Fourth Sunday in Advent
Luke 1: 39-45 (46-55)
"Singing for Joy"
39 ¶ In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah,
40 and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit
42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!
43 And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
44 For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy.
45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord."
46 And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed;
49 for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
50 And his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts,
52 he has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away.
54 He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy,
55 as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity for ever."RSV
Grace and Peace to you from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus who is the Christ. Amen
Our gospel lesson this morning is about song. Mary and Elizabeth sing songs of praise to God.
They sing because of the joy in their hearts at the miracle of life which God gave them.
They sing songs of joy to God for being allowed to bring John the Baptist and Jesus into this world.
Mary who was pregnant with baby Jesus and Elizabeth was pregnant with John. Mary went to see Elizabeth after she found out from the angel she was carrying God’s son. Mary, I imagine, had to find someone to talk with to help her sort out all that had happened to her. She greeted Elizabeth and the text says,"and when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb. .." further the text says, as Elizabeth is speaking, "For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. "
As one studies this passage closely, one finds it is Mary’s humble song of praise to God for being chosen by God so that God’s power of love, mercy and forgiveness may be manifested in this world.
Mary sings to God
"My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed;
49 for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
Mary sings to God for the blessing he has bestowed upon her. This Magnificat not a song about Mary, but a song about God. It is a song about how God used Mary to bring his son into this world.
We can sing praises to God for this miracle of life that he brought into this world through Mary. The virgin birth is a sign for us that God can , when he wants to, puts aside the laws of nature, the natural order of thing to do his mighty will. Mary understood this greatness of God. Mary knew that God had done something great. Mary knew that her glory came not from anything she did or didn’t do. Her glory came from God himself. She knew and understood her’s was a borrowed glory, a glory bestowed upon her from God.
So she says in that passage called the Magnificat, " My soul magnifies the lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour." God had accomplished something truly special with Mary and Mary gave Him the praise and the glory.
One of the Christmas presents I received many years ago was a recording of Handel’s Messiah. I especially enjoy the Hallelujah Chorus and the tradition that goes along with it . At every performance of that work when the Hallelujah Chorus is sung the audience stands. They stand because at the first performance the audience applauded so loud and all turned toward Handel and as they did he a rose and pointed with his finger toward heaven, silently indicating that the glory for this magnificent piece of music should be given to God rather than to himself.
And in the same way, Mary’s praise of God indicates that she also knew to whom the glory for this special event should be given. The glory should be given to God. All things are possible with God even when our human minds and reason have a difficult time accepting it. But God is more than our minds and reason. God can and does work through the erected order, but he is not limited as seen in the virgin birth. God chooses at times to work outside the natural laws, outside human reason and understanding and in those events we truly see his almighty power.
Not only did God reveal his power with Mary, but in the place of his Son’s birth God showed us his humility. For who would have guessed that God being born into this world would break into our history in such a backwater town as Bethlehem in a humble place as a stable. But with God all things are possible so we sing. God does not need what we consider grand and glorious. God can use the simple, the common to show us his glory. So it is fitting, I think, that Jesus the Son of God was born in such a small town in a tiny country. Born in such a unlikely place as a stable. It shows us the true nature of this God we worship.
We sing songs at the impending Christmas event because of the gift of hope which the baby in the manger brings to our lives. There is a hopefulness about life because of Christ. No matter what the circumstances in which we find ourselves, there can be hope because of Christ. Hope that says somehow we will be delivered, rescued, or given the courage and strength to endure any circumstance in which we might find ourselves.
When we realize that alone without Christ we are only loosing life, then there is hope because we turn our lives over to Christ to redeem and save. By ourselves as human beings hope does not spring eternal in our nature. We are a race of people given to despair. We are prone to give up on life, to quit, to find the easiest, painless solution to our problems. We are a generation of people who have gotten used to looking for the quick fix, the instant solution. When it doesn’t come, we give up, we throw up our arms in despair and complain about the unfairness of life.
There is a movie about the ultimate despair in life entitled "They Shoot Horses Don’t They". I saw it in college and again just recently on TV. The movie is about an actress who has a fallen career on the big screen during the 20’s. She enters a dance marathon hoping to win the jackpot and to use the money to launch a new movie career. As the marathon draws closer to the end, she realizes that she and her partner have a good chance of winning. During one of the rest breaks, the promoter calls them into the office, and explains to them that the winner has to pay for the expenses of the dance out of the $750.00 prize money.
