Receiving Christmas (Luke 1:46-56)

The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Well, good evening and Merry Christmas to all of you. If you want to go ahead, grab your Bibles. You can open up to Luke. Chapter one, we’ll be starting in verse 46 tonight. Luke one, verse 46. As you’re turning there, there’s an old folk tale of a king who one day decided to visit the village near his castle to greet his people, to be seen by them, to see them. And on one of the street corners that he walked by, there was a beggar. And the beggar held out his bowl expectantly, because he knew that this was a generous King, and so he was expecting a generous gift. The King comes up to him, but rather than drop anything in his bowl, the king actually asked the beggar to give him something. Taken aback the beggar begrudgingly, you know, drops three grains of rice from his bowl into the king’s outstretched hand at the end of the day when the beggar went home. Went home and, you know, dumped out his bowl and whatnot, he found his astonishment, three grains of pure gold. And he said at that point, oh, that I had given him everything. Now that’s not originally a Christmas folk tale, but it could be because, of course, at Christmas we celebrate the gift of a generous King. In fact, we celebrate his greatest gift, the gift of himself. He gives generously indeed. So how do we receive the gift? And drawing from that little folktale, maybe even the question should be, what must we give in order to receive this gift? Those are the questions we’re going to answer as we look tonight at Mary, Mary, who is an example the sort of humble faith to which we are all called, and the whole story of her pregnancy, at least climaxes in the passage we’re going to look at tonight. It’s a prayer known as the Magnificat. That’s the title up there. It’s just the Latin word for magnifies or glorifies. It’s the first word in the Latin translation of her prayer, and so it’s what her prayer is known as. Let me read it for us. This is the Magnificat. This is Mary’s prayer beginning in Luke 146, and Mary said, My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on, all generations will call me blessed for the Mighty One has done great things for me. Holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm. He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. 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. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as He promised our ancestors, Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home. Now, as I said, this is a climax. This is a culmination of a process that began in Mary sometime before that, and it was a journey to get to this place, a journey that we can take to because it is easy to read a prayer like this in her mature faith that is expressed in it too quickly, without seeing the work that went into her getting to this point. It’s a little bit like seeing, you know, a world class athlete do whatever it is, they do effortlessly, and you just think it’s so easy for them. And the truth, of course, is that it isn’t easy for them. It was really hard for them. They’ve just been in the gym for decades perfecting their craft. So we’re gonna treat tonight a little bit like a sports documentary, almost like we just got the championship highlight. That was the prayer she just prayed right there. And now let’s see behind the scenes. Let’s go to a, you know, training camp, or something like that, and watch the two a days that got them into the shape they were in so that they could win. What does Mary give to receive Christmas? And what must we give to receive Christmas like Mary. Three things we’ll look at. First of all, Mary gives time, and we must give time also. So I said this process unfolds gradually in her life. It’s the span of a few months. She’s now in her second trimester, so it’s been three months at least, and that time that is required for us to grow in faith. I mean, that is true of all of us every now and again. Of course, somebody has a road to Damascus experience like Paul and, you know, instant conversion, but most of us could point back to a slow, gradual unfolding process. We don’t get there all at once. Mary. He doesn’t get there all at once. Mary doesn’t start with my soul glorifies. My spirit rejoices. How could she considering what’s being asked of her and the strange circumstances in which the request comes so she doesn’t start there, but she also doesn’t close herself off from that either she remains open and lets the process unfold. Consider the angel Gabriel appears to a teenage Mary. This is chapter one, verse 28 if you want to look at it, if you’re there to be on the same page, the angel went to her and said, Greetings, you who are highly favored. The Lord is with you. And then verse 29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wonder what kind of greeting this might be. She was troubled. Of course, she was wouldn’t you be? Wouldn’t you worry you were hallucinating or something, if a shining figure appeared in front of you just then? And so she wondered, as in, she’s confused. In fact, let’s keep reading and see what happens. The angel explains what’s going to happen next. Here’s verses 30 to 33 the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, you found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you were to call him Jesus. He’ll be great and will be called the Son of the Most High the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever. His kingdom will never end. And Mary goes, what she asks another thoughtful question at this point, right? Verse 34 