Third Sunday of Advent

Last night, millions of people watched the final of Strictly Come Dancing: the BBC television show where celebrity dancers and their professional partners compete week by week to be voted number one.  At the end of the show last night, the tension in the room was palpable. Gripped with anticipation, the two final couples waited for the final result:  the BBC Sports presenter Chris Hollins and his partner Ola Jordan and Hollyoaks actor Ricky Whittle his partner Natalie Lowe. Both couples had produced energetic final show dances. Finally, the host of the show, Bruce Forsyth announced that the winner of Strictly Come Dancing 2009 was Chris Hollins and his partner Orla Jordan. If you were watching, you’d have seen at this point an ecstatic Chris Hollins and his partner Orla overwhelmed; the stage was invaded by well wishers, sparkling confetti poured down from on high, with fellow dancers lifting Chris high to a standing ovation! It was a wild celebration.

When was the last time you celebrated wildly? Just think about that for a moment with me? What would make you celebrate? What would make you sing from the rooftops? Or dance in the aisles at St Mary’s like our friends the Morris Men this morning! Would it be the news that someone close to you who’d been sick was getting better? Or news that your country had escaped tyranny and oppression, Perhaps it would be wining the lottery? Passing an exam? Being appointed to a new job? Or the person you fell in love with love saying yes, to your proposal of marriage? Or was it the birth of a child that caused you to sing for joy?

Whatever it is that makes you celebrate, you’d probably do things you’d not normally do. You might even dance in the aisles! Or ring bells! You might reach for the telephone and call up friends and family and invite them to come and celebrate with you. You might even burst into song – or make one up on the spur of the moment, perhaps using phrases from songs you knew already! A few lines from a hymn you loved or a poem that captured your thoughts.

Well, we come this morning in our Gospel reading to reflect on Mary’s song, a much loved and very ancient hymn. It’s often called the Magnificat – named after its first word in Latin. Praise! Probably, already in existence before Luke included it into his birth narrative here. This song of great celebration is one of the most frequently recited hymns:  it’s sung during vespers in the Roman Catholic Church and at evensong in the Anglican Church. And In Eastern Christianity, the Magnificat is sung at Matins.  Composers like Monteverdi, Bach, Vivaldi and Rachmaninoff have set the song to music and more recent contemporary settings have been offered by Rutter , Rizza and even by the band U2!

The writer of Luke’s gospel invites us all into Mary’s world, and that of another woman, her cousin Elizabeth. For here, unlike the writer of Mathew’s gospel who focus’ on Joseph, Luke begins his story of Jesus from a women’s perspective. In Luke, Mary, Jesus’ mother is prominent; her story comes first, her response to God is heralded and her spoken words are far greater than any other character in this gospel.  

We are at the point in the story after the angel Gabriel has visited Mary, telling her she will give birth to a child. Mary has gone to the hill country to visit Elizabeth, who is also expecting a child. Here we have a rare scene in scripture; two women only in the picture frame. It’s intimate, and we can almost feel as though we are eaves dropping in on their conversation, which in a way makes it all the more, extraordinary, that what is said by Mary has become so well known, so well sung, painted, sculpted and loved. These two women meet and converse without men present; echoing the Old Testament stories of other women. Intentionally, Luke helps us to think of Hannah and Paninnah, the mother of Elkanah’s children (1 Samuel 1) and of Rachel and Leah (Genesis 30:14-15). Though unlike these rivals, Mary and her cousin Elizabeth have a positive relationship. But the link is made from the Old Covenant to the beginning of something new, something quite wonderful that is about to happen. Mary, a young, betrothed teenager, who has received news that she is to have a child. News that changes her life in an instant. Then Mary begins to sing this great love song; picking up the tune from other women, who have sung in the Hebrew scriptures before her, of God’s salvation. Women such as Miriam (Exodus 15:21), Deborah (Judges 5) Hannah, (1 Samuel 2:1-10) and Judith (Judith 16:1-17) in the apocryphal book. Luke uses this particular technique of echoing others to highlight his important message. He uses the Old Testament to underpin his story of Jesus, the one who is to come. Luke draws our attention to the God of the Old Testament, the God of Creation who continues to be at work into the New Testament and today.

