb in His kingdom, attended by a great multitude. (cf. Revelation 19:6-10)

God has never been a distant God, at least, not in the sense that He was never around.

In the beginning, on the Sixth Day, God created man from the dust of the earth. He breathed into the man’s nostrils the breath of life. He walked with the man, talked with the man, watched the man name all the animals, and had compassion on the man when, among all the animals there wasn’t a helper suited to him. Then, he caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, took a rib from his side, a fashioned it into that suitable helper. Adam saw his helper and exclaimed, “Woman! For she was taken out of man.” Furthermore, it seems that it wasn’t unusual for God to take regular strolls in the Garden of Eden, during which, on one particular occasion, Adam and the woman hid themselves from Him. (cf. Genesis 1:26-27, 31; 2:5-24; 3:8)

“Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Redemption draws near when Christ is present…when Jesus begins to happen and is happening. Advent is a sort of beginning:

• It’s the beginning of the Church Year. This, in fact, is the first day of the new Church Year.
• It’s the start of looking at Jesus beginning to happen as He first came in the flesh. Being about a month out from Christmas, you might imagine looking at Mary and her belly, eight months along, and seeing the Kingdom of God right there in her womb.
• It’s the preparation and the beginning again of preparing for Jesus to happen for the last time as He comes again to judge the living and the dead. Looking back at His first coming is always done with a view toward expecting His Second Coming.

Jesus coming and being present is the nearness of your redemption.

The counter to that is when Christ is not present, redemption is nowhere near. And, lest I’m not clear, in His omnipresence, Jesus the Christ, in His full humanity and full divinity, is everywhere He wants to be. When I say, “when Christ is not present,” what I mean to say is where Christ is excluded.