Matt:

Luke 1:8–20 (NIV)

⁸ Once, when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, ⁹ he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. ¹⁰ And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside. ¹¹ Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. ¹² When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. ¹³ 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 call him John. ¹⁴ He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, ¹⁵ 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 before he is born. ¹⁶ He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. ¹⁷ And he will go on before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. ¹⁸ Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.” ¹⁹ The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. ²⁰ And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”

Rachel:

Luke 1:26–38 (NIV)

²⁶ In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, ²⁷ to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” ²⁹ Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. ³⁰ But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. ³¹ You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. ³² 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, ³³ and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end. ³⁴ “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” ³⁵ The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. ³⁶ Even Elizabeth, your relative, is going to have a child in her old age, and she who is said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. ³⁷ For no word from God will ever fail.” ³⁸ “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

This is the word of the Lord.

Bart Garrett:

Thank you, Rachel and Matt. And good morning, everyone. If we haven’t met yet, I’m Bart Garrett, the lead pastor here. If you’re here in person or tuning in online, we’re just delighted to have you with us. As has been said this Advent, and according to my chocolate Advent calendar, it’s only three days until Christmas. So waiting is hard, isn’t it? If you don’t believe me, the next time you’re in Starbucks, and if you really like good coffee, there should not be a next time you’re in Starbucks. But notice, as everyone has ordered their frate mate, thinkety dinkity, notice how many people are on their phones while waiting. Probably 100%. If the angel Gabriel actually appeared in the rafters, I’m not sure anyone would see him, because waiting is hard, so we must distract ourselves from it.

But the plot twist of Advent is waiting, not wanting. Not the all I want, all I want, all I want for Christmas, but the I will wait, I will wait, I will wait. And the Advent plot twist, if you’ll allow it, introduces us to a whole new way of living life. Waiting, not wanting, longing, not lusting, desiring, not demanding. And in this series, Plot Twists, we’re looking at four of these plot twists. I mentioned Advent. There’s also the Christmas plot twist, which is a story not of despair, but of hope, that all is not lost. So you remember in Home Alone, Kate McAllister, Kevin’s mom, she says to the gate agent, I’ve got to get home to my son. This is Christmas, the season of perpetual hope. And in a plot twist, Gus Polinski, played by John Candy, as you remember, he comes up to her. He says, don’t you know me? The king polka king of the Midwest, the Kenosha Kickers. A few hits back then. Polka, Polka, Polka, no. And then she’s transported to Chicago in a U-Haul with the Kenosha Kickers. It’s a plot twist. Despair leads to hope.

But that hope is premised on this third plot twist of history. That it is God’s strategy to eradicate despair and renovate the world by entering into that world. If you’re exploring Christianity, and we’re so glad you’re here, you should know there’s probably three theological summits that you’re going to need to climb and contend with when you think about Jesus. They are the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection. The incarnation, that God would become flesh and blood, a human being, that the infinite would become finite, that the immortal would become mortal, that the supernatural would become natural, that the creator of the cosmos would become a single cell. But then you’d also need to contend with the resurrection. And I mentioned that before the crucifixion, because if there was no resurrection, then Jesus was like all of the dozens of other failed messiahs, he was executed. But the movement around Jesus was established because these early followers believed that Jesus had been raised from the dead.

In fact, as one theologian puts it, the story of Jesus’ resurrection is not a Bible story. It’s why there is a Bible. If there had been no resurrection, there would have been no one in this early band of followers who would have written this story down. But even if one of the four Gospel accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is true, then we should lean in and explore and examine and consider this story. And the third summit to contend with would be the crucifixion. That Jesus is not just a failed insurrectionist, but this successful plot twist that God has is to begin the end of pride and cruelty and violence and evil via this humble sacrifice, this compassion, this love, this goodness. In fact, today, if you’re exploring Christianity and you experience someone in person or on social media who claims Jesus and yet is cruel, then you should question the legitimacy of that claim. But don’t throw out Christianity.

We don’t need better Christianity. We need better Christians.

— Martin Luther King Jr.

