A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church, Boise, Idaho.
Dec 11, 2011
I have struggled with these texts this week, even though I love them both. Mary’s Magnificat is one of my favorite passages in scripture. But I think both texts sound discordant when viewed through America’s preparation for Christmas.
I was talking with my hairstylist this past week and she told me that her family was opting out of Christmas this year. Last year, her son opened a present and said, “another shirt? Aren’t there any good presents here?” and that led her to stop and wonder why she was spending all of this money on things her kids didn’t want or need, why she was getting so stressed out making sure her presents were beautifully wrapped and matched her tree. Is this what Christmas was supposed to be about?
She decided “no”. So, this year, the family is going to take a trip and enjoy each other’s presence, rather than stress each other out by buying a lot of presents.
And even if she is right that being with family is more important than spending money on gifts, you and I might decide that even that isn’t the meaning of Christmas. Wasn’t there a baby born in a barn a few thousand years ago?
Where should this infant God be honored during this season?
There is a general worry that we have taken the “Christ out of Christmas” whenever we say “Happy Holidays” or when children’s school choirs sing “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” instead of “O Holy Night”.
But I don’t think these are God’s concerns. I think they are only ours.
As we look around at the holiday craziness, it is right to acknowledge that while Christmas has a very important meaning to us as Christians, Christmas has a different meaning to many non-religious people. And it is what it is. It’s okay. The removal of Christ’s birth from the consumer driven spectacle that is American Christmas may not be a bad thing, really.
So let us, as Christians, come together, as a worshipping family, to listen to the prophecies of Isaiah, to ponder the angels’ greetings in our hearts, and to prepare for the birth of a baby, but let’s not get distracted by the idea that Jesus is in any way diminished if people see things differently than we do. Our God is too awesome a God to be derailed by someone saying “happy holidays”.
But I wonder if our society at large is suffering from that sense of entitlement that my hairstylist’s son expressed when he didn’t like his gifts.
Rachel Evans, a Christian writer, said this about Christmas:
“I’m not sure when or why it happened, but in some circles, entitlement has been declared December’s Christian virtue. Suddenly it’s not enough that Americans spend millions of dollars each year marking the birth of Jesus. Now we’ve got to have a “Merry Christmas” banner in front of every parade and an inflatable manger scene outside of every courthouse… or else we’ll make a big stink about it in the name of Jesus. Having opened the gift of the incarnation—of God with us—we’ve peered inside and shrieked, “This is not enough! Where are the accessories? We want more!”
How did we get here?
This story didn’t begin at a Mall at Midnight after Thanksgiving where people fought each other for flat screened TV’s.
This story didn’t begin in the halls of power.
This story began when an angel of the Lord went to an unwed teenaged girl in the backwater town of Nazareth and announced good news of great joy for all people. “Mary, you have found favor with God!”
And, after she’d pondered this news in her heart, Mary said “let it be with me, according to your will.”
She didn’t ask the angel what was in it for her. She didn’t ask if she would get the TV rights to her story. She didn’t sell the pictures of the birth to People Magazine for $10 million dollars.
Instead, she went with haste to the Hill Country to stay with her cousin Elizabeth. Because the best place for a pregnant teenager to make sense of her situation is with a formerly barren cousin, who was pregnant late in life, with John the Baptist. And it seems that even in the womb, John was preparing the way for Jesus. Because when pregnant Mary walks in to the living room, he leaps in Elizabeth’s womb and she proclaims a blessing that mirrors what Mary had already heard from the angel.
“And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
I suspect Elizabeth’s message must have been very reassuring to Mary. Even if you say “sure” to the angel, I’m sure there’s still a piece of you that’s wondering if you’ve lost your mind. Elizabeth’s proclamation must have been comforting, because it matters to know that you are not alone—that someone else is standing there behind you. That while faith is a personal experience—remember that nobody else saw that angel—it is not a private experience. We find support for our personal faith journeys in community with others—even when they may have heard from a different angel.
And then Mary breaks out in song.
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
This song is often referred to as the “magnificat”, which is the first word Mary says if you are reading the bible in Latin. And when I hear it, I realize the power of these words from a teenaged girl.
Her song is not a half hearted praise of “my soul thanks the Lord and I trust that he’ll get me through this mess and things will turn out okay.”
Her song is much bigger. It shows that she, correctly, connects the details of her life to God’s bigger plan for the world.
If God can use Mary in God’s plan for salvation for the world, then perhaps we need to reconsider everything we think we know. Mary’s magnificat takes on powerful significance.
If God can use a teenaged girl from a backwater town, then surely God will fill the hungry with good things and send the rich away hungry. Surely God will bring down the mighty and lift up the lowly. Mary’s song becomes not a prophecy nor prediction, but a description of reality. She doesn’t even bother to use future tense. It doesn’t say “God will…” It says “God has…”
And perhaps you recognized Mary’s Magnificat in the Psalm we read this morning.
When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then it was said among the nations,
“The LORD has done great things for them.”
The LORD has done great things for us,
and we rejoiced.
Mary connects her experience to the larger work of God in the world by hearkening back to the Psalms. And as these texts messed with my head this week, I was thankful for this Psalm. The drumbeat of Joy that works through this psalm called me to look for joy in the world.
Mary’s song, like the psalm, is also full of joy. But not fa la la la la, easy joy that denies the messy reality of her situation. Yes, she’s found favor with God. But she’s still a pregnant teenager.
I’m thankful that Mary went to see her cousin, Elizabeth. Not only did Elizabeth validate her experience with the angel, but I suspect she also helped her see the joy. Elizabeth had been barren for many years. In a culture where childbirth was the only way women had to succeed in the first century world, Elizabeth had been a failure. She had known heartache, loss, and that “yearning for” that everyone who faces infertility or other loss knows.
The text only tells us that Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah were “getting on in years”, which means she’d lived with this loss for a long time. Here was Elizabeth’s comment about her pregnancy. “This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.”
Yes, Elizabeth knew joy, but it through the experience of her suffering that she recognized it.
And so I’m glad Mary went to Elizabeth. For a little perspective. To see that joy doesn’t spring up from the easy, unexamined life. Joy springs up through our brokenness and pain. I suspect Mary recognized Elizabeth in the psalm:
May those who sow in tears
reap with shouts of joy.
Mary’s joy seems to be a spontaneous outburst, one beyond her control.
Patrick Henry Reardon writes in his book Christ in the Psalms about this psalm and here is what he says: “The experience of salvation has a kind of dreamlike quality. Those who are saved must pinch themselves, as it were, to make sure it is really happening. God’s redemption of us from bondage and oppression is so marvelously incomprehensible; it is too good to be true ~ and the sheer joy of the thing encourages unbelief.” (p. 251)
Mary’s joy is like that. Something marvelously incomprehensible is going on. And her joy mirrors the psalmist’s and calls me to accept the joy that is too good to be true, to receive the situations of my life as gift and blessing, to seek salvation in the unlikely places.
So, on this 3rd Sunday in Advent, when the advertisers try to convince you that joy is people with shopping bags doing choreographed dance numbers in a department store, remember that joy looks different than that. Joy springs up from our tears.
Restore our fortunes, O LORD,
like the watercourses in the Negeb.
May those who sow in tears
reap with shouts of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
carrying their sheaves.
Let us go into the world, seeking that kind of joy.
