CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA)
Rev. Drew Smith, Pastor
December 17, 2006
SERMON TITLE: “Joy: Christmas Significance”
Philippians 4: 4 -7
Luke 1:46-55

Gracious God: We ask your Spirit to be at work continuing to open up the eyes and ears of our very souls so that we might hear you, we might see you, and we might experience you in a new way; that you would take us to a deeper place; that you would strengthen us and deepen our faith so that our joy, our peace and our hope might overflow to the world around us. It’s in Jesus that we pray, Amen.

This Song of Mary, what is called “The Magnificat”, based on the first word ‘magnify. In the Greek it’s ‘mega’. It’s where we get - when you go to get a combo meal at McDonalds, and you mega-size it. This is Mary’s song. It’s somewhere in the midst of these first three months she sings unto God. Now consider, just for a moment, think about all that has happened in Mary’s life. She’s about 14 or 15. Now, in Mary’s day, in the first century, that’s about middle age and you really don’t get past 40 very often. So 15 is the marrying age. It’s not that unusual for a young woman. But I’m sure she had her plans of what she wanted her life to be like, even as a peasant in the first century Palestinian area, in the first century rural villages outside of Nazareth. I’m sure that having an angel appear to her and being given the burden of carrying a child who is the Son of God was not on her list anywhere. So imagine with me, what would be going through her mind? What kind of fears, what kind of worries, what kind of concerns, a burden that would be hers, a task that would be a challenge to fulfill and certainly a situation fraught with misunderstanding, doubt, skepticism and judgment by others. First of all, would be her fiancé, Joseph. This was the surprise of all surprises for a 15 year old.

Now I’m afraid that how we handle surprises very much relates to how young at heart we are. How we handle surprises very much relates to how we experience joy! One of my favorite authors from a couple centuries ago is G. K. Chesterton. Here’s what he had to say about surprises and joy: “The modern world has had far too little understanding of the art of keeping young”. Boy, that’s true! You see people on TV that have surgery on their face, a face-lift and that kind of stuff. They look almost clownish, to me at least. But it’s a multi-billion dollar industry to try to remain young by dealing with just the appearance which totally misses the mark of what is means to be young. Chesterton continues, “Its notion of progress has been to pile one thing on top of another without caring if each thing was crushed in turn. People forgot that the human soul can enjoy a thing most when there is time to think about it and be thankful for it and by crowding things together they lost their sense of surprise; and surprise is the secret of joy.”

What we have with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the chosen one to carry the Divine Seed within her, to give birth to the Savior of the world, is one who handles surprise exquisitely; who receives a calling from God and responds eventually with joy. We’re not given her exact words when the angel appears to her and all the thoughts that go through her mind, but eventually she comes to this point of singing a song of joy, of celebrating the calling that God has placed on her in the face of all kinds of troubles, uncertainty and pain. She responds with joy!

I think the first hint from her song, why she responds with joy, this calling from God, is that she recognizes that she’s not in control and God is!

Verses 50 and 51, “... 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; the mighty one has done great things for me”. She recognizes that God is the one who leads her. God is the one who is the Sovereign controlling force over her life, not her or anything else. As a matter of fact, the word used here for ‘mighty one’ is the word ‘kratos’. It’s the same word that we use in ‘demo-cratic’. ‘Demo’ meaning people like demographics; people - ‘cratic’ meaning power; democracy is a democratic government and power is in the people. Well, that’s what we have here. What Mary is realizing, what Mary is saying, is proclaiming, is that, ‘God is the one who is mighty and powerful, not her’! And it is amazing in our own wealth, in our own medical advances, in our own technological achievements how quickly we can think that we are in control. It’s foolish! I mean, we just have to go through a hurricane or two to recognize that we’re not in control. Just ask Elizabeth and Ken and Larry in the back, there. Who’s in control? Come over to my house when we have 30 twelve- year-old girls running around. You’ll realize in a hurry that you’re not in control. Just go work in the nursery for a little while. The second-graders, especially the boys - you’ll realize in a hurry that we’re not in control, that God is the one who is in control of our lives and when we come to that realization, when we surrender the control, then the surprises can be received with joy instead of fear, instead of worry, instead of trepidation! And Mary in her wisdom! She has an advantage. She is poor in a very primitive society and is a very simple individual - great advantages to recognize that God is in control verses our wealth and our supposed progress and technological advances. Those things can be great hurdles. We can hide behind those thinking we’re in control when we’re not! Mary recognizes that she isn’t so she receives God’s calling with joy.

