Today we are exactly nine months away from Christmas. So, for obvious reasons, the church has designated this day as the minor festival called “The Annunciation.” On this day the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she had been chosen by God to bring the Savior into the world. We call it the annunciation because it is the announcing of the greatest good news that mankind has ever heard: the coming of God into our world to overcome sin and death, and make us children of God.

This annunciation is described in our text for this evening. It occurred during the sixth month of the pregnancy of Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. The angel Gabriel had been sent by God to Elizabeth’s cousin, a young virgin named Mary, who was living in the small town of Nazareth. The angel announced to Mary that she was highly favored by God. She would conceive a child in a miraculous way, and give birth to a Son. She was to name that son Jesus.

This birth, that the angel announced to Mary, is what is portrayed in the window that we will dedicate this evening. In this window we see the picture of a simple, wooden manger. The manger has long been a symbol for the birth of Christ, the one spoken of by the angel in our text.

The angel would, of course, have spoken to Mary, being a young Jewish girl, in Hebrew and not in Greek. So the name he would have told her to give to this child is Joshua. Joshua is the Hebrew equivalent of Jesus. Mary would probably have thought of the Joshua in the Old Testament. You remember that Joshua was the great leader who took over when Moses died and finished the task of leading God’s people from their slavery in Egypt into the promised land. Thus the name Jesus was familiar to the Jewish people. It brought back to their memory the one who had led them out of slavery, the one who had been their savior.

In fact that’s what the name “Jesus” means. It means “the Lord is salvation,” or Savior. And so the name that God gave to this child, spoken of in our text through the angel Gabriel, clearly defines what His mission would be. That mission is defined before He is even born. He would be named Jesus, because He would save His people from their sin.

That’s what all people need, saving from sin. Sin is the worst disaster that has ever come upon this world. Most of you are familiar with how it happened. When God created the world, everything was beautiful and perfect. He created Adam and Eve in His own image. They were without sin and in perfect fellowship with God and perfect harmony with each other.

But then the devil tempted them to eat of the forbidden fruit, and so to rebel against God. As a result, the whole creation was ruined. God had warned them that the day they would eat of the fruit, they would surely die. So, when they transgressed God’s command, they immediately died spiritually, so they were separated from God and lived in fear and dread of Him. They fled from His presence and became subject to aging, sickness, and death. In fact, as a result of sin, the whole creation became subject to death and decay. Human relationships became strained and the earth was cursed so that it brought forth thorns and thistles.

And, of course, this sin has been passed down to every one of us. We are born enemies of God and subject to His wrath and judgment. Because of sin, we experience aging and disease, and will one day experience death. If God by His grace had not intervened, we would have been left entirely lost and without hope

But God has intervened. He was not willing to let His wonderful work of creation be ruined in this way. So He devised a plan by which sin would be overcome, and creation restored to its original perfection. He would send a Savior into the world. He would raise up someone who would rescue us from this terrible power of sin, just as He had raised up Moses and Joshua in Old Testament times to rescue Israel from their slavery.

Now, in order to find a Savior who was able to defeat the power of sin, an obstacle had to be overcome. This Savior had to be someone who was not infected with sin himself. Obviously, it would be impossible for a sinner to conquer sin. But that left out every human being. For as the Bible says, all human beings have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. This Savior would, therefore, have to come from outside of creation.

So, God chose His own Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity to be the Savior of our race.

His Son would be able to live a perfect and sinless life in our place. He would be able to become the kind of sacrifice that was required for overcoming sin, one without spot or defect.

But this led to another obstacle which needed to be overcome. It would also be necessary for this Savior to be human just like us, so that He could take our place under the law and take our sins upon Himself. Then it would be necessary for this Savior to die as our substitute. But it is impossible for God to die. So how could God’s Son be our Savior? We know the answer. He would have to become a man. In fact, He would have to be both true God and true man in the same person.

To accomplish this, God sent His Son into the world to be conceived and born of this young virgin, named Mary. That’s what the angel is announcing to Mary in our text. And He says that this God–man was to be named Jesus, because this was the Savior that God had sent to rescue us from the power of sin and death.

The birth of this Savior is depicted by the manger in our window. At the birth of Jesus, when the angel appeared to the shepherds, he gave them two signs by which they would be able to recognize the Christ–child. One was the swaddling cloths and the other was the manger. Ever since that time, the manger has been a symbol of the birth of the God–man, Jesus Christ. It speaks of how God humbled Himself and took on human flesh to be our Savior. It speaks of how He came into our world, that there was no room for Him in the inn, so that He had to be born in a stable, in a lowly manger.

And that would be the Savior’s experience throughout His life. Often He would have nowhere to lay His head. He would be “despised and rejected of men.” Finally, He would be hanged on a cross to die. That cross also appears in our window. It is the seen in the Greek letter Iota, the letter that looks like a capital “I.” In our window, that letter has been made into a cross.

This is to remind us that it is through the cross that Jesus saved us. For Jesus went to that cross bearing the sins of the whole world. The great love of God for His creation moved Him to make this tremendous sacrifice and give His own Son into death in our place. In this way, the sin and guilt of the world was transferred to Jesus Christ, who took the full responsibility for it and suffered the punishment we deserved. Thus, sin has been overcome through the Savior, Jesus Christ. That was God’s solution to the problem of sin. It is all seen in the simple, humble manger.

And Jesus still comes to us today in simple, humble ways. He comes to us in water and words, bread and wine to give us forgiveness and salvation.

So, this simple window, with a manger and the name Jesus, tells a magnificent story. It tells the greatest story ever told. It tells how God came into our world, born in a manger, so that He could die on a cross. It tells us that in doing this Jesus has become the great Joshua, the great Savior who would lead us from sin and death to the promised land of heaven. This is the message of the window that we will dedicate tonight. Amen.