Peace Lutheran Church
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Third Sunday in Advent Midweek
December 18, 2024
ADVENT MIDWEEK 3
The Song of Mary
Luke 1:46–56
Sermon Outline
Why Would Mary Choose to Sing Her Song from the Song of Hannah?
I. Hannah’s song of praise is deeply personal, arising from the very feelings Mary and you and I often feel—feeling poor or worthless or sinful.
II. So Mary sings her version of Hannah’s song so that you can expect God to come near to save you personally through the child he put in her womb.
Sermon
The unborn John the Baptist has confirmed that the Christ Child is growing in her womb, Mary sings her song of praise, but she doesn’t sing a completely original song. Her words, a song we call the Magnificat, are largely derived from a song sung about a thousand years earlier, a song proclaimed by Hannah, the mother of Samuel.
Now, this is a rather interesting choice. As the words of the Magnificat show, Mary clearly wanted to focus on the justice of the Christ, how her Son will give to those who have nothing and take away everything from the wicked and exploitative. Because of this, there were plenty of other songs from the Old Testament she could have adapted for her own song of praise. She could have sung a variation on the Song of Moses, the boasting, jubilant words the Israelites sang after watching the Lord drown the armies of Pharaoh. She could have sung a variation on one of the psalms or a section of the Prophets as they proclaimed the wonders of the Lord who was going to tear down the mighty and lift up the lowly. So then,
Why Would Mary Choose to Sing Her Song from the Song of Hannah?
I.
One reason, of course, is that Hannah was a barren woman singing her song in response to the Lord opening her womb. In both cases you have women responding with joy to a miraculous pregnancy.
But perhaps more important, Hannah’s song of praise is deeply personal. For years, her husband’s other wife Peninnah has mocked and ridiculed Hannah for her barrenness, so when Hannah sings about God impoverishing the rich and enriching the poor, when she sings about the full going hungry and the hungry being filled, she’s not just speaking vaguely here. Listen to what Hannah sang: “My heart exults in the Lord; my horn is exalted in the Lord . . . because I rejoice in your salvation. . . . Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry have ceased to hunger. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. . . . The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust . . . to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor” (1 Sam 2:1b, 5, 7–8).
Hannah is speaking about her own personal enemy in her little town, the one who’s been tormenting her over a conflict that most people will never know. Hannah is proclaiming that, yes, her God is the one who pours out mercy on entire nations, but he’s also the God who gives salvation and victory to individuals, to the unknown and insignificant.
The more you feel like that kind of person, the more you sing the song of despair, the lament of the worthless. You look at your life, and the people who are supposed to love you lose interest in you. They don’t understand your troubles, and they absolutely don’t want to be burdened with them. They keep their distance from you and make you feel invisible.
You want to leave a legacy behind you in your life, but your work doesn’t seem to matter. Your accomplishments don’t seem to matter. You worry that the world is going to forget you not long after you’re gone.
Then you look at your sins and can’t imagine how things could be any different with God. You sing the song of despair. “Why would God love me? Why would he notice me? Why would he keep room in his mind and heart for someone who keeps going back to the same transgressions over and over again? Why would God remember me when I can’t remember my promise to follow him for more than five minutes? I give in to anger and bitterness all the time. I keep returning to laziness, to greed, to lust, and to jealousy. I’ve accomplished nothing and thrown away everything. Sure, God is the God of nations. He’s the God of kings and prophets and apostles. But why should I expect him to come near me?”
II.
You should expect it because the mother of your Lord told you he would. She promised you this when she sang her own version of Hannah’s song of praise: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. . . . For he who is mighty has done great things for me. . . . His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm. . . . He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things” (vv 46–53).
Your God is not just the God of big broad groups or world-famous figures. He’s the God of weeping women with barren wombs, the God of unknown maidens from hick towns, the God who sent his Son to find you personally, to forgive you personally, and to save you personally.
At the cross, this is precisely what Jesus did, in fulfillment of everything his mother sang about him. There at Calvary, the Mighty One did great things for you by surrendering his might, by being betrayed and crucified, by allowing men to take the blood he would use to forgive your sins and make you worthy of eternal life. At the cross, he showed his strength by placing his foot on the devil’s head until he heard that serpent’s skull crack into pieces, setting you free from the condemnation he pumped into your veins. There, as Christ thirsted, he filled your hungry soul with good things. He fed you with the bread of life, with the salvation that he promised Abraham would come to all those who believed his Word.