And that brings us to the plot twist of the characters in this story. So we’ve talked about Zechariah and Elizabeth and Mary. Today we turn our attention to the angel Gabriel. And here is his message. This is the plot twist. This is the big idea. That God is turning worldly kingdoms upside down by turning lives inside out. That God is turning worldly kingdoms upside down by turning lives inside out.

But before we unpack this message, if you were here last week, you know that Pastor Tommy signed me up to tackle any and all questions about angels and miracles. So thanks a lot, Tommy. Remember, I do your performance review at the end of this year, but already angels and miracles and the virgin birth, they’re supernatural phenomenon that are stacking up like our credit card bills will in January. So a couple things to consider before we dive into this plot twist or this big idea. Here they are. One, some of you are in the minority. Two, miracles don’t happen every day. And three, plot twists and paradigm busters are plot twists and paradigm busters. So look at each briefly.

Some of you are in the minority. Maybe you’re here this morning and you say, I don’t believe in miracles. I can’t accept angels. These things just don’t happen. And yet you’re in the minority. As I was researching this over the past couple weeks, I looked at the Center for Public Affairs Research 2023, Pew Research 2023, the Gallup poll of this year, the YouGov poll of this year. And I learned that 80% of U.S. adults believe in God or in some higher power. And with respect to afterlife, 71% believe in heaven and 61% believe in hell. So I suppose we’re eternal optimists at least by 10%. And then 70% of US adults believe in angels.

Despite evolving cultural, scientific and religious context, belief in many supernatural phenomena has remained remarkably stable over many centuries now.

— Gallup Poll, 2025

So if you don’t embrace these things, which is fine, just know that you’re in the minority report. But second thing to point out, miracles don’t happen every day and angels are not appearing everywhere willy nilly. In fact, the Bible is about 3,000 years of recorded human history and has about 20 angelic encounters. So if you do the math, that’s one every 150 years now. Incredibly unusual and unique moment in history. So in this little moment right here that you just heard, read about four angelic appearances over a few months.

We shouldn’t think of them as shaken at random, like out of a pepper shaker, that they typically only occur at the great ganglions or nuclei of history.

— C.S. Lewis, Miracles

So you should not be surprised if you’ve never seen one, because miracles don’t happen every day. But a third thing to point out here, plot twists and paradigm busters are plot twists and paradigm busters. If they were normal occurrences, they would not be plot twists or paradigm busters. And that’s true today. It was true back then. We look back at our little primitive, provincial, parochial, pedantic, Pollyannish ancestors. We pat them on the head and say, how cute. They’re superstitious, but we have science. But imagine the angel training manual that was given to Gabriel. He received it and he read the first words when approaching humans. Don’t startle the humans. They’re gonna freak out. They’re gonna stutter and wet themselves and fall face down. And the first thing you have to say to them is, do not be afraid. Remember, these are not cherubs with squishy cheeks on both ends. This is an encounter that would cause you to need to change your underwear. Can I say that in church? I just did. Why? Because all across generations over the course of human history, angels are plot twists, they are paradigm busters. So humans must renovate their epistemology and rearrange their mental furniture. They must become open minded and free thinking.

I was struggling with this 20 years ago in my first Christmas Eve service in Berkeley as a church planter. And I like to keep my email Tim Keller card for very important questions I have if you know that name. He was a New York Times best selling author, but he very graciously mentored many of us pastors. And so I sent him an email at Christmas. Here was the subject line. Angels in Berkeley. Gabriel, a virgin in a room full of scientists. What gives? And he wrote back, remember Bart, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your petty philosophy. And he’s not talking to just me, he’s talking to all of us. The Bible gives us very, very little in the way of information about angels. It just assumes that there are more beings created in the image of God than just us humans. That there is more to the personal universe than just us. That angels exist is a very humbling concept. It’s not all about us humans. Also, I’ve always liked to think of angels as basically elves. An older race, less fallen, though capable of it, immortal. A race we will eventually get to know, but from which now we are largely estranged. It is a romantic, adventurous concept.

