Luke 1: 46 -50

46 And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, 49     for the Mighty One has done great things for me holy is his name. 50 His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.

After the angel had revealed God’s Word to Mary she was understandably overwhelmed, troubled, and confused yet she exclaimed “I am the Lord’s servant.” God revealed His ability to do the impossible by sharing the amazing news that her cousin Elizabeth had conceived and was already 6 months pregnant when she was way past child-bearing age.  When the angel left, Mary knew where she was going to go and as she enters Elizabeth’s home God confirms His promise with the filling of the Holy Spirit. Not only did Mary show up at Elizabeth’s house but God also showed up.  Mary’s time listening to God along with Elizabeth’s joyous, affirming, and prophetic greeting now releases a song from Mary’s heart. The song has become known as “The Magnificat” from the opening words in Latin, “Magnificat anima mea Dominum,” “My heart magnifies the Lord.” Does your prayer time move you? What is your heart response to hearing from God? Mary’s song is a response of:

• LOVE

Her song is made up of images and references to Scriptures from Genesis, Job, Psalms, and from Isaiah it reveals how steeped her thinking was in the Word of God. When the wise men came to visit the Christ and the leading priests and teachers of religious law were asked where He would be born they knew because they knew the Word of God. Yet their knowledge didn’t result in any action, they never went, there was no response to go and see. Mary’s knowledge of the scriptures moves her, what we believe should affect our behavior. It is possible to study the scriptures purely as an academic exercise as one might any other book of literature or history and completely miss the heart of the message. Jesus later pointed out that the Pharisees studied the Scriptures that spoke about Him but they refused to come to Him, instead they rejected and killed the very One they claimed to love and follow. In contrast Mary studied the Scriptures as a lover not a learner, she passionately memorize and consumed the letters from her beloved, they not only stimulated her thinking but transformed her heart and soul. From the depths of her being she gives expression to her amazement, her adoration, her worship and love of God. She is moved with amazement at how He would use a “nobody” from Nazareth to accomplish His mighty purposes. Some of you feel like a “nobody” you fail to believe that God would want to work through you, that He could put a song in your mouth. But let me remind you about those God worked through in the past:

He chose Israel in the beginning, not because they were a mighty and powerful nation, but because they were the least of all the peoples on earth.

He chose Moses, a child of slaves, to deliver His people

He chose Gideon who was the least member of the smallest clan of the smallest tribe in Israel

He chose David the youngest and least likely in his family

• FAITH

Mary’s song is also a song of faith which grows out of true worship and adoration of God. Worship should take the attention off of us and focuses it on God, on His might, power, mercy and grace. It is the perfect environment for strengthening and deepening faith, because faith keeps its vision focused on the word the promises of God, not the surrounding or prevailing circumstances. Hebrews 11:1 says that “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen” – it believes that because God has declared something, it is already an accomplished fact, even if the tangible and visible evidence is not immediately apparent to our visual and tactile sense. Mary proclaims that God has already scattered the proud and arrogant; pulled down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the poor; satisfied the hungry with good nourishment, and sent the self-sufficiently wealthy away empty-handed. Yet as she speaks these words her visible material circumstances were no different, she is still a young peasant girl from Nazareth. The Romans and the sycophant king Herod still ruled Palestine with an iron fist, taxing the people, the rich still had their goods and the poor continued to struggle. But Mary could sing and praise because she already believed in the change that God was bringing into being. A change where all wrongs will be righted, where every injustice will be corrected, where the oppressed and downtrodden will be lifted up and those who have elevated and exalted themselves will be humbled.

• HOPE

Mary’s song is a song of hope nurtured, strengthened and encouraged by her faith. It is a hope based on the promise God made to her ancestor Abraham and to all his descendants. A promise found in Genesis chapters 12 and 17 to establish His everlasting covenant with Abraham and to bless all the nations of the earth through him. He would be their God and cause them to dwell in their own land in peace. The believer’s hope is always firmly anchored in the faithful, sure and certain promises of God. Life’s unpredictable circumstances, sometimes favorable and sometimes chaotic come and go, but God’s promises are always faithfully fulfilled. Jesus affirmed that promise by saying, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” Matthew 24:35. Mary’s hope was firmly anchored in what God had promised.

Mary’s song is a song of LOVE, FAITH, and HOPE because in a unique way God had singled her out to carry the eternal Word in her womb. God worked in and through her so that the Word would become flesh, Emmanuel, God with us. But the story and the song do not end with Mary, God has also handpicked and personally selected you and me for the very same purpose. God still wants to work in and through us, as a vessel carrying His word inside us, as we flesh out His love by being His hands and feet. Through you He wants to make Himself known in your home, family, school and community. This Advent season God comes to us, the least likely individuals in the least likely of places and He says to us: “Greetings Giles! Greetings ________! You who are highly favored, The Lord is with you!” He takes the initiative and He makes the invitation but we have to respond. Mary responded by saying, “I am the Lord’s servant” and  because she said “Yes” we can have a living hope, a steadfast faith, and the experience of God’s eternal and life transforming love. Our hurting and broken world awaits your response, will you let Mary’s song become your own?

