Sermon Notes — December 8, 2024
December 8, 2024
Luke 1:46-55
An Altogether Hope: In Focus
Dr. Craig Goff
I know we have a lot coming up. Christmas is just a couple weeks away, New Years is right around the corner.
But in case you have forgotten, or just didn’t know, January 30th is a pretty special day too. January 30th is Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day. Get that on your calendar and start the new year with a pop.
I have noticed we have a lot of celebrations these days. Ask a Stupid Question Day is coming up, although my wife the educator tells me there is no such thing as a stupid question.
Some of our celebrations seem strange to me, others make more sense. When someone I love who has been sick starts recovering, I am going to celebrate. My son is getting married in March, I am going to celebrate, and of course anytime our granddaughter does anything, we are going to celebrate. A lot.
In our text today two women are doing a lot of celebrating. They are both pregnant. One is old. One is young. Elizabeth is the wife of Zechariah. She is old. She and Zechariah have wanted a child for a long, long time. Then just when it seemed she was far too old to ever expect to be a mother. Zechariah was visited by an angel while he served in the temple and told to get his theology books out of the extra room in the house and make a nursery out of it. Elizabeth is going to have a baby and Medicare is picking up the tab. That does not happen every day.
Mary was young, but she was not expecting to have a baby any more than Elizabeth, but the angel visited her too (and her fiancé, at least in Matthew’s gospel).
What in the world was going on? God was at work.
God was at work which is always cause for celebration, even more than Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day.
The birth of John and the birth of Jesus was and is, cause for celebration.
Let’s think about these messages these wonderful but quite ordinary people received from Gabriel about the two children about to be born.
Zechariah was told God was going to use his son in a powerful way. Your son, Gabriel said, will be great, he will bring the people of Israel back to the Lord. He will make a people prepared for the Lord.
So, yea, that is cause for celebration. Elizabeth and Zechariah’s son would prepare the way for the coming of the Lord.
When the angel visited Mary, she was told, that she had found favor with God. And when you have found favor with God, you know something big is going to happen.
Yes, Mary, you are going to give birth to a son and call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.
It is no surprise these two wanted to get together. Mary made a beeline to go and see Elizabeth.
Notice what happens when they meet. Elizabeth’s baby leaps in her womb and with a loud voice she exclaims:
Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.
These two women have something to say…. And after Elizabeth had the floor, it was Mary’s turn.
She breaks out with one of the most, if not the most, powerful protest songs ever written.
Those in power think they are going to stay in power and keep the poor in their place, but God has other plans.
Mary responds to what God has for her to do with a boldness that is hard to imagine.
She says, “My soul magnifies the Lord.”
I have always found those words so inspiring, but in all honesty I have always found them a little confusing, because I always thought to magnify something means to make it bigger. Is it possible to make God, who is greater than any power we can imagine, bigger?
I’ve noticed some translations try to soften those words of Mary a little bit. For example, the NIV version says, “My soul glorifies the Lord.” But it is pretty clear in the Latin the word is magnify.
Here is what I have just recently discovered that has helped me a lot with this passage…. The word magnify can mean, “to make bigger.” You look at something with a magnifying glass, it gets bigger. So to magnify something can mean to make it bigger, but to magnify something can also mean something else.
But a magnifying glass does something else too. A magnifying glass brings something into focus.
And that is what Mary does. She is not making the Lord “bigger.” She is bringing God into focus. The God who is the God of everyone, the God of the poor, the God of the oppressed, the God of the forgotten.
So as we get ready for the baby, can we do what his mother did? Can we magnify the Lord? Can we focus on the Lord? The God who is the God of us all, because if I understand this story correctly and the nature of the celebration of these two women, that is what Christmas is all about.
O let us magnify the Lord together. This day, every day, and forever.