This is what God gave to Mary through the child he put in her womb. This is what God gives to you through that same child named Jesus. There at Calvary, your Lord was not merely the Savior of nations, of big groups, of seas of people. He wasn’t just the Savior of people whose names will never be forgotten. He was the Savior of the forgotten. He was the Savior of the never-known. He was your Savior, the one who ripped you out of the hands of the devil and placed you into the arms of the God who will always love you, always cherish you, always call you by your name.
With his song of forgiveness, with his song of victory over the grave, Jesus Christ silences your song of despair. And he has given you the right to join the song of joy that Hannah and his mother sang, the song proclaiming the mercy of the God who has filled the hungry with good things, cast the mighty from their thrones, and welcomed you into his kingdom.
In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Second Sunday in Advent Midweek
December 11, 2024
ADVENT MIDWEEK 2
The Song of Elizabeth
Luke 1:39–45
Sermon Outline
4. Mary essentially walks into her cousin’s bridal shower, grabs the microphone, and sings that her baby is more important than Elizabeth’s.
3. But instead of being jealous, Elizabeth sings with Mary because she believes Mary’s baby is her glory too.
2. Unlike Elizabeth, we think glory is a zero-sum game in which others’ glory or Jesus’ glory costs us ours.
1. Instead, Christ made you a sinner no more and wrapped you in his glory.
Elizabeth Sings That You Have a God Who Has Given You His Glory.
Sermon
We often treat glory as a zero-sum game. The way we obtain glory, we often think, is to take it from someone else. The more glory our neighbor has, the less we have, or so we think. To use a musical analogy, we don’t believe in glory duets. If someone else is singing, the only way to make ourselves more glorious is to take the microphone and sing a song in praise of ourselves.
This is why, I suppose, our society has a bunch of unwritten rules trying to regulate this impulse. It’s why we warn people with a variety of phrases like “Don’t upstage him” or “Quit stealing her thunder.” This is why women other than the bride aren’t supposed to wear white at the wedding. It’s why you don’t start boasting of your own work-related accomplishments at a man’s retirement ceremony. It’s why a young woman shouldn’t announce her pregnancy at her friend’s baby shower.
4.
And yet, that last thing is essentially what the virgin Mary does when she greets her cousin Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s whole pregnancy is essentially a prolonged celebration, for a couple reasons. One, Elizabeth is old, far too old to be having children, especially when you consider that she’s been barren her entire life—something similar to Sarah’s conception of Isaac in the Old Testament. And on top of this, an angel told her husband that the child Elizabeth is going to bear is going to be a prophet, as I mentioned last week, this is something the Israelites haven’t seen in about three hundred years.
This is all pretty amazing. There’s a spotlight that’s glowing on Elizabeth in this moment. This is her moment to sing the song of glory, the song of the wonderful things God has done for her. But when Mary comes to visit, our Gospel text strongly implies that Mary immediately tells Elizabeth everything she’s just heard from the angel Gabriel. She tells Elizabeth that she’s going to give birth to the Christ Child, the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of the world. Mary essentially walks into her cousin’s bridal shower, grabs the microphone, and sings, “My pregnancy is even more miraculous than yours, and my baby is going to be even more important than your baby.”
3.
While many of us might be filled with sorrow, jealousy, or indignation in this moment, Elizabeth is filled with joy because, as a Christian, as a believer in the promise of salvation growing in Mary’s womb, Elizabeth doesn’t see glory as a zero-sum game. She doesn’t see it as a song she needs to sing instead of Mary. She sees it as a song she sings with Mary.
“When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy’ ” (vv 41–44).
Elizabeth knows that Mary’s baby is Elizabeth’s glory too. That’s why Elizabeth says what she says after feeling John the Baptist leap for joy in her womb as the mother of God comes into their presence. That’s why Elizabeth is filled with humility and asks the question, “Why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Elizabeth responds with humility and awe, she gladly shares the spotlight with Mary and even gives it to her, because she knows that the Man who is going to save her from her sins is now the little unborn child in Mary’s womb.
2.