how will this be? Mary asked the angel, since I am a virgin, in other words, her first response isn’t blind faith, but careful investigation. Help me understand this. She asks an honest question of the angel before her. The angel explains some more, and the verses that follow the same spirit who hovered over the nothingness before time to create the world will hover over her, and the Creator Himself will have a body created within her womb. Notice her response. Then in verse 38 no more questions, but a simple acceptance. I’m the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled. I’m your servant. So okay, I guess let’s, let’s see what happens next. She’s not exactly thrilling with delight here. This is not an, oh, it all makes sense. I can’t wait for this to happen. No, it’s, I don’t get it. It does not all make sense. But I’m gonna trust and that’s such an important step, because I’m not sure that there’s anyone who comes to Jesus with all their questions answered. Quite the opposite. In fact, we have lots of questions still, and God never promises to answer all of our questions, and certainly doesn’t promise to answer all of them in a moment. He gives us enough light for each step so we can go one step further, one step further. It’s a little bit like, you know, dating or something like that, and your significant other is taking you on a surprise trip. You’re driving, and they’re navigating, they just go, turn right at the next light, and you’re like, why? Where are we going? You’re like, you’ll find out kind of what the Lord does with us. So if you’re waiting to have it all together first, if you’re waiting for total clarity before you trust God, you never will, you never will trust so just go ahead and take the first step, even with your questions. Keep yourself open. Keep asking questions and seeking answers. What does that look like? It looks like what you’re doing right now. Of course, it looks like coming to church, opening God’s word, reading the Bible, talking to friends that you have, Christian friends, maybe friends that you’re with tonight, maybe grabbing one of the books that’s out on the information desk. But keep coming and keep investigating. It is my belief that church gatherings like tonight should be filled with people who are saying, I’m not there yet. I’m not there yet, but I’m willing to keep investigating. I used to think Christianity was ridiculous, but I’m not so sure now, and honestly, some of the things I used to think I can tell are even more ridiculous than Christianity. So let’s keep going, because the process keeps unfolding, as it does for Mary, by the way, because God does keep revealing himself and bringing us along in our understanding, bringing Mary along in our understanding. So what does she do next? She visits her cousin, Elizabeth, older cousin, clearly, I don’t know if it’s a first cousin once removed situation or something like that, but older woman, so she’s an old woman, post menopausal, but pregnant, which confirms, by the way, what the angel had said in verses 36 and 37 this is almost like a sign. Even Elizabeth, your relative, is going to have a child in her old age. And she who is said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month, for no word from God will ever fail. And so you almost want. Is Mary going to visit Elizabeth to see if what God said about Elizabeth is true? Because then that’s going to help her believe that what he said about her is true. So she shows up before Elizabeth, and this is what happens in verse 42 Elizabeth, in a loud voice, exclaims, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the Child you will bear. But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord, should come to me as this as soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. So do you see? Elizabeth sees that Mary carries the Promised Messiah, and the fact that she believes that, and the fact that she’s also pregnant, even though she shouldn’t be, gives Mary assurance, and so she bursts forth in praise. She’s no longer submitting with limited understanding. You know, I don’t get it, but I’ll trust kind of thing. It is now a joyful surrender, a whole hearted a whole person ascent. This is her mind. This is her will. This is her emotions, all coming together. That’s what it means when it says, My soul glorifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices the soul and the spirit together means the whole of me, like I’m all in now. Lord is what she just said. God has seen her in her humble state, verse 48 and has acted on her behalf to deliver her verse 49 and to extend mercy to all who trust Him, to all who fear Him, verse 50. Now, why do I mention all this and the time it took for Mary to get here? I mention it because I don’t know where you are in your process, but the encouragement we get from Mary is keep going. And some of you may be there thinking, right, sure, but Mary’s process kicked off with an angel, and my process did not okay. Couple things to say to that. First of all, we actually have more and better information than Mary had, because in addition to the birth of Jesus Christ, we have His life, death and resurrection to look at as well. Second thing to say to that is, you know what the word angel means? Right? Just means Herald, like, hark, the herald angels sing. It’s redundant, hark, the Herald heralds sing, is what it is. It just means messenger. I am not a shining being, but I am a messenger tonight, giving you even the angels words here and whatnot. So there you go. I’ll be your angel tonight, kicking things off for you. How are you going