I. Joy Is Coming 00:00
…in this season to us, Lord. We pray that as we anticipate your coming, Father, you would make room for yourself in our hearts. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
So the very keen-eyed, Sherlockian, intelligent, discerning among you may have noticed there are no more candles on the Advent wreath, except for Christmas. All that to say, we are getting so close.
I have a confession to make, though, to start off. Advent is all about preparing. What do we pray in our collect? Preparing a mansion in our hearts for the coming of our Lord. You set up your Christmas tree, you put up the lights, you do all these things that are outward signs of preparation. And I have to confess to you all: it wasn’t until last night that the Bluey inflatable got put up. I really slacked on the Advent preparations, and I am sorry. I hope I can be forgiven.
All of that to say, I want to acknowledge the truth that everywhere you look, people are prepping. For what? For Christmas. Hallelujah, and praise Jesus. It’s such a simple thing, and yet it means everything. Jesus is coming, and we don’t want to lose that in the hustle and bustle. Haley and I were shopping last night, and let me tell you, the anticipation was bordering on stress and anxiety, not anticipation. There’s a good anticipation: “How awesome is this going to be, the hope of all the world.” And then there’s “Oh my gosh, Christmas is here, and we need the things, we need the stuff, we need this, that, or the other.”
I will brag a little bit: Haley and I did marvelously. We loved one another. We had a glorious time. But we were swimming in a sea of anxiety in the stores. I’m telling you, you could feel it. People were stressing out. And so I just want to start here and say: wherever you’re at on that spectrum between fear and joy, today is the day to recognize the reality that your Savior, who loves you, Jesus Christ, is coming. It’s about joy. Put aside your fear and anxiety. Look up and see: joy is coming into the world.
II. Pre-Christ 02:38
So that’s our intro. I had a whole bunch of other stuff about how in Advent the church enters the pre-Christ era, and I’ll say one thing about that, and then we’ll move on to our main story today.
There’s this great tradition in the church that when we enter Advent, we remember what it was like to not have Jesus. I don’t know about you, but when you start to dwell on the idea that Jesus has not come yet, when you start to think about that, all of those psalms, all of those Old Testament prayers, make a lot more sense. Because without the Savior of the world, we’re desperate for our salvation. And yet we often go about our Christian life ignoring the reality that we need Jesus. Advent should remind you how much we need him, how desperate we are for him to come again.
This is just a great tradition in the church. And one person I was listening to, a poet, was talking about how we enter, with the world, with everyone outside the church, into a pre-Christ reality. And his whole point is that everyone out there needs Jesus. Everyone out there is pre-Christ. And I love that, because it’s not like they’re not going to meet him. They will encounter Christ. And the question is, what are we doing about that? How are we introducing them to the love, the joy, that we have?
III. Mary Arose and Went with Haste 03:50
Keep this in mind, because it’s integral as we talk about the first Christian, as I’m calling Mary this morning. The first little Christ, the first one to say yes to Jesus, was Mary, the Mother of God. And what a delightful story we get today as we walk through Luke. You remember the words you’ve probably heard since you were a little kid, and you’ve seen the pageants where the kindergartener tries to remember what Mary says, and you laugh and you have fun, and it’s great and joyful. Today I want to make it real. I want to go into the story and see: how is this unfolding in her life, and in the life of Elizabeth? So in Luke 1:39 we begin:
39 In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, 40 and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. Luke 1.39–40
Now, our Gospel lesson actually starts in the middle of what God’s doing. We’re at chapter 1, verse 39, so there are thirty-eight verses before this that have been introducing what’s going on. And what just happened to Mary is that the angel Gabriel showed up to a teenage Hebrew girl and said, “You are going to bear the Son of God.” You know in the Psalms, where David talks about how God promises him an everlasting kingdom, and that God will make the world right and good again? All those promises: “Hey, Mary, you’re going to bear those in your body.”
So yes, when the angel let slip, “Oh yeah, and by the way, your aunt who’s eighty years old is pregnant” (Luke 1.36), she went with haste to go talk to her aunt. Because she’s thinking… I mean, she’s like, let’s say, fifteen. Let’s just start there. She’s fifteen years old, and an angel of the Lord shows up to her and says, “You’re going to be pregnant by God, and not only that, you’re going to be bearing the salvation of the world.” And he says, “And a sign to you, in case you’re a little concerned that maybe you drank something a little funky last night, or you’re just having some sort of weird mental breakdown: there’s a sign. Go find your Aunt Liz. Go talk to her. Because you know how she’s eighty and has never had any kids? Well, she’s pregnant right now.” And Mary runs to see Liz. She goes with haste to the hill country of Judah, to find Zechariah and Elizabeth and figure out what is going on.
