The Magnificent Child Luke 1:46-55

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1 Annette Thornburg 8:30 Morning Worship Wilshire Baptist Church 23 Dec Dallas, Texas The Magnificent Child Luke 1:46-55 Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. With these words Elizabeth Stone pretty well summed up what it means to be a parent. To have a child is to have your heart running around outside your body. Out in the world where it falls down and scrapes its knee. Out where people aren t always nice and things don t always go the way we want them to. Out where it can get bruised and mistreated, leaving you vulnerable to every bump and blessing along the way. Your heart is out in the world growing and changing and discovering new things, but always a part of you. That s why you take thousands of pictures and cheer like a crazy person at soccer games and piano recitals. It s why you swell with pride when your kid gives a good answer during children s messages or burn with shame when he or she says the darnedest things as kids are wont to do from time to time. It s why you say this hurts me more than it hurts you. It s why you re quick to give everything you have and do anything you can to take care of your child. It s why my mom called a week ago Friday to say I just wanted to hear your voice. And it s why we re a heartbroken nation right now. This week was heart-wrenching as we watched families bury their hearts their beautiful children with such sweet smiles and touching stories. It s why I m sure you hugged your children a little tighter these past several days. The decision to have a child is momentous. When you have a child, not only is your heart now outside your body, but your whole world is rearranged. Everything s turned upside down and flipped inside out. Suddenly there are feeding schedules and sleeping schedules. Later you ll add in play dates and school pageants. Then come camps and cars and college visits. Your life is forever changed.

2 This is where we find Mary today. On the verge of her world changing. But not just her world we re talking about the whole world and for all time. The angel Gabriel s just dropped by out of the blue, told her she s going to have a baby (never mind that she s never been with a man) and that this baby will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom there will be no end. And he will be called Son of God. 1 No big deal, Mary. You can handle this no sweat. Often we hear just how much Mary s world could ve changed with Gabriel s announcement. Mary s world wasn t a safe place for a young unmarried mother. Her family could ve disowned her. Joseph could ve stoned her. The decision to have a child is momentous. This is a lot to take. So after Gabriel leaves, Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who miraculously is also expecting. Good move, Mary. Elizabeth s older and wiser. She ll know what to do. And she lives out in the country, so you can lie low for a while. And maybe if you fold your tunic just right, no one will know the difference. Don t worry, Mary you got this That s the kind of reaction we d expect from a young girl who suddenly finds herself pregnant. But that s not what we get. Instead, when Mary arrives at Elizabeth s house, Elizabeth greets her with a blessing, and Mary responds with a song. We call it the Magnificat, which is simply the first word of the song in Latin my soul magnifies the Lord. It s a beautiful hymn of praise, and many composers have set it to music. Here s where a better preacher might sing you a line or two, but I know my limits. But regardless of whether it s set to music, Mary s song is still one of the most powerfully prophetic hymns in our scriptures faithfully preserved in our gospel reading today. It s NOT prophetic in the simplypredicting-the-future kind of way. Too often we reduce prophecy to prediction, but it s much deeper than that. 1 Luke 1:33, 35 2

3 What makes Mary s song so powerful is that it points to how God s at work in the world, both personally AND universally. The song begins with a testimony Mary praises God, who has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant and has done great things for her. But she doesn t stop there, and neither should we. It s good to praise God for what God has done in my life for me, but I can t stop there because God s action is larger than any one of us. Mary continues in her song to cast a vision of God s plan for the world. She goes on to sing about how God has changed more than just her world that through the baby she carries, God is going to change the world to turn everything upside down and inside out. This is not Mary, meek and mild, sweetly cooing a lullaby over a manger or serenely gracing the cover of a Christmas card. This Mary is more like Malala Yousaf-zai a 15-year-old girl in Pakistan who dared to speak out against the Taliban and advocate for girls right to get an education. Malala began campaigning for the right to go to school when she was only 11 years old. In a 2009 interview on the eve of the Taliban closing all the girls schools in her area, Malala made a vow and a plea. They cannot stop me, she said. I will get my education, if it is in home, school or any place. This is our request to all the world. Save our schools. Save our world. Save our Pakistan. For her crime of speaking out against oppressive powers, a Taiban gunman shot Malala at point-blank range on her way home from school on October 9 of this year. Miraculously she survived. For her courage to speak out against oppressive powers, Malala has inspired the world to stand up and work for peace and justice. Even as she recovers in the hospital, Malala refuses to remain silent. Using what little strength she has, Malala, called a fellow female student in Pakistan to encourage her to stay strong and not be afraid after a bomb was found under her family s car. 2 This is the spirit of the Magnificat

