Word Count: 2370
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26 Romans 16: 25-27 Luke 1: 26-38
Summary: Without Songs we would burst; Jesus agreed, & said so to the Pharisees. Great works of God have always been accompanied by joyful song. Do you enjoy praising the Lord, or just enjoy singing, there is a vast difference, as few can do both, read on ….
This sermon was delivered to the congregation in St Oswald’s in Maybole, Ayrshire, Scotland on the 18th December 2011: by Gordon McCulloch
(A Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries).
Please join me in my prayer. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength, and our redeemer at this time of studying your word, and indeed always. Amen (Ps. 19:14)
Our Gospel reading is taken from Luke’s Gospel, chapter 1, verse 26 to 38: “In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David.
The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.
He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.
And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her”.
Introduction:
Have you ever noticed what a large part the singing or the speaking of songs has in Christian worship? Yet this aspect is quite rare in religions like Hinduism or Buddhism, where religious devotion is done mainly through prayers, mantras or philosophy; and Atheism has no songs at all … they have nothing to sing about!
I think that without Songs we would burst. Jesus also agreed, and said so to the Pharisees in Luke 19:37- 40: “And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen; Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest. And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out”.
The works of God have always been accompanied by joyful song. Look at the creation where Job tells us in Job 38:4: “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding” and verse 7 “When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy”?
Look also at the redemption of the Hebrews from slavery in Exodus 15:1: “then Moses and the Israelites sang this song unto the Lord. I will sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously”.
And when the new creation was about to be born, when Christ came into the world, Luke records us that song was bursting forth all over the place.
Now the period surrounding Mary’s song were days when there hadn’t been much singing, in fact there hadn’t been much spiritual activity around for over 400 years. The temple was formal to say the least, and the priests were hypocritical, the psalms continued to be chanted, and in the words of RS Thomas they were ‘worrying the carcass of an old song.’
But here and there, godly people felt something was about to happen. For example, an angel appeared to the old faithful priest Zechariah; and an old woman called Elizabeth who was about to have a son; and now, the most amazing of all, a young peasant girl, Mary, received an angelic visitation that she will have a child supernaturally implanted, divinely conceived; the Son of God.
It was all a bit too much for Mary to keep to herself, so up into the Judean hills she went to share this with her older cousin, Elizabeth who would relate or empathise if that would be the right expression, this incredible news. But whereas Elizabeth’s pregnancy would take away her shame of childlessness, Mary’s pregnancy would bring her shame.
Just how would she explain this to anyone, let alone Joseph? Not only had the Holy Spirit violated the laws of nature, he added an apparent disregard for proper religious respectability. God’s work in Mary and in Christ would forever, provoke both wonder and scandal.
The very foetus of John the Baptist in fact leapt in Elizabeth’s womb at the approach of Mary. John the Baptise could sense Jesus at this stage, and this flies in the face of the abortionists.
Mind you, Elizabeth might have simply instinctively known Mary as (verse 43) ‘the mother of my Lord’ but Elizabeth knew that it was God himself who was in the womb of Mary. I do not know, but I want to believe the first.
Mary then bursts forth spontaneously into song, which we call today The Magnificat from the Latin magnify, and this canticle has from earliest Christian times, been sung at Vespers or Evensong.
Do you have a song in your heart? Are you at times so full of the love of God and the presence of Jesus that you also just burst into song? The great mystery of the Christian faith, writes Paul in Colossians 1:27 ‘Christ in you – the hope of glory’ if you truly belong to Christ from above.
The old Anglican writers of the classical Christmas carols knew the reality of Christ within the hearts of the believers, and the great transformation resulted.
Charles Wesley’s great carol speaks of Christ being ‘Born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth.’ Phillips Brooks likewise prayed, ‘O holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray; cast our sin and enter in; be born in us today’ while Christina Rosetti realises that the best gift for Christ is the human heart, or the innermost being of the soul, where he can live by the power of his Spirit: ‘What can I give him – give my heart.’