IV. Blessed Are You Among Women 06:13
And so this whole time she’s thinking about this, and she walks in the house. And when Elizabeth, in verse 41, heard the greeting of Mary, like, “Liz, I’m here!” It’s not like she knew. I mean, they didn’t have phones. She had to be like, “Hey, it’s Mary! Hello, I’m here!” And Liz is hearing this.
41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, 42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” Luke 1.41–42
So right when Mary comes in and says, “Hey, Aunt Liz, it’s me, Mary,” Elizabeth immediately shouts, “Mary! Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” And Mary’s like, “Whoa. I was coming here to get some normalcy, and you knew what was going on.” What an amazing moment. You can imagine: Mary hasn’t told anybody about this. She’s running through the scenario in her head: “Should I go to the rabbi? I don’t think so. I think I’m going to go talk to my aunt first. I’m going to go to somebody I know, make sure I’m not crazy, before we start talking about this.” And immediately God confirms the word to her in a miraculous way.
Let me just say this: if you have something you feel like God has promised you, don’t keep it to yourself. Go find somebody. Let them confirm the word to you. Let them walk it out with you. You can’t do it alone. I know you’re not a fifteen-year-old Hebrew girl, but we’re not all that amazing. We need help. We need each other.
So in that time, John in the womb is so sensitive to what God’s doing in the world that as a baby he’s leaping up and down in the presence of his Lord. That’s pretty cool. God is doing something very special in his life as well.
V. Very Private and Very Busy 08:29
Let me just say one thing about that. In Advent, let’s tune our vision. Let’s adjust our perception, so that we recognize when God is in our midst. John in the womb recognized when God came in the room. Let’s be so sensitive to what he’s doing.
I mean, this Ugandan priest came with us to our clergy gathering with the men’s retreat, and he shared one thing about the people he’s encountered as he’s come to California. He goes, “Everybody is very private and very busy.” That sounds about right. What is privacy all about? “You don’t get to tell me what to do. My stuff is mine. I am over here in my little world. God forbid you encroach.” Well, it’s really hard to find Jesus walking in the door if you’re guarding against all incomers, if you’re guarding everything in your life to be private. Mine. Oh, mine is such a dangerous word. The things you can say mine about are your sins. Let me say that. I can own those. God is looking to show up. Don’t be so private that you miss him, and the people you encounter in the world.
And we’re busy. What is making room in your house about, except getting those things out of the way that make you too busy to be about his business? We get so distracted by the stuff, by the list, the ever-growing, never-ending list of things, that we don’t slow down and make room for him to show up. It just really hit me when that guy said it: “I come here, and I see everybody here is very private and very busy.” It’s very accurate. And so take that into your heart, and ask yourself: where is a place where I can let somebody in, where I can be known, where I can open the door for God to encounter me? And where can I move my busyness? Where can I find the rhythms of rest?
I’m not saying don’t do a lot. I mean, Jesus in three years created Christianity, which took over the whole world. He had twelve amazing followers, one not so amazing, and then in the end, the whole world: billions of Christians. He was busy, but he was busy with what God had for him. The problem is being busy with all the wrong stuff.
Okay. In this moment, Mary is neither private nor busy. She has stopped her life. She’s like, “Something is happening. I’ve got to go figure out what’s going on.” She’s letting Liz in. And in that moment, John recognizes Jesus. And I will tell you, today we’re baptizing a little baby named Luke, and we’re inviting him to recognize Jesus as a baby. We are anointing him with oil. We’re introducing him to Jesus right now. I don’t necessarily expect that he’s going to do a jig, but I am saying that there is something about bringing the babies in that matters.
VI. Blessed Is She Who Believed 12:05
Okay, let’s move on. Verse 43. This is still Elizabeth’s first exclamation. She’s like, “Blessed is the fruit of your womb,” amazing, and she says:
43 “And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” Luke 1.43–45
So Elizabeth continues to confirm to Mary what the angel spoke. When the angel says, “And by the way, your Aunt Liz is pregnant,” it was for Mary, so that she could come and receive prophetic encouragement, because she has a big job to do. She has a lot. Childbearing: I’ve seen it. It’s hard. Thank God I have not experienced it, but I have seen it, and it is difficult. She has a lot to do. And on top of that, she has to approach her betrothed, Joseph, and say, “Hey, by the way, I’m pregnant, but it’s no human person’s baby. An angel told me God was going to do this. Trust me on that.” It’s like, what is going on? She has a very difficult job, and she needs Elizabeth in her corner, giving her some prophetic encouragement.