The second thing that she realizes, verse 52 and 53, “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”. Verse 54, “He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy.” She recognizes that, not only is God sovereign, not only powerful, but he is merciful. That God will do what is necessary to make things right. It may not be in Mary’s lifetime but she knows that the gift that she has been given, the burden that she carries, the seed in whom she will give birth is the beginning, the next step in God making all things right. The Mighty One making all things right and in Mary’s day, there were very few rich and powerful people. King Herod, being the primary focus of that day, was a vicious king. People were rich and powerful because they were able to use and abuse and step on the poor for their own advantage and Mary was one of the poor. There’s a little bit of a revolution in Mary’s song here. “You’re going to make things right, God. I’m willing to go forward because you’re going to do what is merciful, what is just for my family and all of my loved ones who have been used and abused all of our lives by those in power in Rome. The powerful are going to be overthrown and we’re going to be made right. This is the time, this is the beginning. Do what you need to do!” She recognized that not only was God powerful but that God was righteous in every sense of the word!

Paul must have had that same sense also. That’s why we read Philippians 4 where he says to the church in Philippi, “Rejoice, again I will say ‘rejoice’” except Paul probably didn’t say it like I’m saying it now because when he wrote this, he was in prison. He was probably chained where he couldn’t lift his arms up much further. Then he was shackled by the Roman government and yet he could tell the church in the first century, ‘rejoice’! Now here’s the key part. “Rejoice in the Lord, again I will say, rejoice”! Neither Mary nor Paul had their eyes focused on the circumstances of their life as the fuel for their joy! Now their eyes were focused, their eyes of faith were focused on the powerful merciful God in whose hands they rested and it led them to joy!

Mary recognizes that God is sovereign, God is in control and we are not. Mary recognizes that God is the one who makes things right and she recognizes, in the end, that God fulfills his promises. What God has been doing since the beginning of time, God will continue to do and is using and calling Mary to a particular part to fulfill and extremely important part, the most significant part of this plan, of fulfilling his purposes for the salvation of the world to give birth to God in the flesh.

Verse 55, “According to the promise He made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants, forever.” She recognizes that God has a place for her to fulfill the plan of salvation. She realizes that the child within her is of the same lineage, of the same thread that went from Abraham, Moses and David and now leads directly to the child within her womb. And she knows that this child, just like Abraham, Moses and David is a part of God fulfilling God’s promises of mercy and grace and love. That leads to celebration, to joy, even as an unmarried, pregnant, poor teen-ager. She rejoices in God’s promises and in the assurance that God will fulfill them.

I’m reminded that 2 weeks ago Lee Smith was sharing at the 9 o’clock service about the struggle she faced when David, her husband, was in a bicycle accident that led to him being in the hospital for 6 months. Many of you know the story. And she says in the midst of that she didn’t know if she would ever be able to laugh again even though she knew, in the face of all the circumstances, that David would be healed, she just didn’t know when. She didn’t know if it would be on this side of Glory or on the other side of Glory that she would see him healed.

Mary, here, acts in the joy of a sure and certain faith that God would fulfill his promises even though she doesn’t know if it’s in her lifetime or the next that they will be fulfilled, but she knows that she’s a part of that fulfilling.

In the same way, so too are we. You and I are in that same lineage. We, too, in our own ways, give birth, in a sense, to Jesus in our lives today. We have the opportunity to be the demonstration of Jesus to those around us. The Church of Jesus Christ today are the hands and the feet of Christ.

If you’re like me, your response to that may not necessarily be one of joy but one of fear, trepidation, worry or just a burden, another thing to do!

I love the season of Advent because it reminds me - it reminds me especially as we look at Mary, it reminds me that we are about the work of mercy, the love of God, that God has been doing since the beginning of time. We have the privilege of being the hands and feet of Jesus today; of giving birth, in a sense, to the reality of Jesus in a world that doesn’t know him; in a world that is lost; in a world that has little joy. What a wonderful privilege! What a celebration! What a task in which to rejoice and welcome in the same way that Mary welcomed her calling from God.

Friends, may we learn from Mary that we’re not in control, God is, so let it go! Let it go to a God who will make things right; a God who will fulfill his promises of mercy and grace and love and He will do so through you and through me and through us! LET US REJOICE! AMEN!