Rejoice in the Lord

The scripture:

Luke 1:46-55 (English Standard Version)

Mary’s Song of Praise: The Magnificat 46And Mary said,

"My soul magnifies the Lord,

47and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

48for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.

For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

49for he who is mighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his name.

50And 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;

52 he has brought down the mighty from their thrones

and exalted those of humble estate;

53he has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich he has sent away empty.

54He has helped his servant Israel,

in remembrance of his mercy,

55 as he spoke to our fathers,

to Abraham and to his offspring forever."

My sermon this week:

When John told me I’d be preaching this week, I was overjoyed. Because I was going to get to preach… and because this week, I only have to preach one time. At this week’s 11:00 service, the choir is performing the Magnificat, the musical arrangement of this morning’s Gospel reading from Luke. Magnificat is simply the Latin for magnify, extol or praise, and in the Latin Vulgate, that is the first word in Mary’s song here, her soul “magnifies the Lord.” In fact, her song is not the only one in chapter 1. Zechariah sings to the Lord as well after the birth of John the Baptist. Francis Taylor-Gench, Biblical scholar and professor, says, “you can practically hum the first chapter of Luke.” And hum along we do…

The Christmas story is so familiar that we often don’t sense just how unlikely it really was or how absurd to those who were a part of it. Our feelings at Christmas are colored by fond memories, traditions, presents, decorating, copious food and merriment, topped with melancholy and loneliness for those absent and a twinge of guilt for the less fortunate and overspending… and… that copious food and merriment.

With so much celebrating, with so many festivities… happiness can be found on every corner… but Joy… can be elusive.

In our culture, joy has come to mean much the same thing as happiness. However, happiness is merely an emotion, temporary at best, however wonderful it may be. Joy… requires our participation.

Just as love does not merely mean fondness or affection, joy is not just feeling happy. If love were merely fondness or affection, then Christ’s command to love one another would be fully lived out simply by spending time with people we like the most and continuing to think highly of them and feel comfortable around them… choosing new people to spend time with as we grow weary of the old ones. It would not require us to be good to one another or kind or supportive or patient or humble or share all we have.

As Jason spoke about just last week, hope… is not merely optimism. Hope is not just feeling positive or wishing for the best. Hope takes work, it takes community, it takes… God with us.
And this is from where Mary’s joy comes as she sings her psalm of praise, magnifying, extolling, praising God for what he has done for her and for his people. Her joy is born out of a love for her God, a hope for her people and the peace her son will bring to her world. It’s a great deal about which to be joyful indeed.

Stan Toler tells a story of his good friend, a brilliant public speaker who was asked to recall his most difficult speaking assignment. “That’s easy,” he answered. “It was an address I gave to the National Conference of Undertakers. The topic they gave me was, ‘How to look sad at a cheap funeral.’” Stan went on to say that certainly this must have been a tough speech, but that it would be far more difficult to give one on “How to be miserable” to the early Church. He says, it would be impossible, for they had an uncontainable joy. In other words, the early Church couldn’t help it!

Mary, Joseph, the Wiseman, the shepherds and angels… none of them could keep from being joyful! But there’s more going on here than a gut emotional reaction. They all got up and went somewhere! Some of them sang, some of them brought presents for the new baby. Even Mary and Joseph crossed the desert and delivered their first child in a barn. From each of them, there was an intentional response.

Paul tells us, “Rejoice in the Lord always and again, I say, ‘Rejoice.’” When I was being installed at this church, Paul Neshangwe of Zimbabwe who works for our Presbytery office and has preached here before, charged me with these very words. His point was that though life and ministry may bring challenges and hard times, God calls us to rejoice. Joy takes work. He told me I would need reminding…

Here I spoke about this sign that hangs in my office. I gave a yellow square of construction paper to every member of our staff and asked them to make a specific letter. One of them went to a youth and one to a young adult as well. I put them together to make this...

You can guess which staff members made which letter.

It’s hard to remember in the midst of the day to day grind and this is my reminder. We all need things and people to remind us. Joy is not just the happy feeling we get when things go our way. It is our reaction, a decision to seek God. Joy requires our participation. Joy can be celebrating with others when things go well for them or coming through for others when you feel stretched thin… and doing so in good spirits. Joy can be as simple as having a bad day… and not taking it out on anyone else.

Joy is choosing to be thankful and relying on God when it’s too hard to do on your own. Joy is acting out confident exuberance in the face of darkness, logic and reason. Do you suppose for the young girl Mary that it was easy to receive the news that she was about to be a mother? Much less a mother out of wedlock? Do you suppose it was easy for to approach her parents, to approach Joseph with this news, knowing the consequences? Do you suppose it was easy for Joseph to get the news? It always bothered my mother that this young coupled traveled to their “home town” and had no one with whom to stay. “Didn’t they have relatives?” Perhaps not everyone in their family was quite as convinced of Mary and Joseph’s story of impregnation by Holy Spirit. The trip they took, the barn in which they delivered their baby, the early years of fleeing to Egypt and raising Jesus could not have been what either of them dreamed.

And yet… they were joyful. Not just happy… joyful. That takes work, brothers and sisters, that takes participation… an intentional response. It’s difficult for us to fathom. It’s hard for us as observers, so far removed. It takes a retelling of the story. Joy requires our participation.
Some of you may well remember the book, and the TV adaptation of The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever. It’s a favorite of mine, and a favorite of my mother’s, a life-long teacher who had had many Herdmens of her own. The story recounts the tale of a Sunday school teacher who takes on the traditional Christmas play. It has always been the stereotypical parade of young boys in their fathers’ bath robes and fake beards, girls in choir gowns and the two most responsible older children playing Mary and Joseph.

Well, of course, being her first year, this teacher botches the entire production. She infuriates all the parents, breaks every precedent and even alienates her own children. Most of this is due to including one particularly troublesome family in the play… the Herdmens. And a herd they are. They are all of the worst sort. They are a veritable clan of misfits and criminals. They have no morals, no patience and no self-restraint. They are bullies and thieves and they have no idea what the Christmas story is all about.

This teacher does her best to teach them about the story and because of their bullying, they end up with all the leading roles… to the chagrin of all the other children and parents. But of course, this eventually brings the Christmas story home for all of them. In a touching moment the night of the play, the teacher peeks into the dressing room to see Emma-Jean Herdmen, easily the wildest, toughest and most heinous of the bunch… cradling the baby Jesus doll. As she imagines what it truly would have been like to be 14 and having just given birth to a baby… a baby who would be the savior of our world, she cries quietly. For all her toughness, for all her bullying and posturing and antics… Emma-Jean comes to know joy in a way many of us can only glimpse in those rare moments. Emma-Jean participates in the story of our God with us. This unlikely girl enters the unlikely story of God’s love for all of us. In the face of all she’s experienced… abandonment, marginalization and hopelessness, she steps out of her experiences and into joy.

I don’t know what joy looks like for you. I don’t know if it’s deciding to spend more time with family and less at the mall or in long lines. I don’t know if it’s spending your money on Operation Christmas Child or your Saturday morning and afternoon in the Fellowship halls packing boxes with Hunger Task Force. Perhaps it’s raising your voice in song here in church, all through your neighborhood or in your kitchen as you teach your siblings and children and grandchildren about the Christmas story… our story. Perhaps it’s a new appreciation for all you are blessed with. I do know joy can be hard work. And I know we can get too busy to rejoice. But I encourage each of you right now to allow God to give you great joy this advent and for each of you to respond to it. Because joy requires your participation. Rejoice in the Lord always and again, I say… rejoice.