Because we all know how that went. Even Joseph, a righteous man, a good man, was trying to figure out how he could make the shame go away by putting her away quietly (Matt 1.19–20). He thought, when she first told him, that his job as an honorable man was to save her from humiliation. He might have also thought she had a screw loose. But he was convinced she was wrong, and it took an angel of his own to correct him on that. How do you know Joseph is a righteous man? Because he was correctable. When the angel showed up and said, “No, she’s right,” he said, “Yes, sir.” You don’t have to get it right all the time to be righteous, but you darn well better listen when God comes to correct you.
So in this Advent story, as we go through this, Mary is being prepared for the coming of the Savior, just like we all are, and it comes through the words and the promises of God. What did Liz say? “And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” Now, every single person in this room has received promises from God, whether the promises to every Christian or the promises to you as an individual, anywhere on that spectrum. Did you know that as you’re facing the difficult situations, seasons, fights, battles, the wars of your life, you can stand on the promises of God? That you can stand on his yes and amen (2 Cor 1.20)? In fact, we’re told in the New Testament that it’s by the words of God, the promises of God, that we wage our warfare.
Looking at this, Mary is believing that she is pregnant as a virgin, that the baby in her womb is the Son of God who will save the world, and that God’s going to work out every obstacle between this moment and when she gives birth to this baby. And trust me when I say this: it would be easy for her to magnify the obstacles, to get into her head, like we all do. God says, “Hey, I have this job for you in this field. It’s exactly what you want.” And then we start working as a garbage man, and three years into it we’re like, “Yeah, that wasn’t God. It’s impossible. I can’t imagine it now.” Hey, the reverse might be true: you’re promised that you will be a great garbage man, and you’re working in an office job. I’m not saying being a garbage man is not a great job. I am saying that when God promises you something, you have to stand on that.
And guess what? It’s going to be hard. I just want you all to know, I’ve got a promise today: your life is not going to be easy. I’m not prophesying. I’m describing life in general. There’s that great movie, The Princess Bride: “Life is pain. Anybody who tells you different is selling something.” It’s true. Life is hard. But with Jesus, it’s unbelievably good. Good is what we’re going for. We’re not going for easy. We’re going for good, and we’re standing on the promises of God that he’s going to get us there. “Blessed is she who believed that the word that was spoken would be fulfilled.”
Advent’s a time to remember the promises of God and to orient towards what he has told us. If you feel like you don’t have a promise to stand on, just ask. What did Jesus say? Ask, and you’ll get an answer. Knock, and the door will be opened. Seek, and you will find (Matt 7.7). Have somebody pray for you today. God likes to give the promise through his people. He likes to use his people to communicate the promises. We need each other. We need the testimony of our brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s necessary for what God is doing in our life. I don’t think Mary is able to walk this out without the support of Elizabeth, her aunt, who’s also experiencing a miracle, an eighty-year-old pregnant woman. It’s incredible what God is doing through this.
VII. My Soul Magnifies the Lord 17:02
Okay, the Magnificat could be a series where you break it into things and figure it all out. We could preach for weeks on the Magnificat. It’s a beautiful poem. I just want to pull out a couple of things that jumped out at me as I was reading it, based on Mary’s attitude in this situation.
Setting the scene: she just greeted Elizabeth. Elizabeth had the Holy Spirit fall on her and told her exactly what was going on in her life. Mary, in turn, has been thinking, “What does this mean, if this is true?” She’s trying to wrestle through it. When Elizabeth speaks those words, it unlocks in Mary an understanding of who she is and what God’s doing. I want you to know this: Mary is not some superhero genius girl. She’s just a Hebrew girl who believed what God said. And when she goes to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth speaks to her and says, “This is what’s going on in your life,” Mary’s eyes are opened, and she prophetically speaks this beautiful poem, the Magnificat. Mary says:
46 “My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 49 for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.” Luke 1.46–49
“My soul magnifies the Lord.” Okay, she starts in the right place. Because every one of us falls into the temptation, at some point or another, of magnifying our problems, not God. I don’t know about you, but if I pay attention to the words I say, the things I think about, it is disproportionately weighted towards the things I’m afraid of, if I allow myself to get there. “Oh, I can’t pay this bill. I can’t do this thing. I can’t achieve this thing. I have this problem with my relationship or my work or my job.” We have all these things, and we make those really big. Well, let’s just start where Mary starts. Why don’t we focus on God’s bigness? We have big problems, but we serve a bigger God. If you focus on magnifying God in your life in this season, in Advent, as we look for Jesus’s coming, everything else will find its proper place. Because you can’t make God big enough in your mind, your heart, your spirit. You will never shoot too far as you magnify the goodness, the love, or the power of God.
