Everybody Was Singing

Advent IV                                December 20, 2009

Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Have you ever noticed? Luke tells us in the first four verses of his gospel, that he is writing to tell the true and complete story of Jesus’ life. But 80 verses later – 80! – we’re still in the first chapter, and the baby Jesus still isn’t born!

If Advent is a time of waiting and preparing, Luke is the ultimate Advent gospel writer. No fast track to the manger here. First there are visions and angels, prophecies and pregnancies, silence and singing, and the birth of another baby boy, John, who would be known throughout history as “the Baptist.”

At first look at Luke’s beginning of Jesus’ life, we may well feel like a pregnant woman two weeks past her due date – “Come ON! Let’s get this baby BORN!”

But Luke takes great pains to show that God doesn’t simply slam dunk Jesus’ birth into human history. He shows us that God takes great pains to set the stage – particular people, in a particular place, at a particular time, all carefully chosen and prepared, leaving as little to human interference as possible.

When is the last time you’ve actually read Luke’s account in its entirety, straight from the Bible – the angel Gabriel’s visits, Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary, the Magnificat, the birth of John the Baptist, Zechariah’s prophecy? I commend it to you as part of your final preparations during these last few days of Advent, before the joyous chaos of Christmas Eve.

This morning, we savor with Mary and Elizabeth the joy and the anxiety they experience together, both as pregnant women and as women of faith, as they wait for the fulfillment of what God has so strangely set in motion.

Pregnancy, for any woman, is a time of many changes, and of profound awareness. When pregnant, women become profoundly aware of their bodies – whether they want to or not! – because there is little that is not changed somehow by the pregnancy: morning (or afternoon, or evening, or all of the above) sickness, which turns into tiny fluttering movements in the womb, which turn into increasingly stronger movements, kicks and jabs; stretch marks, cravings, swollen ankles, fatigue…

Then there are the emotional changes: those charming mood swings husbands and fathers simply love in their pregnant wives when, sometimes hour by hour, women swing from joyful expectation to fearful apprehension, from ecstatic happiness to sobbing depression, from absolute self-confidence to flat-out panic. Pregnancy is a time when women often search out other women, either pregnant women or experienced mothers -- and fathers seek out anyone who can carry on a rational conversation.

The miracle of the conception and birth of any child leads a faithful person to awe, to God. There is something inherently mysterious and miraculous about the conception, growth, and birth of any baby.

Every child comes through the human body, and every child originates in the creative power of God. But this morning we witness the unique “fear and trembling” and unrestrained joy of two humble, pregnant women, one a little young to be a mother, the other old enough to be a grandmother, even a great-grandmother, whose “barrenness” had long been a disgrace to her among other women.

Imagine being 12-13 years old, which is how old historians and biblical scholars think Mary probably was, betrothed to a young man (which is a greater commitment than modern engagement) -- infidelity toward whom would be considered adultery and would result in your death by stoning -- receiving a visit from an angel who says you are going to become pregnant without benefit of your fiancée or any other man, and that the child you will give birth to is the Son of God.

Any 7th or 8th grade girls in the congregation this morning? Any takers?

And then there is Elizabeth. 50-year old women becoming pregnant have made the news the last few years. Elizabeth was far older than that – like Sarah and Abraham, more likely in her 70’s or even older. Pregnancy, childbirth, newborn baby up half the night, dirty diapers, teething, spitting up, runny noses, the terrible twos... Any women in that age group in the congregation this morning? Any takers?

Though the angel had said, “Do not be afraid,” both women had all kinds of good reasons to be filled with fear. It is no surprise, then, that young Mary would hurry to Elizabeth, an older, wiser, also strangely pregnant woman relative, for support and courage. And it is no surprise that Elizabeth, upon seeing young Mary, is also filled with such joy. We can picture them hugging each other, two pregnant women leaning over their bulging bellies, barely aware of the awkwardness, as they embrace one another. Imagine the protection, the peace they each must have felt in the welcoming arms of the other; each of them recognizing in their own way that God was also with them. They were not alone.

Luke is right. There is so much to ponder here, long before Mary’s due date actually arrives. So much mystery, so much miracle, so much excitement before Jesus is even born. Like:

• Although the world regarded women in general as lowly – and these two women in particular being both poor and Jewish – we see God treating them as people well-suited for leading roles in God’s salvation drama; and
• Both Mary and Elizabeth recognize that something larger is happening to them than simply their own private little miracles – something cosmic, something sacred. Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit simply on seeing Mary, pours forth a blessing on her, and interprets the movement of baby John in her womb as a leap of joy upon hearing Mary’s voice; and
• Zechariah hears he’s going to be a dad in his old age, and he sings. Elizabeth sings. Later the angels sing. Simeon sings. Mary sings. Everybody is singing!
• And Mary’s song is no sweet lullaby. No tender little baby-song. Her song burses off the page; “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…for he has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. 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. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors…” All this because she is pregnant before marriage? I haven’t heard many popular Christmas carols set to this song, Mary’s exuberant song which so explicitly and skillfully weaves together the outright political and the sacred.

Martin Luther once said that three miracles occurred in Christ’s nativity: God became human; a virgin conceived; and Mary believed. For Luther, the greatest miracle was the last -- that Mary believed. Despite her tender years, despite being a woman in a man’s world, despite being a poor Jew in an oppressive Roman empire, despite her own religious laws and threat of death, she believed. And believing changed everything about her life, and the life of the world, from that point on. Nothing would ever be the same for her. Her life was entirely re-made -- and she sang!

Are we open to God doing a new thing in us, to God entirely re-making us? Cardinal John Henry Newman describes our reluctance to believe, to embrace newness:

We do not like to be new-made; we are afraid of it; it is throwing us out of all our natural ways, of all that is familiar to us. We feel as if we would not be ourselves any longer, if we do not keep some portion of what we have been (up until now) and, much as we prefer in general terms to wish to be changed when it comes to the point, when particular instances of change are presented to us, we shrink from them, and are content to remain unchanged. [1]
 

Both as individuals and as congregations, don’t we most often either want to keep things exactly the way they ARE, or to go back to the way things WERE. Rarely does one hear, even among God’s people, “Let’s open ourselves to being completely re-made by God!” We all cling to the familiar, and resist being made new.

There is a very good reason why Luke spends 80 verses of his gospel before even getting to Jesus’ birth. There is a very good reason for Advent. There is so very much to ponder, so very much to face in ourselves, every single one us, before the Lord comes.

Time spent with St. Luke, or any of the gospels, these last few days before Jesus’ birth is worth more than any shopping that hasn’t gotten done, any baking that isn’t finished, any decorating that isn’t complete. Most of that has precious little to do with the redemption of the world and of your life, which Jesus brings; and I guarantee you that those are not the things Jesus will ask about when he comes again!

Zechariah sings. Elizabeth sings. Mary sings. The angels sing. Simeon sings. Everybody sings! It is faith alone that enables us to sing. We sing because we believe: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” – who makes all things new, to the glory of God. Amen.

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