Today we hear within Mary’s great hymn of praise how God is bringing salvation, promised long ago to those ancient people of the Old Testament– by bringing into the world, Jesus, the saviour, heralded by John, Jesus is to be born of obedient and faithful Mary. Mary a young, vulnerable woman, the human agent; through whom God will bring salvation into the world. To all people, to us today. In contrast we have Elizabeth. Whose role in Luke is best compared with those barren Israelite mothers of the Old Testament, who were enabled to give birth by God in order for their offspring to play an important role in God’s purpose for all Gods people. Mary also belongs to that group of Old Testament women, not because she was old and barren, but because as a virgin she could not have born a son, without Gods’ miraculous intervention. Mary belongs to the Old Testament women but equally marks the start of God doing something new. Mary is the one who hears God’s plan for her life and acts in obedience to accept her calling to carry and give birth, to nurture and to love the Christ child. As for many of us, memories are often linked strongly to a particular piece of music. When we hear that music played we are taken back to that place or conversation.

For some time now, my dear husband Glynn has taken me to hear Handel’s Messiah on or near my birthday. Whenever we get to part three and the base sings “behold, I tell you a mystery …at last a trumpet shall sound” my heart skips a beat: I have a memory of being five months pregnant with my first daughter and at precisely the moment the trumpet blasts into the melody, she leapt in my womb! So, like many women who have carried children, like Elizabeth, I sense that joy in the womb, Luke tells of here, not once but twice. What is Elizabeth’s joy? Why is she filled with the Holy Spirit and rejoicing? Mary has a gospel to proclaim, thirty weeks before Bethlehem and the shepherds, before the gospel is fully explained to us by Luke; it’s all here in Mary’s song: which is all about the child she is carrying, Jesus. It’s about a revolution that has begun as she carries the Christ in her womb, awaiting his birth. So Mary bursts into song. Because the child she carries has everything to do with God’s power overthrowing the power structures of the world, demolishing the mighty and exalting the humble.

You see Mary and Elizabeth, share a dream, that one day all that the prophets of the Old Testament said would come true. One day, all nations would be blessed through Abraham’s family by the overturning of the powers that kept people in slavery. For Mary and Elizabeth lived in the dark ages of Herod the Great, whose tyranny was coupled with the occupying Roman Empire. Both Mary and Elizabeth probably searched the Old Testament scriptures looking for writings that spoke of hope, of promises to be fulfilled, of signs of something new coming, which would bring freedom from oppression and a rescue for all into a new order which God would implement. All of this hope is echoed in Mary’s song. Almost every word is a quote from the Old Testament, which Mary would have heard and learnt as a child. Much of the song echoes Hannah’s song from 1 Samuel; where Hannah praises God for her son and all that God will do through him. So Mary celebrates in song, all that God will do through her son Jesus. Albeit she may not fully understand all that this means just yet.

Luke uses this picture of two women rejoicing in their pregnancies, to prepare us for all that is to follow; for as the boys grow up, Elizabeth’s John and Mary’s Jesus, become the agents of God’s long-promised revolution. John who will herald the new order, and Jesus, who will reign supreme over all the powers of evil. Jesus who will free people from slavery and bring in Gods kingdom for the poor and oppressed. Turning upside down, the worlds order and priority, to bring in Gods kingdom. Luke’s picture of two women celebrating is a celebration of God. God who choose Mary, who did great things for her, who shows mercy to all who fear him from generation to generation, who scatters the powerful, who lifts the lowly, feeds the hungry, and remembers and fulfils his promise made to Abraham and his descendants forever.

So as we approach these last few days of advent waiting for Christmas, let’s take these last few moments to ask ourselves: How am I celebrating God’s initiative in sending Jesus to be born of Mary? what does that mean for me today? For us here in the centre of Stafford at St Mary’s on the fourth Sunday of advent? Does hearing Mary’s song of praise fill me with thanksgiving?  Does it encourage me to sing my own song to God? Thanking him for Jesus? And all that he means in my life? If it does, I rejoice with you, that’s wonderful. Thank God for that! But I ask myself and us do our words of thanksgiving translate into actions of love and service? Would others know that my life is one of thanksgiving to God? Am I listening to hear God’s voice ready to respond to what he longs for me? Or maybe the song baffles you?  If this is the case you’re in good company.

Many who heard of Jesus were first baffled or puzzled. But can I encourage you to come and find out more about Jesus? If you’re in this place, then you are invited to come, to come to the one who comes to us. Simply ask the Christ child, Jesus to come to you. For like Mary, it is as we say yes to God, we begin an exciting journey of faith with a God who does great things for us. Amen.