Quiet!!
Micah 5:2-5a / Luke 1: 39 – 55
Intro: It never fails to happen. You are just sitting down to dinner, have just said the blessing and are ready to dive into your favorite meal and the phone rings. You answer to discover it is a telemarketer wanting to tell you that you have been chosen to receive a special opportunity. What really frustrates me is that our phone is on the “do not cal list.” However, we get phone calls for people who haven’t owned our house in over 10 years. We also get phone calls for the people who bought our house in Bradford Place over a year ago. I just want to scream into the phone, “LEAVE ME ALONE! ALL I WANT IS SOME PEACE AND QUIET.”
I. Earlier in Luke’s gospel we learn that Mary was also “chosen!” Luke 1:28 – “Greetings, you who are highly favored!” WHAT A DEAL!
A. How would you react to being singled out by God in such a way? Ladies, remember Sarah and Elizabeth. Age is no excuse. Many of you are surely thinking, “thanks, but no thanks!”
B. VSS. 46-49 – rejoice / blessed / done great things (not typical reaction)
C. To be chosen by God can mean at one and the same time a crown of joy and a cross of sorrow. God does not choose a person for ease and comfort and selfish joy but for a great task that will take all that head and heart and hand can bring to it.
II. Mary’s song is very much like that of Hannah in I Sam 2: 1-10
A. Couplets – pairs – opposites – extremes.
B. See VSS. 51 – 53 mighty deeds vs. scattering / rulers vs. humble / hungry vs. rich.
C. God’s priorities are not always our priorities – God’s ways are not always our ways.
III. Micah 5:2 – 5 From the humblest of towns and people the peace of God will come.
A. Mary – a simple, small-town girl – used by God to bring peace to the world.
B. Jesus – a simple carpenter’s son – would not only BRING peace; but BE the embodiment of peace.
C. The simple message here is that God can and will use even the most insignificant of us to bring about God’s will for the earth.
Conclusion – What we need now, today, is quiet. We need to be quiet and let the Christ of hope take charge of our lives. People who are winners, people who are self-reliant, people who feel they have the world by the tail need no hope. But people who have felt the brokenness of life, the struggle of despair, who have realized they cannot control life, these people need the quiet assurance that though are lives may be in ashes, we are not alone. The quiet hope of Christmas says that no matter how desperate things seem, no matter how much hurt, brokenness and alienation we feel, Christ Jesus is there quietly supporting and defending us.