Luke 1:10-14

10 And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside. 11 Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. 12 When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. 13 But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. 14 He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth.

This Christmas season I want to spend some time looking at the prayers of those involved in the Christmas story 2000 years ago. Sometimes during this season instead of being filled with the anticipation of advent we can become filled with boredom as we anticipate more of the “same ol’, same ol’” We have heard the story once to often and there is a definite tarnish to its new ring. Often our prayer lives can become a reflection of this season were we know God can do the impossible but we don’t anticipate that He will. So we pray with little expectation and our prayer lives take on the methodical monotone chant of apathy. Some of us have entered the stage of praying but not believing. For some of us we have been praying for the same thing over and over, we have been asking for a long time and it seems like God has been silent for even longer.

It’s easy for us to forget but the Christmas story starts with prayer, Luke introduces us to a priest named Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth who is barren. They knew all about the anticipation of life and also the disappointment, they understood the pain of infertility and seemingly unanswered prayer. I’m sure they went through all the stages that infertile couples go through. At first denial, this isn’t happening to us, yet given time it becomes evident that children aren’t coming, so along with the disappointment comes the death of a dream. In an attempt to avoid the pain they avoid children and all they really want to do is hide. Yet, as with all death, close on the heels of despair comes anger. It just seems so unfair, scripture says “Both of them were upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commandments and regulations blamelessly.” Have you ever been there, you have lived right and this is what you have to show for it, nothing, it’s easy to be angry with God! At some point the anger gives way to acceptance and they come to the conclusion that this is their lot in life. No matter what angle you look at the Christmas story from it always starts with disappointment and despair. Zechariah and Elizabeth had probably prayed for a long time for children and the answer had always seemed to be “no.” It must have felt like God didn’t care? The truth is He cared more than they knew but the answer was only going to come in His time. What I love about this couple is that their fertility issue didn’t create a faithful issue, Zechariah kept on serving God. The question becomes in spite of your seemingly unanswered prayer will you continue to be faithful and serve? Pastor will you still go and offer prayers for your people even with the lingering disappointment in your own prayer life?  Zachariah went into the Temple and as the worshippers prayed outside, he offered the incense inside, symbolically offering the prayers of the people to God. Don’t miss the moment when God answered not only his prayers but the prayers of the people, at the moment when the incense was going up symbolizing the prayers, in that moment God answered. His answer would not only be a blessing to Zachariah but to many others “He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth”. Am I praying in such a way that it blesses those around me? Do we realize that the answers to our prayers are so saturated with His blessing that one person can’t contain them all, they have to spill out into the lives around us.

I wonder what Zechariah expected would happen when he was serving as a priest before God. Do you think he anticipated an answer from such a messenger as Gabriel when he lite the incense and the people were praying? After calming his fear the angel had a simple message “Your prayer has been heard” Do you believe that God has heard your prayer?  Do you pray with expectation?

Zechariah is an old man he has been praying for a long time and not hearing anything from God but we need to remember that the silence of God is much bigger than just Zachariah’s life; God has not spoken for 400 years. Can you imagine being the first to hear from God in over 400 years? What would you have said? Yet this moment when God spoke was not only an amazing moment for Zachariah but for all of Israel. Only they would not know what God said for some time because when God spoke Zachariah first response was to question His Word. Isn’t that just like us, we pray, God answers our prayers and instead of dancing and jubilation there is disbelief and doubt! The result of Zechariah’s doubt was silence, the people who had been waiting for 400 years would not hear the good news from the one who doubted. Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple,  all he really had to do was lite the incense, it’s not like God was going to show up! Sometimes our prayer lives can take on the mechanical grind and redundancy of just getting the job done and getting out. We need to remember that prayer is not work time its face time, it’s not redundancy it’s relational. We are no different 2000 years later, we don’t really expect God to show up and the time we schedule for prayer is just another indicator of this. Do we even have time for God to show up? The people had to wait because he was busy listening to God’s message. In our lives we need to remember people can wait while we are waiting on God, unfortunately for many of us the one we often leave to wait is God. Even though he could not speak, the people understood that something spiritual had happened that God had touched his life.

This Christmas God wants to make an appointment with you about your disappointment. I don’t know what lays heavy on your heart today, but God does and He cares. Do you need a touch of His grace today? Perhaps you feel worthless and useless. Perhaps you feel barren and lifeless, there is a spiritual emptiness in your life and you need His Spirit to fill you. Perhaps you are weighed down by sin in your life and you need release. God wants to breathe hope into the stale air of your impossible situation. Is it time for you to let go and let it out, to allow the incense of your heart to waft into the nostrils of God? This Christmas don’t just go through the dull mechanical motions of a stale story, go into His Temple and smell afresh the powerful fragrance of salvation.