Jesus the Sent One
Like the first sprout of a beautiful tulip emerging from the dark, cold days of winter, God’s story of blessing pokes out of the ground again. After waiting years to be selected for service in the temple burning incense, Zechariah is chosen and while serving in the temple he receives an angelic visit:
An angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous — to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (Luke 1:11 – 17)
Elizabeth does indeed become pregnant. She expresses her hope with a word of praise, giving glory to God: “The Lord has done this for me . . . In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people” (Luke 1:25).
While Zechariah and Elizabeth feel the winds of hope, a young woman named Mary is also awakened from her mundane life by an angel, who startles her with these words, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28). Visits from angels are amazing enough, but add to that the fact that God has been virtually silent for three hundred years and you can begin to understand why this blessing would have been a paralyzingly beautiful thing to hear.
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.” (Luke 1:29 – 33)
Mary is given the incredible news that God has not abandoned his people. In fact, though Mary doesn’t fully understand it yet, God is about to do something no one could have anticipated. But that’s not what I want to point out. What I want you to notice about both of these angelic encounters is how Mary and Zechariah respond to the news they receive from God.
Mary hears of God’s favor on Elizabeth and heads to Judea to celebrate. Note how she receives this promise of God’s work in the context of his promise to Abraham.
And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me —
holy is his name . . .
He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
even as he said to our fathers.” (Luke 1:42 – 55)
Mary naturally and easily references the original blessing God promised to the whole world through Abraham.
The same blessing is also referenced by Zechariah in his great prayer of thanks to God:
Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come and has redeemed his people.
He has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David
(as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
salvation from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us —
to show mercy to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant,
the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
and to enable us to serve him without fear
in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. (Luke 1:68 – 75)
Are you beginning to see how these stories fit together? God’s plan to bless, reach, include, adopt, reclaim, and redeem has not been abandoned or forgotten. It is about to touch down in every neighborhood, village, and town.
God’s plan of redemption picks up steam now. John, the son of Elizabeth and Zechariah, announces that Jesus (Mary’s promised son) is the Lamb of God, the one who will eventually die so that the hearts of men and women can be cleansed and renewed and God’s heavenly blessing of abundant life will once again cut through the black veil of evil, injustice, poverty, pain, and prejudice.
Jesus appears in the midst of Israel announcing God’s sovereign reign over the world. He calls God’s reign “the kingdom” and says that it is now at hand. But there is a twist to his message. God’s heavenly rule and his deliverance are not going to come in the form of a military conquest over Rome, another exodus from slavery to a foreign nation (as many expected). The kingdom will penetrate the slavery of sin and set human hearts free to live out the life that Jesus taught and demonstrated. For the next three years, as Jesus taught and healed, demonstrating the reality of God’s kingdom, God’s people begin to come alive, sensing that the story is once again unfolding before their eyes. God’s people are once again experiencing his blessing.
Jesus continues the “sent” ways of God. He goes to a well in Samaria to give hope to a half-breed, a spiritually illegitimate woman like Rahab, who would have never thought access to God a possibility again. He visits wedding parties, hangs out with tax collectors, ministers to a centurion’s family, plays with children in the streets, and spends time on mountainsides, in caves, and in city centers where the people will listen to his teaching.
After Jesus lives and works for thirty-three years, he says to his followers in John 20:21, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” Hear it another way. “As the Creator of all humanity gave you a perfect world and kept giving his best, he again has sent Jesus, his very best to you. You must follow suit and continue to give your lives away.”
The Sent Church