Sermon: God Delivers! 

by Kelvin Dyck
December 20, 2009

Text: Luke 1:39-55; Hebrews 10:5-10

Introduction:

Belated birthday present--Born to kvetch or Born to complain or lament.

Michael Ware, the author, describes kvetching as a way of exercising some small measure of control over an otherwise hostile environment. He writes, "If the Rolling Stones's "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" had been written in Yiddish, it would have been called (I Love to Keep Telling You That I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (Because Telling You that I'm Not Satisfied Is All That Can Satisfy Me).

Ware goes on to say that kvetching has its roots in the Bible, where the Israelites, beginning in the Book of Exodus, are always complaining or kvetching.

Something of this complaining mentality has perhaps come to be part of the social fabric of Southern Manitoba as well. Either society is falling apart, taxes are too high, it is too cold, too hot, too dry, too wet, our pay is too high or too low, our politics are too conservative, too liberal or too socialist, and our homes and businesses are too green, not green enough, too idealistic or too status quo.

To be at peace with God's sovereignty and Lordship is not really on our radar screen.

Our text today offers another picture and in so doing, gives us a model for responding to God.

Luke 1:39-55
It is this model which has become the picture of the church in the various liturgies of the church.

In the service of Evensong, sung every evening in some denominations, Mary's Magnificat is sung each time. Why did the daily liturgy assign such a prominent place to Mary? Why was she so central to the church's daily confession?

In our confession of faith, Mary plays no role, although when we do repeat the Apostles' Creed, we do state that Jesus was "born of the Virgin Mary."

However much Mary has been neglected by the Protestant and Believers' Churches, today we do recognize her significance in the birth accounts of Jesus and the teaching points she offers the church.

We have, in the Advent stories, heard the Annunciation of Jesus' birth to Mary by the angel Gabriel. Mary's response is astounding in every way:

Fear, wonder, and trust.

There is in the narrative, no hesitancy, no disbelief, no rejection and no trepidation.

Her response is "Here I am: I'm the Lord's servant-girl. Let it happen to me as the Lord said."

And yet this is only the beginning. Mary will learn much yet in the months and years to come.

And so I want to suggest some ways in which Mary is for us a signpost of true faith and response to God.

1. Mary was a woman of exemplary faith.

• She accepted God's call and not only allowed herself to become part of God's saving initiative, she willingly became part of God's plan.
• It would have been easy for her to say, well if I have no choice in the matter, I guess I can't do anything about it.
• But she did willingly take God's words and make them her own.
• When Mary meets Elizabeth, she articulates a deep desire and joy in her calling
  "My soul glorifies the Lord and my Spirit rejoices in Giod my Saviour."
• Mary wore her calling with deep joy and satisfaction.

Do we as the Church respond to God's call in the same way?

Do we act as God wants us to?

In Mary's case, there was danger of a personal kind, but also the possibility of difficulty, hostility and pain. We know that at Jesus' birth, she was told that a sword would pierce her soul.

• Mary lost him at 12 years for 3 days.
• At 30, Mary thought Jesus mad.
• And of course, her son died the most cruel death just three years later.

Following God's call will take us out of our comfort zone.

2. Mary speaks with a prophetic voice.

In his book entitled Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton rejected the charge that Christianity was not idealistic. Christians are the most idealistic of people, he argued. They are always speaking about how far we are from where things should be. The problem in Cherterton's view is that "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."

Mary speaks with a fearless voice to the political world. She praises God because not only has God "done great things for me: but he has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty."

God's salvation means the inversion of conventional wisdom. The coming of God in the flesh means a new age and a new order has come.

Of course there is a theological component about this song for it reflects small Israel among large powerful neighbours and poor Israel, a slave people from Egypt, now lifted up to become the vehicle God uses to bring salvation to the world.

How do we see ourselves? As part of the problems or part of the solution? Is the church willing to speak prophetically to a world of political correctness, hostility and injustice?

Every time these lines are repeated, the church acknowledges that God's salvation does not include endorsing the status quo but bringing about justice, equality and peace.

3. Mary rejoiced in what God was going to do.

Both Mary and Elizabeth shared a dream. The dream that one day all Israel would be blessed through Abraham.

The future was full of hope, not gloomy, because God was going to act. Climate change?

Hope is a wonderful thing. It can cause people to become giddy with delight, to dance and sing, to rejoice.

As the carol goes:

The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.

Mary and Elizabeth are almost overcome with exuberance and joy. Today is a day for dancing. Even after Copenhagen!

The picture that Luke offers us here is one of beauty and tenderness. As one commentator puts it:

"Mary's visit to Elizabeth is a wonderful human portrait of the older woman, pregnant at last after hope had gone, and the younger one, pregnant far sooner than she had expected. That might have been a moment of tension: Mary might have felt proud; Elizabeth perhaps resentful. Nothing like that happens. Instead, the intimate details: John, three months before his birth, leaping in the womb at Mary's voice, and the Holy Spirit carrying Elizabeth into shouted praise and Mary into song."

Conclusion:

But in the end, it is all about God. This is God's doing. God has taken the initiative. God has come to save.

In Mary's Magnificat, the Church speaks and sings of its joy in the fulfilment of God's promises. God the Lord, the Saviour, the Powerful One, the Holy One, the Merciful One, the Faithful One. God is the One we celebrate.

In the midst of the problems of the world, we still celebrate the Gospel of Christmas.

This is God's world, God's history.

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