We don’t think like Elizabeth. Rather, we think like the world and follow its zero-sum game, its song-of-glory ways. When Christ and his Word come into our presence, we don’t want to yield the spotlight, even when that spotlight is illuminating things that are far less glorious than what Elizabeth had surrounding her. So the Word says, “Look, Jesus is here forgiving your sins. Jesus is here to heal your broken hearts and cast out your demons and to give you the gift of eternal life. So put away your pride. Let go of your sins. And come find rest in the arms of God.”
But we don’t. Instead of singing the praises of Mary’s Son, we sing our own praises. We worship our own pride, boasting of our own righteousness before the world. We sing the songs of anger toward those who have sinned against us, thinking that tearing them down will clothe us in more glory. We sing songs of despair as we look out at the world, thinking that lamenting the filth of our neighbors can somehow make us clean. In all of this, we think if we can rip the microphones out of other people’s hands, we can make their glory our own and become someone worthy of love and attention. In all of this, we hear Christ singing to us, calling us to turn from our sins, and we sing, “I don’t care how good your news is. I’m the important one right now. This is my day, my moment.”
1.
But it’s not your moment. In fact, the very existence of your life belongs to Jesus, the same Jesus who was born of the virgin Mary, and the same Jesus who came into this world not to take the spotlight away from you but to welcome you into his spotlight.
The child in Elizabeth’s womb grew up to be John the Baptist, the one who prepared the way for the Christ who would die for the sins of the world. And the child in Mary’s womb grew up to be that crucified and risen Savior.
With the spotlight firmly fixed on Christ, the nails were pierced into his hands and feet. And as he hung on that cross with those lights burning onto his head, Jesus shed his blood and took away your sins, took away your pride, your arrogance, took away your refusal to hear his Word. As his body was broken apart on that cross, Jesus took away all your self-worship and idolatry. And as he took his final breath, as he cried out, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Lk 23:46), Jesus sang the song that made you a sinner no more, the song that wrapped you in his glory and made it your own possession.
Then after hanging—and three days of lying—lifeless with that spotlight shining on him, Jesus began to move again. He lifted up his head, picked his life back up, cleared his throat, and told you that the hour had come for you to sing with him forever, for you to join the song Elizabeth sang with and to his mother, the song of salvation for all who believe.
“Blessed is Mary among all women,” Elizabeth sang, “and blessed is the fruit of her womb.” Now we can sing that song too because the holy fruit, the Lamb of God, has made you blessed. He’s washed you clean, fed you with salvation, and shown you that you don’t have a God who competes with you for glory.
Elizabeth Sings That
You Have a God Who Has Given You His Glory.
So sing with him forever. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
First Sunday in Advent Midweek
December 05, 2024
The Song of Zechariah
Luke 1:67–80
Sermon Outline
3. We often teach our children the “song” of living for yourself.
2. Zechariah teaches us a much greater song, the song of Christ.
1. Jesus brought us the salvation Zechariah sings about by becoming the sacrificial lamb.
Hear the Song of Zechariah and Go Where It Leads You—to the Lamb of God.
Sermon
O Lord, may the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen
What springs to mind when you think of a song? For some people it might be the words of a favorite hymn, a lullaby sung over an infant’s bed. Some people constantly have music going through their brains. Yet, not every song has a tune, is literally set to music, or is even literally sung.
3.
Parents, what song do you teach your children? There’s many songs that we may wish to teach them. The beauty of our hymnody, songs to encourage, inspire, and prepare them for their life in this world. Yet, there is another song that we often teach them, living in a sinful and fallen world. The lyrics vary a little bit from parent to parent, but the substance of the song remains the same: “Live for yourself and pursue your own passions, because the primary reason for your existence is to build up your own glory, not the glory of God.”
This teaches children to be selfish and prideful. Parents teach their children to believe that what matters most in life is their own specialness and success. When parents discover that their children possess certain gifts or talents, they teach those children that these things should be the focus of their entire lives, oftentimes at the expense of everyone and everything around them. If a star high school quarterback wanted to quit the team to let his backup have a shot, his parents would sing a lament to him, saying, “This is a kind gesture, but someone else’s success is not your problem. You have your own future to worry about.” If a high school valedictorian decided to forego college to feed the hungry throughout the world, her parents would very quickly sit her down and sing the same lament: “That’s a nice idea, but go get your own life established before you start worrying about other people’s problems.”