She sees life is not worth fighting any longer, because when she thought she was winning, she was loosing. There was no hope for her she thought, only this brokenness. She feels broken, used, washed up. She gives up on life. The final scene of the movie shows her going round and round as if on a merry-go-round. She steps off and goes outside with her boy friend, hands him a gun and asks him to shoot her.
As the viewer, you can feel her helplessness, but as a Christian you want her to live, to be redeemed, but the gun goes off. She falls to the ground.
The police come and ask the boy friend why he shot her. He replies,"They shoot horses don’t they!!"
The hope of Christmas says no matter how desperate our lives seem, no matter how much hurt, brokenness, and alienation there is, because of Jesus there is hope. We as God’s children are more than horses being shot when our usefulness in life is through. Because of Christ, no life should be without hope. There is hope for the redemption of life either through the strength to endure or the power to overcome. Because of Christ, in the long run of things, in each life, hope does spring eternal. Christ can do for us that which we cannot do for ourselves. Christ can redeem our lives now and in the future. Because of Christ, no life need end in a moment of despair, for with Christ every life can be and will be redeemed.
A closing story about hope.
In September 1995 Caryl and Charlie Harvey answered an early morning knock upon their front door. Two policemen stood there grimly, passing on the terrible news that their 20 year old son Brad had been found murdered.
Grief stricken they went through the motions of the funeral and life. But as Christmas approached Caryl found herself giving vent to her disappointment and anger with God. He had failed her. Why hadn’t he protected her son as she had so often prayed?
In desperation she prayed, "God, if you care about me, I need a miracle. Otherwise, I think I’ll probably die." She waited, and that Christmas her miracle came.
One night the doorbell rang. When Caryl’s 13 year old daughter answered it she found a gift but no giver, nor any mark identifying the giver. The gift was a treebranch with apples planted in it and a blue plastic nightingale perched on top. Attached was a piece of paper which read:
"On the first day of Christmas My true love gave to me A partridge in a pear tree.
We couldn’t find a partridge, And our pear tree died, So you have to settle for a Bluebird in an apple tree."
Also attached was a bible verse describing the birth of John the Baptist.
The next evening there was another ring of the doorbell and another gift. Though Sarah, Cheryl’s daughter, raced to the door, she wasn’t fast enough to discover who the mystery giver was. This time there was a box containing "turtle" brand lollies and two Dove brand chocolate bars.
The note read
"On the second day of Christmas My true love sent to meTwo turtledoves…." and included a bible verse about the angel Gabriel appearing to the virgin Mary.
And on it went for the next ten days. The third day were three cornish hens (the French hens had lost their passport the note said); the fourth day there was a cassette tap with songs which had the word "bird" in the title, and a calling card - "four calling birds"; on the fifth day five golden rings were freshly cooked doughnuts; on the sixth day six geese-a-laying were pastel chalk eggs; on the seventh day, seven swans swam across the top of a blue-frosted cake.; on the eighth day eight maids-a-milking was a Holstein cow candle; on the ninth day nine ladies dancing were 18 gingerbread people decorated as dancers (the Equal Opportunity Employment Act wouldn’t allow them to send just nine ladies); on the tenth day there were ten wooden leaping puppets; on the eleventh day a James Galway tape did for eleven piper piping; on the twelfth day of Christmas there were twelve drums made out of iced biscuits. And each day there was a Scripture verse preparing them for the approaching holiday.
Caryl found that this was her miracle. For the first time since Brad’s death she had begun looking forward to the next day, wanting to know what would come next. Thinking of that time she says "My miracle. When I couldn’t talk to God, when I didn’t even want to talk to him, he sent my miracle through someone else. God used earthly hands to send it to me, but his fingerprints were all over it." 1
Caryl’s experience reminds us that when people are wounded our action can be a miracle to them, helping them find healing and recovery.
We sing for joy this season because with God, all things are possible. Our hearts sing for joy because of the gift of the baby born in the manger who brings hope into our troubled lives.
"My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed;
49 for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
Amen
Written by Pastor Tim Zingale December 18, 2006
1Source: Caryl’s story reported by herself in Christianity Today Magazine, November/December 2001,"artvol">Vol. 39,No. 6.
from http://www.ozsermonillustrations.com/