VIII. He Has Scattered the Proud 20:19
Okay, next:
50 “And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. 51 He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;” Luke 1.50–51
I like that one in the NKJV that we read: “He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts” is what it says. And I just imagine all the things we imagine we can do, and how foolish we can sometimes be in our pride, to think we can do it without God. That’s where the problem is: the heart. He scatters them in the imagination of their heart. They have all these plans and thoughts without God. But instead, he has exalted those of humble estate (Luke 1.52).
The fear of God: “His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.” That is the cure to your pride. If you think of God big enough, you will fear him in a holy way, in the awe of who he is. And in that moment, it’s really hard to have prideful plans in the imagination of your heart, because you’re focused on him and his goodness, not you and your strength. Thank the Lord.
Okay, an invitation. If you are at a place in your life where you think you deserve more, in any area of your life, more in your relationships and your job and your money and anything: be humble. Let it go. Give it to God. Ask him for help, because he raises up the humble and scatters the proud. If you’re convinced you deserve more, that’s a prideful way to think about it. Now, maybe you’re right. You can be proud and correct. Pride is a sickness of the heart. So you may be a great worker, a great provider, a great whatever you are, but the sickness of pride in your heart will come against you, because the Lord resists the proud (James 4.6). What have you got to lose by trusting in him instead of yourself? Absolutely nothing. He’ll exalt the humble.
IX. He Has Filled the Hungry 22:41
Okay, 53:
53 “he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.” Luke 1.53
Okay, don’t be rich. Give all your money away, because you’ll be empty. Everyone laughs, because they know that seems weird. What is he saying here? The truth of the matter is, the hungry get fed. What’s the problem with being rich in your own heart and eyes? What’s the sickness that’s being described? You think you have what you need. You never have what you need, because what you need is Jesus. And so if you think, “I’ve got it, I can take care of this,” well, it’s the same sickness as pride.
And so when we look at this: the hungry get fed. I will tell you, if you want to know what I mean by being hungry, talk to your kids about how far away Christmas is. I will tell you, for the past sixty-three days I have been getting the question, “How many days until Christmas?” They are hungry for it. They are hungry for God to show up. Well, okay, they’re hungry for the presents. But also, we’re teaching them to be hungry for God to show up. You don’t have to remind a kid that Santa Claus is coming to town. They know. I guarantee you they noticed there were no more candles in the wreath. They know. They’re looking. They’re hungry. Be hungry this Advent, hungry for God to show up.
X. Bearing the Salvation of the World 23:57
Okay:
54 “He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, 55 as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.” Luke 1.54–55
And this is maybe my favorite line of the whole Magnificat, because in this moment Mary finds out that she is the center of the story God is telling: that she is the promise God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For thousands of years God said, “I will send the Messiah,” and Mary has recognized that she bears him in her womb. What an incredible moment. And how unbelievably humble she must have been in that moment, to declare God’s goodness, not her own, but God’s goodness. She’s bearing the salvation of the world inside of her.
How do you live when you think, “I’m bearing the salvation of the world inside of me”? She was transformed forever. In fact, the Catholic Church teaches she was perfect because of all this. I don’t know if I believe that, but I’m not going to diss Jesus’s mom. I’m telling you that I do believe she said yes to God, that she is the first Christian, whom we are all imitating in our yes to God.
And furthermore, I believe everyone here needs to have a moment like Mary’s, where you realize that the salvation of the whole world is inside of you. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you as a Christian (Rom 8.11). And the same world that was experiencing so much darkness and pain and death when Jesus came into the world to bring his life and light is still there. That world, that darkness, that pain, that death, is out there, and you bear the light of the world in you. What a humbling revelation as we end our Advent this year.
Over the next couple of days, as we come to the glory and joy of Christmas, I want each and every one of you to think about what it means that you bear Jesus with you everywhere you go. I will tell you, it has the power to change your road rage situation, to think about the idea that the guy I just cut off is looking at me, and I’m a representative of Jesus. Maybe he sees the bumper sticker on the back of the car that says “Saint Michael’s Cathedral.” Yeah, maybe I could drive differently. Don’t tell my wife I said that.
No, all of this is very simple, but it’s unendingly difficult. You’re not good enough to live the way God has called you to live. However, he has come that he might make you like him. And so rely on him. It’s not all about you. The cure to your stress and anxiety is to realize that it’s his strength, his goodness, and not ours. You bear Christ in you. Have a Merry Christmas.