Sadly, Christians often find themselves singing this same song to their children, teaching them that Jesus should always be the center of their lives until he gets in the way of something they need to achieve maximum glory. Go to church, unless sports or dance or some other event gives you the opportunity to put your talents on display on Sunday morning. Chase righteousness unless you can enhance a 2.8 percent chance of a college scholarship.
Talk to people about Jesus. Make a bold confession of faith, unless doing so would hinder your public reputation or your upward mobility at work. Believe what the Bible says, within reason. But don’t actually give away everything you have to follow Jesus. Don’t be so forgiving that people can walk all over you and make you look weak. Don’t sacrifice earthly respectability for eternal righteousness.
These are the songs we sing our children. And, of course, we teach them these songs because this is what we believe ourselves. Sure, we believe that glorifying God is very important, but very much second place to building up our own glory—our own wealth, our own honor and comfort.
2.
In Luke chapter 1, Zechariah teaches us a much greater song, which is rather amazing when you consider the circumstances of John’s birth. Zechariah finds out about his son’s upcoming birth from an angel, an angel who tells him that his aged wife is going to have a son, a miracle reminiscent of Sarah giving birth to Isaac in the Old Testament. And this angel tells Zechariah that his son is going to be a prophet like Elijah—tells this to a man whose people haven’t seen a prophet in three hundred years—a prophet who is going to pave the way for the long-promised Messiah, the Savior of the world. So let’s face it, no matter how great the accomplishments of our children, they are nothing compared to John the Baptist. When you look at everything going on, Zechariah should have a much harder time than we do telling his son that he must decrease and that Christ must increase.
And yet, that’s exactly what Zechariah teaches John. When his son has been born, all these people are gathered around trying to figure out what all this miraculous stuff surrounding John means. They want to know what kind of amazing future this son of Zechariah has in store for him. But it’s in this moment that Zechariah begins to speak for the first time since his mouth was silenced for doubting Gabriel’s promise to him. And with those freshly opened lips, before he even speaks about his miraculously born son, he sings the song of Christ.
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant” (vv 68–72). Zechariah sings of the redemption that Jesus is going to win with his blood. He sings of Jesus as the horn of salvation from the house of David, the one who is going to rule from David’s throne forever in peace and mercy. Zechariah begins his song not by praising his son but by praising the Son of Mary. He praises her Son as the one who is going to deliver his people from their enemies, from sin, death, and the devil.
And then he goes on to tell his son, John, that his job will be to prepare the way for this Savior, that his goal in life will be to get people ready to receive the love of God that Jesus is going to bring: “You, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins” (vv 76–77).
1.
And Jesus brought us that salvation. Walking the road that John the Baptist prepared, Jesus reached out to us and grabbed all those sins that earned our condemnation, all that pride that had us loving ourselves and our money and our accomplishments instead of loving God and our neighbor. Jesus took those sins as the sacrificial lamb, and he drowned them in his blood, erased them, forgave them. Walking that path prepared by Zechariah’s son, Jesus led a perfect life, without sin, so that when he died and rose again, he could welcome us into his kingdom, so that he could bring us by his side as he ruled from David’s throne forever. Walking that path, Jesus cast out demons and raised the dead en route to crushing the serpent’s head beneath his foot when he went to the cross.
On this path, Jesus forgave your sins, triumphed over your enemies, and gave you the gift of everlasting life. On this path, Jesus took people who were unfaithful parents who raised our children to be selfish and prideful, and he made us into faithful parents who look much more like faithful Zechariah. And even more so, on this path prepared by Zechariah’s son, Jesus took us, he took people who were sinful, idolatrous children of the world, and he made us into the holy, beloved children of God. From the cross, as he cried out, “It is finished,” Jesus sang for us the song of pardon and peace, the song of mercy and healing. He sang the only song that could open the doors of heaven to us, and it did.
So if you want to know true glory, and if you want your children to know it, run to Christ. If you want to thrive in this life and want your little ones to do the same, go with them to the feet of the one who walked the path prepared by John the Baptist. If you want your children to possess unfathomable treasures, and if you want to possess them as well,
Hear the Song of Zechariah and Go Where It Leads You—
to the Lamb of God, who covered you in the righteousness of God and gave you every treasure of his kingdom.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.