So with that long wind up. Thank you, Tommy. Here’s the pitch. Let’s look at what we know about Gabriel for a moment. It’s a Hebrew name from Gabar El, which means the mighty one of God. He’s one of only two angels in the Bible that are mentioned by name. The other is Michael. He seems to be a very high ranking official in God’s cabinet. He appears in Hebrew scripture to Daniel as the interpreter of dreams. Then in Daniel 9 by the way, Daniel says when he saw him, he was afraid, terrified and fell prostrate. He appears in swift flight at the behest of Daniel’s prayer. So we know Gabriel is powerful and he’s fast. And yet in this passage here with Zechariah and Mary, he acts as a comforting, assuring, strengthening, emboldening presence. And he announces major turning points, plot twists, images in salvation history. Both births, John the Baptist and Jesus are these pivotal moments. And then lastly, he reveals Jesus’ identity as Son of the Most High as heir to David’s throne.

My sense of awe for this figure had me geeking out this week over some artistic expressions of Gabriel. So some of my favorites you’ll see on the screen. One from the Byzantine era, this is a mosaic in Rome, circa 432. And then secondly, in the early Renaissance, you see the Annunciation by Da Vinci, which is now in the Uffizi, 18th, 19th century. We gotta get Zechariah in there. This is called Visiting Zechariah by William Blake. And then one of them that just captured me is this last one by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1898. The Annunciation.

Now, as contemplating the art this week, it allowed me to venture into a little bit of holy speculation. It’s kind of my take on the plot twist when God delivered the message to Gabriel. So you could consider this the book of second opinions or of hesitations or something like that. But God says to Gabriel, I have this first assignment for you. I want you to go to Jerusalem to the priest Zechariah. And Gabriel says, but aren’t priests mostly corrupt in this day? And God says, yes, but not this one. And then I have a second assignment for you. I want you to go to Galilee and I want you to appear to this peasant woman. And Gabriel says, back up. In fact, let’s zoom out a gazillion light years. You want me to go to planet Earth, that fifth rate little ball in that fairly unimpressive solar system on the backwaters of one small galaxy that’s full, far, far away? And God said, yes, that’s the one. And Gabriel says, okay, but before I find my way to the backside of the cosmos, you’re telling me our glorious prince is going to stoop so low as to become one of those creeping crawling creatures? I mean, they don’t even have wings. They’re not fast. I mean, look at them. They’re not very smart. And God says, first, I wouldn’t call them creeping crawling creatures. After all, they’re made in my Image. And second, I love them so much. I’m going to become one. And Gabriel says, you’ll become a baby born to an unwed teenage mom. And God says, yes. And Gabriel says, then may it be according to your word. And Gabriel just stands there in awe, with wonder beyond comprehension. And he says to himself, how is God in all of God’s splendor, so surprisingly humble that he would come as a baby, that he won’t even need a trumpet announcement? I won’t even need to bring my oboe. Gabriel’s oboe. See, some of you caught that.

Okay, then I will embrace God. I will carry this message. And I imagine Gabriel’s journey as involving fierce spiritual battles, because the incarnation is not just this little humble event, but in the book of Revelation, we see it as this cosmic war waging between good and evil. And then he delivers his message that God is turning worldly kingdoms upside down by turning lives inside out. Listen in again to what he says to Mary in verses 31 and following.

Luke 1:31–33 (NIV)

³¹ You are to call him 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, ³² and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever. ³³ His kingdom will never end.

Remember that expression when the British Empire was at its height, that the sun never sets on the British Empire? Well, at the turn of this last century, when Queen Elizabeth II visited the United States, reporters delighted in reporting the details that she carried with her. 4,000 pounds of luggage, including three outfits for every occasion, a mourning outfit in case someone died, 40 pints of plasma, white leather toilet seat covers, her own hairdresser, two valets, and a host of other attendants. In fact, a brief visit of royalty to another country today can easily cost $40 million. And the visitation of God is the one true king. He was born on the other side of the tracks in the armpit of the Roman Empire to an unwed teenage moment placed in a stable for animals full of straw and the other S word laid in a feed trough with no attendants present. Thus he would be the harbinger of worldly kingdoms turned upside down.

