Sermon: Fourth Sunday of Advent, Luke 1:39-55

December 22, 2024 
Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church
Pastor Jonathan Linman

Mary’s Song, the Magnificat, is so hopeful – great things, mercy and promise and blessing for her and her people, God favoring the lowly, humbling the proud, bringing down to earth the powerful, redistributing the wealth of the rich so that the hungry are fed. How beautiful, how compelling. 

Yet, in Mary’s day, those things had not come to pass. Her home territory was under the oppressive control of the Roman Empire. So, the proud, the powerful, and the rich ruled the roost. Human business as usual.

Which is to say, in our own day, the prideful arrogant ones have not been humbled, the powerful are still on their thrones or in their office suites in towers high above the streets below, and the rich get richer, while the poor and everyone else get poorer. 

So, what was it that caused a hopeful, exuberant Mary to run with haste and urgency to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, even amidst the hopelessness of oppression and injustice? And what was it that caused John the Baptist in Elizabeth’s womb to leap for joy? And what was it that provoked Elizabeth to proclaim prophecies that Mary is happily blessed? And what was it that allowed Mary to erupt in song: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior?” 

What was it? Well, things were stirring in Mary. In her belly, quite literally speaking. For the Angel Gabriel had just announced to her that she would become mysteriously pregnant via the Holy Spirit, the power of God Most High overshadowing her. And the angel said that she would give birth to Jesus, Son of the Most High, the one who would save the world and rule for eternity. That’s what evoked all the happy commotion. 

Moreover, things were stirring in the belly of Elizabeth as well, six months pregnant with John the Baptist who was doing some kicking, some leaping even in the depths of her flesh and being. 

John the Baptist, at a mystical, mysterious level, may well have recognized the presence of Jesus in the newly pregnant Mary even in the womb, the coming one for whom he would prepare the way. Or John may have been responding to the energy and excitement of her mother, Elizabeth upon seeing Mary with the Holy Spirit of God suddenly filling her causing her to prophesy about the coming of the Lord through Mary. 

All this stirring of rejoicing and blessing and mercy starts small. Small enough to be contained in human wombs, confirming the promise of the prophet Micah that God does great things with small beginnings: “But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days…. And the ruler shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall live secure, for now the ruler shall be great to the ends of the earth, and he shall be the one of peace.” (Micah 5:2, 4-5a) The fulfilment of these prophecies began in that little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie. 

And maybe something small, something almost imperceptible is stirring in you, calling forth joy even amidst our troubled day.  

Mary, Elizabeth, John the Baptist were waiting, looking, yearning for the promised Savior prophesied by Micah and the other prophets. They were yearning for the Messiah, the anointed, chosen one, the Christ.

And maybe you are, too, for God knows our sorry world needs a Savior. Not a false savior who arrogantly proclaims from gilded palaces, “I alone can fix this.” But a humble, lowly savior from a small town who really can fix things, and does so amidst the teeming crowds of the poor and oppressed. 

Here’s the thing, stirrings of hope and joy and encouragement begin in us the same way that they began in Mary and Elizabeth. In the depths of our metaphorical wombs, that is, in the depths of our soul, our inner world. In the cavities and voids of those deep places, the Holy Spirit is also at work in us, among us, planting the seed of the promise of God’s word, and germinating the seed of faith in us, a faith not unlike Mary who “believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” 

So it is that Mary set out with haste to visit her cousin Elizabeth. The Greek suggests that Mary arose to go with haste – it’s the same word in Greek used for Jesus’ resurrection. So even early in her pregnancy, in a single word we receive a hint of what was to come, namely, Jesus’ victory of resurrected life over death.

For when we come to the womb that is the baptismal font, we share in Jesus’ death and resurrection. And the Holy Spirit working through the water and the word, penetrates us to the depths of our being, enters into our very souls. And by the gift of grace, we leave the tomb of our sin and mortality. And the tombs of our lives become wombs of new birth. The baptismal water breaks, like in pregnancy, and we emerge from the womb of the font new creations in Christ, for us a second birth. 

And our dying and rising from the womb of the font happens because Christ himself left the tomb in which he was placed after his death on the cross. Christ’s tomb thus also became the womb of new life in his resurrection from the dead. 

Therefore, the author of the letter to the Hebrews can sum up in a few words what Christ’s dying and rising does for us: “It is by God’s will that we have been sanctified [made holy, justified] through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Hebrews 10:10) That’s what it’s all about. That’s why Mary and Elizabeth and John the Baptist were so full of joy. And that’s finally what Christmas is all about – a birth that leads to death on a cross that leads to new birth in Christ for eternity. 

Yes, people of God, things are stirring deep within us and have been ever since the day of our baptism into Christ. These stirrings are going on also each and every time we come to this table where we eat and drink the Word who is Christ made known to us in the breaking of bread and in the sharing of the cup. 

Through this simple meal, Christ literally enters into our bellies, into the tomb-like cavities of our bodies and being. Thus, those lonely, empty voids also become wombs of new birth, this time to give birth to the Word who is Christ in our outwardly words and deeds, offered as a gift to our weary world where the proud, powerful and rich continue to lord it over us. 

The seed of God’s word planted in us via this holy meal comes to term in due course, and we give birth to prophetic words and deeds such that we share in God’s work of bringing to pass exactly what Mary sang about: scattering the proud, bringing down the powerful from their thrones, lifting up the lowly, filling the hungry with good things, sending the rich away empty, showing favor and mercy to God’s people.

This all began to be fulfilled in Jesus’ own public ministry, his preaching and teaching, his washing the disciples’ feet in servant leadership, his feeding the thousands, his calling to the rich to share their abundance. 

And the fulfillment of Mary’s song continued when the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost to give birth to the church and its communal living that cultivated humility and service and sharing possessions. 

And the church continues this prophetic, saving work even today when we do as Jesus did and as Mary sang about. We go as Mary did with haste into the world, rejoicing that Christ continues through us and our ministries to show God’s favor and mercy and aid to our lost generation fulfilling the promises made to our ancestors. 

What a gift at Christmas. What a gift for all time. Thanks be to God. Amen.