Advent: The Anunciation and Magnificat

So it's our fourth Sunday of Advent, and we are one day away from Christmas Eve.

Perhaps for some of you guys, y'all will do back to back.

We do have Christmas Eve services tomorrow at 3:30 and 5 o'clock.

So you're welcome to come to one of those.

There's child care for both of those services as well.

There's a couple other announcements there in the bulletin.

We have uh we do not have family worship next Sunday on the 30th, but we have main service at 10:30, just like normal, as well.

We have a parenting conference uh the first weekend of February, so there's some details there.

We're gonna talk a lot more about that at the beginning of January, but you can go online and register for that now, and we'd love for you to come to that.

That's$20 a person, but if you look at that and maybe finances are tight for you, uh we would love to help you out with a scholarship, and so you can reach out to us uh via email if that's your situation.

We'd love to help you out.

We'd like to just get you there if you're a parent.

Uh let me pray for us before we look at our text this morning.

God, we thank you that at this time we can open a text and look at how Mary is hearing and responding to you.

Uh let us in this moment hear from you and even us respond to you.

As we hear a great announcement that is made to us and made to our hearts, and may we respond in like ways as Mary.

Have mercy on us, sinners who are in need of such grace, especially the one who speaks.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

So as Christmas cards come into our house, our our girls love to, they like to open up the envelopes, they take them out, they look at all the people in the cards, and then they tape them up on a door in our kitchen.

And so this is going on day to day, or whenever the cards come in.

Now, our Christmas card, right, in every Christmas card, it's a snapshot, right?

It's a snapshot of joy, and we don't see the moments before.

Um, if you have children, what's going on there to get your children still, or the moments afterward, right?

It's just one little snapshot, right?

And we receive them from other people, or you see someone else's card.

I mean, our Christmas card is us standing on the boardwalk at the beach and the sun was setting perfectly.

Like it's amazing.

I mean, I've looked at this picture and thought to literally, I've walked by our dining room table where they've been laid out with the envelopes.

I've walked by and thought to myself, I want a family like that.

Like that's the family that I want.

I want to be a part of that family.

And it's my family, but I want to be a part of that.

And that's this feeling when we get all these different Christmas cards, right?

Because it's a snapshot.

And oftentimes reality can just feel different.

It can just feel different than that sort of snapshot.

Right?

You don't see, like, say in our Christmas card, uh, this you know, shot of us standing on this boardwall at the sun sets behind us, I reach my hand out, take a little selfie.

What you don't see is us yelling at our children to get their hands down, right?

You don't see that, you don't see the fact that it is burning hot out.

It is still hot out.

It's July on the panhandle of Florida, the sun is setting, and you're still just hot.

You've just been hot all day.

You don't see that dinner was hard, like that was difficult, and to try to get to the beach at sunset, that was a difficult process.

You didn't see that there's a lot of traffic like along that boardwalk avenue to get over to the boardwalk.

Like, we don't see all that, right?

Like our tendency, even my tendency, even with my own Christmas card, our tendency is to look at someone else's life and go, oh man, that must be nice.

Oh, that must be good, oh that must be easy, right?

Wait, and we can forget.

What we can forget is that blessing and difficulty always coexist.

And that blessing and difficulty, they're in the same thing.

They coexist together.

And that's the kind of the secret here is that blessing completely can be found inside of difficulty.

That in lowliness we can be blessed.

Here's what I mean.

So our text this morning is Luke chapter 1.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

We have these two parts in this passage.

I love this passage.

We have what's called traditionally the annunciation.

Something is announced to Mary, and then she responds.

She goes and visits her cousin Mary.

I mean Elizabeth, and as she's with Elizabeth, she responds with what's called the magnificant.

So we have the annunciation, and then we have the magnificant.

The magnificant is her responding with this song.

So these two different parts in this text in Luke chapter one.

Now we have to remember what Mary's situation was.

Mary was engaged to be married, but she's probably, she's young.

Yeah, they married younger back then, 13, 14 years old, a teenager.

She had no religious status, she didn't have a big resume.

She's just sort of a, she's just a girl.

She's just a girl.

And God comes to her in a dream.

This angel comes to her and says, Greetings, O favored One, the Lord is with you.

And this is the annunciation.

God's saying to her, You're greatly favored.

No resume.

She's not religiously elite.

And what a relieving thought that is, just right away.

What an unbelievable thought that you, like in your mess and your lowliness, me, us, and our mess and difficulty, and no resume or lack of resume, or not a great resume, a moral resume or religious resume.

We're not religiously elite, none of that, that we could be favored.

That's what's going on here with Mary.

She's a humble girl.

What a relieving thought.

And what we see here is we see the welcoming heart of God.

And we see the gospel.

And something happens to Mary.

This message of grace, it does, it does something in her.

It becomes a defining announcement to her, to who she is.

We know about these, right?

Maybe somebody said something to you, a teacher said something to you, and it was just like, man, it was the right words at the right time.

It became so defining for you, or a parent said the right things at the right time, or a friend, or somebody came, a boss came along.

