Awesome God

Dec. 12, 2010 Luke 1:46-55 C & Z “Awesome God”

If you remember last week I told you that this was my favorite time of year because of all the presents we might be getting. Right kids? This all tied into the hope that we have. Today I would like to say that it is also a time of year when we get to hear a lot of our favorite songs. Many of you probably don’t know this but I really love music. Sharon has a hard time understanding how I can turn on the tunes and read or even write a sermon. It seems to be very soothing for me and it doesn’t seem to disturb my train of thought or at least I don’t think it does. Some of my favorite songs are the Christmas tunes that we only play for about a month a year. And I think that this is about the right amount of time to play them or else they wouldn’t be as effective next year if we played them all the time. So I really do appreciate our Christmas services from a musical standpoint. I know that I am not a very good singer but I do enjoy standing up here and listening to your wonderful blend of voices, some good and some not so good, but together they sound great. We are surrounded by music where ever we go today. But there is one song that we never sing and that is Mary’s song from our Scripture this morning. This is a beautiful song of love, power and hope. Let’s see if we can enjoy this a little this morning.

But before we begin this morning I would like to give a little warning about getting caught up in all the activities of the season. Melvin Newland tells the story of a little girl who watched her mother and father get ready for Christmas. To this little girl it seemed that her dad was preoccupied with burdens and bundles and her mom was concerned about parties and presents and they just didn’t have any time for her. She felt that she was being shoved aside because she was always being told, “Would you please get out of the way?” I hope that none of us ever get this way. Anyway, one night in December she knelt by her bed and prayed this prayer, “Our Father who art in heaven, please forgive us our Christmases as we forgive those who Christmas against us.” Please don’t let this harsh truth be about you.

Before we begin looking at this song I would like to point out something that is very important. Most of the time when we write songs or poetry we write something about it after the fact. I think of the song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald or The Train Called the City of New Orleans or any other ballad for that matter. Something has to happen and then the song gets written. In Mary’s Song, the event hasn’t happened yet. This is a song of the faith of Mary that all will happen in the future.

If we think about this for a minute, this is truly astonishing. Mary is not very old in all of this. She is probably between 13 and 15. She is at the age when girls wed in those days. She would have been a working girl because everyone worked in those days. There were no child labor laws. There was only the law of survival. In order to survive, everyone worked.

We might think that this was a little harsh. But let’s think about our own country for a minute. We don’t even have to work when we are adults. We have welfare to take care of us. We have unemployment to take care of us. Our government wants to run every little facet of our lives. We are just the opposite of the ancients because it seems that if we work hard we will not survive today. It is far better to be lazy. But I don’t want to go down that rabbit trail this morning.

So we have this young girl writing this beautiful song that begins with love. She begins with “My soul glorifies the Lord.” This young girl must be crazy. Here she is with not much money, pregnant and unmarried. She could be sentenced to death for this. The best that she could hope for is that she be allowed to live even if she is banished from the community. She has got a hundred things going against her, maybe even more. With all these things going against her, she praises God. She loves God. She glorifies God.

Let me ask a personal question and you don’t have to answer to me. When was the last time that you were in a tight situation and you praised God? I am afraid that many people will have to admit that the first thing that comes from their mouths when something bad happens is a curse of God. We swear and curse. I have had many people curse and then ask for my pardon because the pastor is present. Then they go right on swearing anyway like I’m not even there. I don’t like it when you swear but don’t seek forgiveness from me. You are offending God not me. Ask forgiveness from Him. Unfortunately, most people feel that they are far superior to God and would not even consider going to Him.