to respond to the message the same time? When you look at the depth of Mary’s prayer, invoking themes like God’s mercy, His faithfulness throughout the generations, pulling on Israel and Abraham, it shows that she gave God more than just time. The second thing that she gave God, the second thing we must give God if we’re gonna receive Christmas, is consideration, so time and then consideration. She thinks deeply. She reasons. She carefully considers and investigates God’s claims, as we should too, like she doesn’t just sit there passively, letting time go by while she floats like a leaf down a stream to, you know, some destination faith, I guess. Go back to the analogy of the, you know, boyfriend or girlfriend, who’s surprising you you know, you’re driving a long term right here. You still gotta turn right at that point. That’s what Mary is doing, right? She’s active. She’s engaged right from the start. Even think back to verse 29 again, when it says she was greatly troubled and she wondered what kind of greeting this might be. That word wondered literally means to make an audit. Make an audit. Now I have, thank God, never been audited, but we do internal audits and stuff here. Whatever else an audit is, it is a thorough investigation, and that’s what Mary is doing. Like this is an intensely rational word. She’s trying to puzzle it out. She’s trying to make sense of what’s happening. This is not blind faith, in other words, and it’s so important to see that, because we’ve got the erroneous belief today to think that we’re smarter than previous generations because we’ve got better tech, that’s all it is. Right? We’re not smarter. We’re just, you know, Tech has been developing slowly but surely. So we think we’re smarter than previous generation, generations and and less credulous because we are less superstitious than they used to be, not at all, not in the slightest. There’s no evidence for that. Now, it is true that, as a pious Jew, Mary would have believed in the supernatural. Would have expected it, in a way that our culture today trains us, not to sure, but Mary also would have been trained to think that God could never become a human being like zero chance of that whatsoever. So she’s still skeptical at first. Also, she is facing barriers every bit as high as you and I face. She doubted. She asked questions. She reasoned. As we must too. In fact, the Bible, even in this story, just even here in Luke chapter one, strikes a really delicate balance when it comes to questions, and it’s in the difference between Zechariah and Mary. Now, Zechariah is Elizabeth’s wife, Elizabeth’s husband, and so when the angel tells Zechariah, Hey, your post menopausal wife is about to get pregnant. He asks a question, chapter one, verse 18, how can I be sure of this? And interestingly, that question elicits divine disapproval, whereas Mary’s question, how will this be, since I’m a virgin, in verse 34 is met with patient explanation. Why? Why? I wonder, I mentioned that we’re to ask honest questions earlier. That is questions that are genuine, genuinely seeking an answer. And certainly, God knows the heart and he can discern the difference. And there is a difference between, how can this be? How will this be like, I’m open, explain it to me. Okay, there’s a difference between that question and this cannot be how can I be sure that this is going to happen? I’m closed. In other words, prove it or else out of here. So when we think about questions, we need to reject both a blind faith that never asks questions, never wrestles through doubts whatsoever, and the sort of closed minded doubting that that doesn’t really want answers. So ask your questions. Ask your questions. Kids, if you’re here tonight, I know they’re you’re here because I can hear you all ask your questions. You should be peppering your parents with questions about the faith. Don’t ever stop asking questions. I love them. If your parents look stumped, that’s fine. Parents send them to me. I would love to answer their questions. Help them along. Kyle would love to. Jake would love to and by the way, adults, you can ask your questions too, and if you feel embarrassed, just pretend your seven year old ask it. It’s fine, you know, just like, find a kid and be like, hey, this kid was wondering, and we’ll go from there. But as you ask those questions, check your heart, because again, some are working through doubts because they want to seek answers, and some doubt to keep themselves from answers so that they can stay in control. Because if you actually work through the doubts and really find answers you might like, Mary, then need to surrender. I’m your servant. Let it be unto me according to your word, but we can see how much puzzling out Mary has done when we read her prayer of praise. Now, full disclosure, if you’re here tonight and you haven’t been with us, last couple weeks, we went through this prayer of praise slowly. In the last four weeks, we spent about three hours on it. So I’m going to just skim across the surface here. You can go back and listen to it. It’s all online. But Mary celebrates three aspects of God’s character in this prayer, because in the birth of Jesus, she sees all of them on display in Technicolor. First of all, she sees God’s mercy. Says it over and over again, right? Verse 50 His mercy extends to those who fear him. Says it again in verse 54 he’s helped to serve in Israel, remembering to be merciful, God’s mercy, His kindness to undeserving sinners, which is all of us, by the way she sees that. I mean, Mary begins by talking about her humble state, even that is a recognition of her spiritual poverty. God saw her there and acted to save her. He has done great things, mighty deeds for her, for all of us, that’s that’s exactly what he’s doing for all of us. With the birth of Jesus. Jesus is coming. God has been born in the flesh because we cannot save ourselves. We are humbled. We are undeserving, sinners. We have not done what God requires. I mean God requires. We can whittle it down to two commands. Jesus does right. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, love your neighbor as yourself. And there’s not a one of us here in this room who would go, Yeah, I nailed that perfectly. Have never struggled with any of that whatsoever. We have not done what God requires. We are guilty of treason against the high king, but in this odd bit of irony, you know, treason is usually met with Off with their heads. But in this case, Jesus has come. I don’t think I’m putting it crassly to say Off with his head in our place so that we can be rescued in his God’s mercy. Second, Mary celebrates God’s faithfulness. His faithfulness right, His mercy extends those who fear him from generation to generation. He just keeps doing this. He’s helped his servant, Israel. He’s helped Abraham, just as He promised our ancestors. This is God’s commitment to his people. He keeps all of his promises throughout the generations. What promises? All sorts of promises, to be our God and to dwell with us, if we will be his people, to send us a forever king who will establish a forever kingdom of perfect righteousness and justice to deliver us from our enemies. All these promises are coming true in Jesus Christ, because Jesus is the Forever King, the son of David, and yeah, he’s going to dwell with His people. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. That’s why he’s here. And we even read earlier that you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you were to call him Jesus, Jesus, which means the LORD Saves. He’s going to deliver us from our enemies, not the Philistines or the Babylonians or Rome, but no our greatest enemy, sin and death. And then she celebrates God’s power, God’s mighty acts to set all things right. The Mighty One has done great things for me. He’s performed mighty deeds with his arm. We get this series of reversals, where the poor are lifted up, where the oppressed are set free, where the humble are exalted. In other words, Mary’s looking out at what’s happening, and it’s almost as if she’s saying in this prayer what God said He was going to do for us sinners. He’s doing, and the proof of it is growing in my womb. And of course, we have even greater proof, because once more, we have not just his birth, but his life and his death, and especially his resurrection, the proof, the guarantee that all of God’s promises will come true, no word of God will ever fail. So what happens then, when we give this sort of time and this sort of consideration to Christianity’s claims, where does it lead? It would lead to the last gift that Mary offers and that we must give also if we’re to receive Christmas. She gives her time, she gives her consideration, and finally, she gives her glad surrender. Her glad surrender. She submits cheerfully to God’s will for her life, trusting his gracious purposes. I mean, don’t miss what’s just happened. And she says, My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. She is filled with joy. And again, maybe you’re thinking, of course, she is. Why wouldn’t she be? She gets to bear God Himself. All nations, all generations, are going to call her blessed. Yeah, this sounds amazing, except Think for a moment of all that Mary would be asked to give. She is engaged to Joseph, but not married, and people weren’t dumb back then, as we’ve already indicated, they know where babies come from in a small moralistic community, she would always be treated as a disgrace. Jesus would always be treated as an illegitimate child, whether Joseph or someone else’s it hardly matters. You know, they can count up the months and go, yep, nope. That doesn’t work out, and still, still looking at that future that’s coming for her and that she’s experiencing even now. She says, I’m your servant. I’m your servant. My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. I will follow you no matter the cost. This is what God’s servants say to him, by the way, in fact, Mary mentions another one. She talks about Abraham in verse 55 right? So she’s got encouragement, because she’s maybe thinking back through Abraham’s life as well. You remember Abraham? God called him out of Ur of the Chaldeans. I called him out of paganism as well, and to go to a foreign land, the promised land. Now to leave a land at that point, was to leave your security. It was to leave your whole savings, basically, because your livelihood was tied to the land, it was to leave your protection as well. There wasn’t like police forces or armies back then, like it was your clan that protected you, and he’s giving all that up for what? Well, God says, I’ll give you land, I’ll give you descendants. You’ll be a blessing to all nations, except he doesn’t really get either, as we talked about some in this series, at the end of his life, he’s got one son, not a whole bunch of descendants, and he’s got one plot of land where his wife is buried, and that’s it. But still, Abraham went and see what God did with his obedience. Because, yeah, at the end of his life, none of those promises were completely fulfilled, but certainly they were by the time Mary comes around, he does have descendants. His people have been made into a great