We actually sang about it last week. Do you remember the words? It came upon the midnight clear, that glorious song of old from angels bending near the earth to touch their harps gold which is pleasantly beautiful. But the song goes on. Yet with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long beneath the angel strain have rolled 2,000 years of wrong and man at war with man hears not the love song which they bring O hush the noise, ye men of strife and hear the angels sing. God came to bring peace on earth, but peace is always infused with justice for the unjust. So the coming of Christ will ultimately topple every earthly kingdom that grows via subjugating people through cruelty and violence and exploitation. There’s this indomitable hope of Christians. He shall reign forever and ever.

The Advent faith is the faith that there are really new possibilities for our world. It means that we have a certain skepticism towards this world. The Advent season should come as a reminder to us that we can never be and should not be adjusted to the world. We are here to proclaim the reality and the imminence of a wholly other world, a world in which different powers rule and different standards operate. We are here to make it possible for ordinary men and women really to believe this and therefore to live in hope and readiness. But what is the basis for our assurance that a radically different kind of world is possible? Possible it is that this radically different kind of world has already broken into this world and that its powers and its standards have begun already to work here. We touch upon the other side of the Advent message. We do not merely, like Old Testament prophets, speak about an unknown day in the future. We speak about a known person who has already come in whom Advent has begun. We speak about a new world whose powers are already at work in our own experience. What we look forward to, therefore, is not a wholly unknown event. It is the completion of what has already been begun in the coming of Jesus. It is the victory of the powers which are already at work in this world. God grappling with the powers of evil. It is the public manifestation and acknowledgement of the reign of Jesus at the right hand of God.

— Lesslie Newbigin, The Good Shepherd

That longing that you’re feeling in your heart right now for justice to be served, for corruption to be eradicated, for a broken world to be made beautiful again. That longing is good and it’s right. And yet we mustn’t forget the rest of the message, the introspection that we’re charged with, that the pride and cruelty and violence and evil that we must confront is firstly found in the ventricles of our own heart. That’s the end of this message, that God is turning the worldly kingdoms upside down by turning our lives inside out.

Listen to how Gabriel speaks of this preparatory ministry of John the Baptist. Again, verse 16.

Luke 1:16–17 (NIV)

¹⁶ He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. ¹⁷ And he will go on before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

There’s this useful Latin phrase that describes us all. It’s homo incruvatus in se, that we are human beings who in a broken world have been turned inward upon ourselves. You ever been to a county fair, fun house of mirrors? You’ve seen the concave and the convex curvature of those mirrors. What do they bring? Distortion, confusion and lostness until you find your way out. Well, it’s a little picture of our plight, our distortion, our confusion, our lostness. See, the Christian faith says that no amount of self help will ultimately help because we cannot rescue ourselves. But you can be rescued. And that’s what the angels said. Shepherds, that this would be good news of great joy for all the people. That Jesus would turn the hearts of the parents to their children. That he would heal broken relationships. That he would turn disobedience to the wisdom of the righteous. That he would repair the ethical breaches.

So as we close, what about you? What about me? Has your life been turned inside out by the story? Is my life over and over and over again being turned inside out by the story? Does our gratitude for what God is doing in our own hearts grow and grow and grow into action? Well, if you can hear this as good news, if you can recognize that so often your quest has been for the top of the food chain, your pursuit for financial and emotional and relational independence, your goal to become invulnerable and impenetrable. If you can acknowledge that grasping to be God all by yourself has left you in need of rescue, then you will have the heart to receive a God who took the way down, a God who became vulnerable. That the infinite did become finite, that the immortal did become mortal, that the Creator of the universe did become a single cell, that the unassailably holy became someone that we could hug, that would hug us. Then we’re involved and invited into the mission of God. To work with God to turn all the evil enterprises upside down, to dismantle corruption, to extend compassion, to fight for justice, to practice mercy and not to lose hope. Hope because God through Jesus is turning worldly kingdoms upside down by turning our lives inside out. In the name of the Father, Son and Spirit, we pray. Amen.