Six years ago, about this week, I resigned from the church I used to work at and I had worked at there for eight years.

And I walked into my boss's office six years ago.

And I was incredibly afraid because I was leaving a church I loved, I was leaving a secure job.

Christy and I, we had two kids, she was pregnant.

So I had a lot of fear, a lot of fear, and sadness, and sadness as well, because I was leaving a place that we loved.

We loved our church.

And I walk into my boss's office, I sit down, and I sit down in the same exact chair that I sat in eight years before when I walked in to interview for that job.

And when I walked in eight years before, I felt like a child.

Christy and I were just newly married, we had no kids.

That church, that church, it grew us up.

It taught me how to be a husband, it taught me how to be a dad.

I'm still still learning these things, taught me how to be a pastor.

And so this was emotionally a charge for me, plus all the fear, plus all the sadness.

And so I tell him I'm leaving in two weeks, and it was an amazing moment because he looked at me and he says this.

He says, I was waiting for the day you would come in my office and say that, because I knew you would.

And this is not a guy who poured encouragement and oozed like comfort all the time.

This is a matter-of-fact guy.

Like, so that one sentence was unbelievable.

That was huge for me.

Right?

And what's interesting for me, like thinking about this, is not only how generous that statement was to say that in that moment, because his life got a little bit more complicated than when I resigned, right?

All of a sudden he has a position he has to fill, and how's he gonna handle it?

I'm gone in two weeks, right?

Right?

But to say that, that's a very generous, gracious thing to say in that moment.

Now, what's interesting to me is how much I needed that statement.

Like how easily we are in the needy position, how hungry we are for validation.

The fact that it's been six years, I don't remember anything else said to me that day, but I remember that statement.

Isn't that interesting?

That that's how hungry, at least I am, for affirmation.

That we are in this position constantly, of this kind of needy state of looking for an announcement to us.

That we're okay, that we're favored, we're good.

And Mary gets one.

So it's not from her boss, it's from God.

You are greatly favored.

And this is out of his goodness, out of his goodness, just his goodness to her.

So Luke 1 keeps going on, and to Mary said, Don't be afraid, you're favored, you'll bear a son, call him Jesus.

And she says, How will this be?

I'm a virgin.

He says, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.

And she responds to all of this: Behold, I am the servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.

So there's surrender here at this point in the story.

We see surrender, but we still don't see like overwhelming joy.

It's sort of this like, okay, I've received this announcement upon me, I surrender to it, but yet we have not yet seen overwhelming joy.

And then she goes and she visits her cousin Elizabeth, and Elizabeth, who's an older lady, old enough that she should not be getting pregnant, is pregnant.

And now the two of them are together, and these gals are chatting, and they're pregnant, and Elizabeth's pregnant with John the Baptist, and Mary's pregnant with Jesus, and all of a sudden Mary begins to be overwhelmed with joy, and she bursts out in this song.

It's a poem called The Magnificon.

And here's what we pick up in verse 46, and Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

So a few points, we'll just break right there.

Worship and joy, point number one, worship and joy are responses to the grace of God.

Worship and joy are responses to the grace of God.

Verses 46 and 47, of course, they take us into verses 48 and 49.

For he has looked, so she's saying, My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices.

Okay, we got it.

For he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.

For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed, for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.

Right?

So this is her response out of God looking upon her in her humble condition.

Let's say you have a rich Uncle Ted, okay?

You have Uncle Ted, he's wealthy, and he's been married to your Aunt Betty forever.

They've been married forever, but they never had any children.

And finally, when Uncle Ted is 73 years old and Aunt Betty's 72 years old, Aunt Betty passes away, and at the funeral, uh Uncle Ted pulls you aside and says, Yeah, you know, I just want to let you know with Aunt Betty passing away, I'm I'm gonna switch up my will.

Remember, Uncle Ted's rich.

I'm gonna switch up my will.

I'm gonna leave all of my money to the children's home.

And you knew exactly what he was talking about because he had poured a lot of life and time and energy and donations into this children's home that meant so much to him.

So, two years later, he marries a lifelong friend.

They've been friends for so long, and her husband had passed, and they marry.

Two years after that, when he is 77, he gets sick.

For the next ten years, this lady, this kind lady, cares for him and nurses him and bathes him and loves him and never leaves his side.

And eventually Uncle Ted passes away, and it comes out that he changed his will and left all his money to her.

And the children's home got nothing.

Now, what happened?

Did he get swindled?

Well, I really doubt a lifelong friend who married at the age of 75 and nursed him for 10 years and she's now 85 was really working to this end.

I really doubt that.

So, what happened in my little make-believe story?

But we sort of know these types of stories.

Well, things change when you're sick and you're loved unconditionally.

All of a sudden things change.

When you're loved in a lowly estate, stuff starts changing.

Scenarios change, priorities change, practices change, a plan changes.

So it happened with Mary, so it happened with Uncle Ted.

I could make up a million different scenarios.

And the reason why is that love with no strings attached, it ends up being not the most powerless thing in the universe.