nation, and they are there dwelling in the land even at that point. And so Mary can expect the same if I’m obedient like Abraham was. God will. Bless me as he blessed Abraham. And so can we? God will never receive our gift of surrender lightly, like we hand our grains of rice, and God returns grains of gold to us in this life and especially in the next. And if we believe that, I’m glad surrender is the only possible response. But do you believe that? It’s a question Elizabeth Elliot asked a group of would be missionaries some years ago, Elizabeth Elliot died just a few years ago. She was missionary made famous in large part because her husband and his friends were murdered and murdered while on the mission field, she knew what following God might cost, and she asked these would be missionaries, two questions. Number one, are you willing to obey any biblical command, whether you like it or not? And number two, are you willing to trust God and anything he sends into your life, whether you understand it or not? And if the answer to either of those questions is, no can you really say that you are God’s servant, that you really trust God? It’s a big question, by the way. You can spend some time thinking about it, but Mary has said yes to both of them. At least she thinks she has. She doesn’t know what she’s signing up for entirely, because, in truth, she will be called even lower than she is now. She will be called not just to experience the disgrace of an illegitimate child, but ultimately unimaginable suffering. In our Advent reading, we had Simeon’s prayer read for us, but they have a little conversation afterwards, Simeon and Mary. And Simeon says in chapter two, verse 35 and a sword will pierce your own soul too. What sword is going to pierce Mary’s soul will be the agony of watching her son’s execution. That would do it. Here’s this baby that is going to be born to her. Is born to die. He cannot save us unless he will not save himself. And so the great glory of Christmas is not the humble manger, but the horrific cross, and, of course, the empty tomb that follows it, because God took on humanity, to take on humanity’s sin, to carry it to the cross, to receive our punishment. So Christmas tells us something about us when we read that phrase humble state in Mary’s prayer, we know, in light of the cross, what that really means our humble state is that we are spiritually dead, morally selfish and legally condemned. That’s the bad news. But Christmas tells us something else too. Christmas tells us that God loves us enough to deliver us from that he has seen our humble state and done great things for us. The apostle John says it like this. This is how God showed His love among us. He sent His one and only Son into the world. That’s Christmas, by the way, right? He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his son there’s Christmas again, as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. That’s good Friday. The message of Christmas is the message of Good Friday. And Easter, you can’t celebrate just the one. So whatever big deal you made out of this season, make it out of the next one too. Because the baby, whose arms stretched wide to cling to his human mother, stretched his arms wide again, 30 some odd years later, to receive the nails in his hands and feet, and as the spear plunged into his heart, he plunged into darkest death for our sake, taking our punishment, and then three days later, burst forth in life to bring us back into a relationship with Him. We have been delivered to him and for him now, as we hear all this, I understand it is a gift that makes us a little bit uncomfortable, but which has every spiritual comfort within it. Who’d be like somebody paying off all your credit card debt, and part of you goes I think I could have gotten there. I just need to get my act together. I would have paid it off. That’s the part that makes us uncomfortable, especially when we realize, nope, there was no chance of my paying it off. But it has this comfort within it. It’s taken care of. The debt is paid. So take it. Acknowledge that you need this gift. Unwrap it and let the Father’s love wrap around you this Christmas, receive Christmas the way Mary did give God the time and consideration and glad surrender that he deserves. There’s a song we sing at Christmas a little town of Bethlehem, and it’s got this odd line in it, oh holy child of Bethlehem. Him descend to us. We pray, cast out our sin and enter in be born in us today. That’s a bold lyric, if you think about it, that God needs to enter into us and be born in us today. But it’s exactly right. It’s just saying that each of us must receive Christmas like Mary, because every Christian is in a very real sense, like Mary, because God will dwell within us also if we will invite Him in His promised Spirit indwells us when we believe and like Mary here in Luke chapter one, we should be just as shocked and awed and humbled and overjoyed that God would give us this gift. May Christ be born in your heart this Christmas season, let’s pray.
Father, we pray that even now you would be opening our hearts to receive this gift, the salvation that you offer us in Christ, Jesus, your very presence itself in our hearts and lives, we know Lord that we give to receive this gift, we give time, we give consideration, and ultimately, we give ourselves wholly and joyfully, knowing that what you Give us in return, what you have given us first, far outweighs anything that we give you. But Help us, Lord, to be open to that giving and receiving this Christmas, we pray for Your name’s sake. Amen.