Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
• That’s the 3rd verse of O Holy Night – Placide Cappeau (placeed Cappew) and Adolphe Adam in 1843
It’s in this verse that the poet focused on one slice of humanity for whom the coming of Jesus is particularly promising…
Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
• Christmas is a sign of hope for those who are unloved
• Christmas is a sign of hope for those who are without peace
• Christmas is a sign of hope for people chained by fear, injustice, and other human beings
• Christmas is a sign of hope for the oppressed people of our world.
The birth of Jesus is a sign that the marginalized and vulnerable of humanity can find freedom, love and justice.
At the heart of Luke’s story of the coming of Jesus is just such a marginalized and vulnerable person. Not just any person…maybe other than Jesus himself, the person at the very heart of the Christmas story…
Luke 1:26-56
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you! Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean.
Luke 1: 26 - 29
• Last week we met both Elizabeth
• and this angel, Gabriel.
• Turns out Elizabeth is a relative of Mary.
“You are a favored” – you have been uniquely singled out as a recipient of grace and special honor …and in the unique place of having God’s presence and blessing. “the Lord is with you”
Which is astonishing because…
• Mary was mid-teens (15), woman,
• Virgin – not married and no husband
• Galilean (rural)
• Nazareth (tiny town) – can any good thing come out of…Nathaniel
She was a nobody from nowhere with no stature and no influence – she was a marginalized person who was insignificant, disempowered, without regard. Living on the margins of society. Her only hope out of the margins was in the fact that she was soon to be married….and THIS was threatened by the nature of her pregnancy.
So you can understand why she felt the way she did…confused and disturbed.
I’ll summarize what happens next:
• “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! Luke 1:30
• You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end! Luke 1:31-33
• Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin. The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. For the word of God will never fail. Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her. Luke 1:34-38
The story continues…I will summarize
• Takes a journey to visit Elizabeth
• When she walks in the house and greets Elizabeth baby John moves in his mom.
• Elizabeth is carried away by the spirit….God has blessed you and your baby!
Mary responded,…with a song
• The Magnificat “my soul praises or magnifies the Lord”
I like this description – it is the song of reversals – the song of turnarounds – the song of answered or met longings.
Let me read it out loud first…
“Oh, how my soul praises the Lord.
47 How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!
48 For he took notice of his lowly servant girl,
and from now on all generations will call me blessed.
49 For the Mighty One is holy,
and he has done great things (one for whom great things were a pipe dream) for me.
50 He shows mercy from generation to generation
to all who fear him.
51 His mighty arm has done tremendous things!
He has scattered the proud and haughty ones.
52 He has brought down princes from their thrones
and exalted the humble.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away with empty hands.
54 He has helped his servant Israel
and remembered to be merciful.
55 For he made this promise to our ancestors,
to Abraham and his children forever.”
Let’s look more closely at what Mary says…
…he took notice of his lowly servant girl Luke 1:48
• I am a nobody from nowhere – I am a marginalized one
• I longed to be seen…to be noticed…to be acknowledged
• And God has met that longing – he saw me
Note: For anyone on the margins of a community to be seen and acknowledged is a deep longing!
• Not pitied or patronized and certainly not ignored…but seen and acknowledged
…he has done great things for me. Luke 1:49
• Marginalized people rarely have great things happened to them…Reading between the lines…all I longed for maybe to have a simple life but you have exploded my life with hope
…He showed me mercy Luke 1:50
• But you showed me mercy! You looked at me with compassion and sympathy
o On the margins people wonder if anybody cares or even notices
o The vulnerable assume that only the rich and influential get noticed
That they never get the breaks.
…he exalted the humble. Luke 1: 52
• Again…the self-image of those on the periphery of society is that they are nobodies.
• IL – workshop
…He has filled the hungry with good things Luke 1:53
• Hunger is a powerful motivation, of course for physical food
o longing to catch a break…for their luck to change
o a craving for significance
o gnawing desire for things to go right for a change
I can see why some call this the song of reversals.
Song for the victims of injustice.
Song of inclusion for those on the margins.
Song of longings met for the vulnerable.
Song of hope for lost causes.
I find this song of Mary both fascinating and deeply frustrating
It’s fascinating because Jesus picked up on his mother’s song…some 30 years later…
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,
that the blind will see,
that the oppressed will be set free,
and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come. Luke 4:18-19
And you hear his mother’s song right at the outset of the sermon on the mount:
God blesses you who are poor,
for the Kingdom of God is yours.
God blesses you who are hungry now,
for you will be satisfied.
God blesses you who weep now,
for in due time you will laugh. Luke 6:20-21
Jesus turned his mom’s song into reality… acknowledging, loving, healing, releasing, and anointing the vulnerable and marginalized.
And this is why Christmas is a celebration of justice for lost causes and those stuck on the margins of humanity.
But even that makes the song so very frustrating.
Mary’s song and Jesus’ sampling of her song are still a pipe dream for millions of vulnerable, marginalized victims of injustices in our world right at this very moment.
I know you share my frustration. That’s what I love about this church. We agonize with the vulnerable and marginalized.
So what do we do with our frustration.
1) We wait, hope and pray for God’s intervention – “not yet”
2) Better yet…we take Mary’s song as our rallying cry to action. It is our call to love the vulnerable and welcome the marginalized into the community of God.
This is the way Jesus designed it.
The person who trusts me will not only do what I’m doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I’ve been doing. John 14:12 The Message
The birth of Jesus is a sign that the marginalized and vulnerable of humanity can find freedom, love and justice…
And the birth of Jesus is a catalyst to launch you into your calling to heal the broken places of our world.