Love with no strings attached ends up being the most powerful thing in the universe.

And this is how grace disarms us because it says to you, I'll love you in your lowly estate, in your humble estate.

While you're a mess, while you don't deserve it, while you're a sinner.

And then suddenly you say, somewhere along the way, have it all.

I'll change my plan, I'll change my will, you can have it.

My soul magnifies you.

You see, Mary's been favored.

He looked upon me in my humble estate.

She's disarmed into worship and joy.

Let's keep reading, verse 50.

And 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 mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.

He has filled the hungry with good things.

And the rich he has sent away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his offspring forever.

So point number two is this your lowliness ends up being a gift, because in lowliness you know God's love.

It's not that God is anti-rich.

It's that God is saying that in your pride you're unable to even know that you need Him.

In your pride, you are rejecting the welcoming heart of God.

In your lowliness, and we can say in your imperfection, in your recognition of your sin and your brokenness, it ends up being a gift.

It ends up being a gift because it's there in the humble estate that you can understand that you have been loved by God despite it all.

Love with no strings attached, which ends up being the most powerful, transformative thing in the universe.

Let's say you're out this afternoon, you go for a walk, and you have your headphones in, you're listening to your jam, your podcast, whatever, you're walking along, and you're just walking along, you're in your walk-in zone, and then all of a sudden your neighbor, she pulls up right in front of you, pulls the car over, kind of cuts you off, and she hops out and she has a gift for you.

She grabs out of the backseat and she comes up and she says, Oh, I saw this at Kohl's, and it looked just like you, and I just wanted to buy it for you.

And I know we don't usually exchange presents, but I just want to give this to you.

And she hands it to you.

And what you know is you you've gotten her nothing for Christmas.

You don't have anything with you that you could pretend like you could give to her.

You don't have a present at the house.

And what do you say?

Well, usually we would say, oh yeah, I have your present at the house.

Right?

We would.

I'm still rapping! I got a lot of rapping to do.

That's what we would say.

And she would say, Oh, yeah, whatever, whatever.

She sort of was a lying.

She would say, I just thought this was perfect for you.

Now why wouldn't you just say thank you?

Why wouldn't I just say thank you?

Because if you did, you would be disarmed.

You would be in a humble estate.

And sometimes that can be a tough position to be in.

We have a hard time with that sometimes.

This great Christmas quote by theologian William Willemont.

I read it last Christmas.

I'll read it again.

Here it is.

We prefer to think of ourselves as givers.

Powerful, competent, self-sufficient, capable people whose goodness motivates us to employ some of our power, competence, and gifts to benefit the less fortunate, which is a direct contradiction of the biblical account of the first Christmas.

There we are portrayed not as the givers we wish we were, but as the receivers we are.

Luke and Matthew go to great lengths to demonstrate that we, with our power, generosity, competence, and capabilities, had little to do with God's work in Jesus.

God wanted to do something for us so strange, so utterly beyond the bounds of human imagination, so foreign to human projection, that God had to resort to angels, pregnant virgins, and stars in the sky to get it done.

We didn't think of it, understand it, or approve it.

All we could do at Bethlehem was receive it.

So point number three is this: in our lowliness we find a song of his goodness.

So in our imperfection, our brokenness, our recognition of our sin, that humble estate, in that position, what's interesting is we don't move more and more into self-pity.

We move more and more into an astonishment of God's goodness.

Mary's song, this magnificent, it's not all about her and the pity of her humble estate.

It's her recognizing that and moving into how good he is, how redemptive he is.

The gospel's not good people with great character getting to be accepted by God.

It's not.

The gospel is not you be good and then you'll be blessed.

The gospel says it's those of us who realize we are poor and lowly that will be gathered up and redeemed.

Because your newness, your new life, your saving, your salvation, your holiness, is not in your merit.

It's not in you being the great giver.

It's you being the receiver.

Right?

Our sin is taken from us in the gift, in the gift of imputation.

Our sin is taken from us and put on the cross of Jesus, and his righteousness is given to us in that gift of imputation.

So we are his forever beloved.

The poor are lifted up.

This is what makes Christmas glorious.

God pursuing you.

And so I love this text because this text is the gospel.

An annunciation and then a song, an announcement to us, to you, of your absolution and your acceptance from God out of his goodness to you.

And that is that is said to you, said in you, over you, proclaimed over you by his goodness, by this Jesus.

And our response in some degree, at some point, is a song about his goodness.

You are magnificent.

So, my brothers and sisters, Merry Christmas.

May you be lowly that you may find a song about his goodness.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for your goodness to us.

That in our humble estate you reach down.

In our humble estate, you love us.

Help us to see you in greater and greater ways.

Help us to see ourselves in greater and greater ways that we might be like Mary.

To say in our humble estate, you have favored us.

How transformative it is to receive such love with no strings attached.

That propels us to joy and worship and peace and transformation.

God, may we see Christmas in a greater way as we remove ourselves as the givers and see ourselves as the receivers of your great gift.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.