4 Like Malala, Mary sings a dangerous song that defies the reigning powers and threatens the social order. Mary s song is more than just a beautiful hymn. It s a revolutionary anthem that points to the revolutionary nature of the magnificent child she s carrying. But Mary is not crying out for the kind of revolution most people expect. A gospel revolution is different. It inaugurates a new reality rather than just a rearrangement of the old one. If you don t believe me, just look at who s announcing this new world order in Luke s gospel. Look at who s speaking. Look at who s listening a pubescent girl and a post-menopausal woman. These are the instruments for ushering in God s new reality? These marginalized women are the ones charged with proclaiming the coming of the Messiah? It s absurd! It s foolishness! It s the perfect prologue to the gospel. The apostle Paul knows this. He spends the whole first section of his letter to the Corinthians reminding them that the gospel is foolishness; that Christ crucified is a stumbling block; that God consistently chooses the foolish in the world to shame the wise and the weak things to shame the strong. Paul knows that God has an affinity for the absurd. From the beginning, God has been about overturning assumptions and defying expectations. Throughout scripture we see God working through unlikely people in unconventional ways to bring us here to this moment in the Judean hill country, where a young girl is moved to sing a song about scattering the proud, bringing down the powerful, lifting up the lowly, and filling the hungry. It s a perfect beginning for what s coming. She s carrying the Messiah, but it s not the kind of Messiah the people have been waiting for. They ve been looking for a king like the great King David. An earthly king who will deliver them from oppression and restore the land of Israel. This baby that Mary carries is not the kind of king they were expecting. Kings are born in palaces, not stables. They ride in 4

5 chariots, not on donkeys. They wear crowns of gold, not thorns. Kings sit on thrones. They don t hang on crosses. God was doing something new through Mary. This Messiah would scatter the proud and lift up the lowly, but he would do it by sitting with sinners, speaking with outcasts, touching the untouchables. Mary s song prepares us for this new reality. It s a powerful reminder that God works in absurd ways always overturning our expectations. Always calling us to see and experience life in a radical new way. For centuries, medieval churches, particularly in France, celebrated the Feast of Fools around Christmastime as an attempt to embody the words of the Magnificat: 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. For one day they turned their systems inside out and flipped their hierarchies upside down. E.K. Chambers, a scholar and literary critic, described the celebration of one Franciscan community. The choir and office were left to the lay-brothers, cooks and gardeners. These put on the vestments inside out, held the books upside down and wore spectacles with rounds of orange peel instead of glasses. They blew ashes from the censers on each other s faces and hands, and instead of the proper liturgy chanted confused and inarticulate gibberish. 3 A grown-up game of dress-up. It s silly, but it was their way of reminding themselves not to take themselves too seriously a way to stay humble and maybe a way to retain the faith of a child. Playing dress-up is a lot of fun. It was always one of the most popular corners in the daycare center where I used to work. I mean, where else can you be a firefighting princess or a capewearing police officer/airplane pilot? Dress-up is one of those childish things we think we put away when we grow up, but we re wrong. We re constantly slipping into and out of different outfits and identities throughout our lives 3 Chambers, E.K. The Mediaeval Stage. p

6 depending on where we are and, who we re with. That s why on some mornings you can find me in a suit and pointytoed shoes, but on other mornings I m in shorts and running shoes out running by the lake. But when it comes to our faith, it s not enough to play dress-up and call ourselves Christian. It s not enough to just praise God for our personal blessings. The Magnificat is a rallying cry calling us to join Mary in bearing Christ into the world. In Chaim Potok s novel My Name Is Asher Lev, a seasoned artist is speaking to a young boy who likes to draw and makes a pointed distinction between a true artist and somebody who just likes to draw. Millions of people can draw, the artist says, but art art is whether or not there is a scream inside wanting to get out in a special way. Something similar can be said of faith: Millions of people go to church, but Faith true faith, the kind that can move mountains is bearing the Christ child into the world. It s taking up Mary s song. It s speaking out against injustices and standing with the marginalized. It s loving as Christ loved and serving as Christ served. It s being God s heart in the world. Deciding to have a child is momentous. It s the decision to forever have your heart go walking around in the world. Beloved, we are God s children. 4 The Christ child we wait for in this Advent season made it possible that we might all be called children of God. And as a child of God, you are God s heart let loose in the world. Called to love one another and live in the new reality inaugurated with Christ s coming. So let God hear your song your Magnificat this season. Stand up. Sing out. And let God say, Ah, there. That s my magnificent child. Amen. 4 1 John 3:2 6

International Bible Lesson Commentary Luke 1:39-56

International Bible Lesson Commentary Luke 1:39-56 International Bible Lessons Commentary Luke 1:39-56 New Revised Standard Version International Bible Lessons Sunday, December 11, 2016 L.G. Parkhurst, Jr. The International Bible Lesson (Uniform Sunday