And so Mary expresses herself in worship, in praise, in adoration, and in song. Do you enjoy singing God’s praises? I did not say ‘are you a good singer? But, do you enjoy his praises – or if your voice can no longer give a tune, is your heart at least singing? C.H. Spurgeon once said, ‘If you don’t enjoy praise – you will not enjoy heaven’, and I have heard that in various phrases. If you do not enjoy praising and worshipping the Lord Jesus, do not go to heaven; it is mandatory.
Praise is the highest ministry we can bring God; it is even greater than prayer, for St Augustine said that he who praises prays twice!
Notice again, I did not say do you enjoy ‘singing’ but do you enjoy ‘praising’ … for sadly these two are not always the same. Some people just love singing, even in church, they sing all the time, yet, they know nothing of the saving power of Christ or of the love of God in their lives. To them it’s all about the singing.
So I hope you understand that it is all about praising and magnifying and worshipping the Lord from deep within our hearts, our human heart, where ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour.’ As you I can sing none, Becky has to turn the microphone off when we sing, but I love to praise the Lord, and it is not the sing it counts, you get marks for trying.
There was a lovely little chorus sung in the late 1970s in some churches, and it went like this:
‘When I feel the touch of your hand upon my life,
it causes me to sing a song that I love you Lord.
So from deep within, my spirit singeth unto thee,
You are my King, you and my God, and I love you Lord.’
Praise does not require great talent. Those who sing worst to the ear of man, may perhaps be most melodious to the ear of the Lord and that alone matters. Those beside you might not like it, but God does. Let us therefore not judge anyone whose heart sings because they cannot keep silent.
And for those who love to belt it out and show of because they can sing, please show a little tolerance and humility towards those who cannot.
It is an interesting thing in church history that every religious revival or renewal movement always expresses itself in an outpouring of new songs. We saw this at the Reformation when Luther’s hymns often set to popular tunes of the day, and these became the vehicle of praise; we saw it at the time of the Wesleyan revival in the 18th century when Charles Wesley wrote 6,000 hymns.
We saw it in the Oxford Movement when John Mason Neal, Henry Lyte, and John Keble poured forth new sacred verse; we saw it in the charismatic renewal when thousands of new songs were being sung, and we see it today, whenever hearts are finely tuned to the will of God’s renewing Spirit.
But to burst forth in spontaneous song, does not actually require new words. When the heart is ablaze and the soul stirred, old words and forms can provide the mould into which our emotions can flow.
The Magnificat was an outburst of praise drawing from the language and phrases already existing in the Hebrew liturgy, namely, the Song of Hannah in 1 Samuel 2.
From Wikipedia, the Song of Hannah is a poem interrupting the prose text of the Books of Samuel. According to the surrounding narrative, the poem (1 Samuel 2:1-10), was a prayer delivered by Hannah, to give thanks to God for the birth of her son, Samuel. It is very similar to Psalm 113.
There is a movement in this song from the particular to the general. It opens with Hannah's own gratitude for a local reversal, and closes with God's defeat of his enemies – a cosmic reversal. Through the theme of reversal, the Song of Hannah functions as an introduction to the whole book of Samuel.
That is why ancient liturgical worship does not need to be less spiritual than modern or more spontaneous simple songs. But to make the liturgy live, we have to engage with the text, and make it our song, our own personal song, and not just the song of the church.
Another interesting thing is that Mary’s song was not even sung in church, but in a home. It was in Elizabeth’s front “lounge” that this praise was uttered.
Now do you only praise God when you are in church? I hope not, and I hope that when you go away from here, you bring something of the songs in this church into your home, into your work, into your life, and into the lives of others; and I pray that you come to this church bringing the songs of your home, which are really the songs of your heart which hopefully are from the Lord.
Mary’s song was about how great God was, and how marvelous was his grace at work in her life. Mary’s questions had been transformed from fear and doubt, to wonder and amazement. Faith had been born in both Mary and Elizabeth.
As this good news is heard by us this Advent season, hopefully a presence is reborn in us, that leaps for joy at the story, and the promise that this blessed Child brings into our lives. It is the Spirit of that Child who infiltrates our hearts, and brings us peace and joy to our souls.
And so it is with us today; we are simply called to tell the Good News that has graced our lives, to proclaim all the wonderful works of our Lord and Savior, and invite others to partake of that same wonderful gift.
Amen
