Christmas does not always feel like a joyful time. The good news of Jesus’ birth does not come to a world unbroken. God comes to us in Jesus and brings the light, and in the light we can rejoice.

Vicar Meagan McLaughlin
The Nativity of Our Lord, Christmas Day
   texts: Isaiah 52: 7-10, Psalm 98, Hebrews 1: 1-12, John 1: 1-14

Joy and peace to you, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Since my youngest brother Kevin moved out of state many years ago, we have a tradition of talking on the phone every Christmas Day if he is not in town, and we always start out by singing to each other, as we did here this morning . . . “Joy to the world, the Lord is come . . .”  If Advent is about waiting, expectation, hope, Christmas is about joy.  Jesus has come, God is with us, Emmanuel!  Isaiah cries out to the people describing the beauty of the very feet of the messenger who announces peace and the fulfillment of salvation, and the sentinels sing in joy at the news.  God reigns, the promise has been fulfilled!  And it is good news.  Joy to the world, indeed!

The truth is, however, that Christmas does not always feel like a joyful time.  Joy as we experience it in this world is fleeting, dependent on external circumstances, and it is not easy to feel joyful in times of struggle.  We live in a broken world, and we are painfully aware, especially as we take seriously the voices calling for justice in our communities, of our own sin and need for forgiveness and healing.  And meanwhile, the ebb and flow of life continues around us.  There are people in this community today grieving the death of loved ones, walking through a loved one’s final days of life, experiencing serious medical crises, poverty, and homelessness, and facing many other very real challenges.  Grief, fear, and anger are present around us.  In the midst of these realities, the invitation—the command—to “be joyful” can sound like a directive to ignore the dark side of the truth and pretend everything is fine, or it can sound like an impossible task that quickly becomes evidence of our failure, weak faith.

We live in a world that tells us, and we often tell ourselves, “I could be happy if . . .” and “All will be well, when . . .”  Fill in the blank.  Spoken or unspoken, we all have our conditions.  If I complete this project perfectly.  When I lose 10 pounds.  If I get the right job.  When I am completely healthy.  These messages set us up for disappointment and failure on so many levels.  And the worst part is, when we hold on to these conditions, we are captive to the mistaken belief that rejoicing is only possible when the problems of this world, and our own lives, have been resolved, everything is in order, even perfect.  This is an expectation that we, and life itself, are never going to meet.  Our country is torn apart by violence, racism, to the point where at times it can seem so dark as to be beyond all hope, and it can even feel that we must have been abandoned by God for such sorrow, or pain, or devastation, to exist.

Thanks be to God, the good news of Jesus’ birth does not come to a world unbroken.  The promise in John is not that there is no darkness, but that the darkness has not overcome the light.  Isaiah’s cry is not to a people living in wholeness, success, and comfort.  Isaiah calls to a people living in exile, experiencing the reality of the destruction of the temple which they saw as the house of God.  As far as the people were concerned, God had been cast out and had abandoned the people with the tearing down of the temple, many had died, Israel was scattered.  Isaiah’s song goes out not to a people united and free, with a temple standing in glory, but to the ruins and the wastelands.  And as they stand in the ruins, the people are called to sing and praise, trusting in the comfort of a God who promises restoration.  They may not have been feeling joy, but they were called to rejoice.

We are, in many ways, living as much in the ruins and wastelands as the people of Israel were in the time of Isaiah.  As we hear Isaiah’s cry, and John’s promise, for ourselves, the darkness, the sin, the grief, the pain of this life we live are not swept aside or discounted, but assumed.  And the promise to us is the same as it has been from the beginning.  No matter how dark the world we live in, and how hard it may be at times to feel joy, the light of God shines in the darkness, and will never be overcome.

This Christmas Day, we come together as people of the light.  We know the darkness—it is all around us.  God came to this broken world in Jesus so that we also know the light.  We know that God is always with us, right in the midst of our very human experience, not only in the joys but also in the sorrows.  We know the extravagant love that brought our God to us, and God’s promise to heal and transform us and this broken world.  We know the faithfulness of the people of God in the stories handed down for generations and generations.  And we know the faithfulness of our God, who comes to us as light in the darkness.

We are called every day, but especially on this day of rejoicing in God’s coming to us in Jesus, to be the presence of God in this world.  We rejoiced in the light of God this week when we opened Mount Olive’s doors and the hungry among our members and the hungry among our neighbors shared food and fellowship at the Community Meal.  We rejoiced when we came together to provide gifts for children whose parents are struggling to cover basic needs.  We rejoiced as we decorated this sacred space, and rehearsed music, and prepared to celebrate liturgies together, claiming the promise of God alive in our midst.

We are called to continue to rejoice as we offer love and comfort to those in this community and in our families who are particularly burdened with the darkness of this life, letting them know that they are not alone and that the God of light stands with them.  We are called to rejoice as we stand with those crying for justice, and become willing to change so that justice is possible.  And, we are called to rejoice as we celebrate with those experiencing life, healing, and love.  All around us are opportunities to witness to the light that the darkness will not overcome.  How will you rejoice today?  To whom will you carry the light?

If Advent is about waiting and watching and hoping, Christmas is about rejoicing, regardless of our circumstances.  Jesus, Emanuel, God with us, has come to be a light in the midst of our darkness.  A single candle in a dark room can bring light for the one who carries it, and for those who stand near them.  And from the light of just one candle, countless candles can be lit, and the light grows.  The darkness will never overcome it.  God comes to us in Jesus and brings the light, and in the light we can rejoice!

Thanks be to God!

Christmas does not always feel like a joyful time. The good news of Jesus’ birth does not come to a world unbroken. God comes to us in Jesus and brings the light, and in the light we can rejoice.

Vicar Meagan McLaughlin
The Nativity of Our Lord, Christmas Day
   texts: Isaiah 52: 7-10, Psalm 98, Hebrews 1: 1-12, John 1: 1-14

Joy and peace to you, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Since my youngest brother Kevin moved out of state many years ago, we have a tradition of talking on the phone every Christmas Day if he is not in town, and we always start out by singing to each other, as we did here this morning . . . “Joy to the world, the Lord is come . . .”  If Advent is about waiting, expectation, hope, Christmas is about joy.  Jesus has come, God is with us, Emmanuel!  Isaiah cries out to the people describing the beauty of the very feet of the messenger who announces peace and the fulfillment of salvation, and the sentinels sing in joy at the news.  God reigns, the promise has been fulfilled!  And it is good news.  Joy to the world, indeed!

The truth is, however, that Christmas does not always feel like a joyful time.  Joy as we experience it in this world is fleeting, dependent on external circumstances, and it is not easy to feel joyful in times of struggle.  We live in a broken world, and we are painfully aware, especially as we take seriously the voices calling for justice in our communities, of our own sin and need for forgiveness and healing.  And meanwhile, the ebb and flow of life continues around us.  There are people in this community today grieving the death of loved ones, walking through a loved one’s final days of life, experiencing serious medical crises, poverty, and homelessness, and facing many other very real challenges.  Grief, fear, and anger are present around us.  In the midst of these realities, the invitation—the command—to “be joyful” can sound like a directive to ignore the dark side of the truth and pretend everything is fine, or it can sound like an impossible task that quickly becomes evidence of our failure, weak faith.

We live in a world that tells us, and we often tell ourselves, “I could be happy if . . .” and “All will be well, when . . .”  Fill in the blank.  Spoken or unspoken, we all have our conditions.  If I complete this project perfectly.  When I lose 10 pounds.  If I get the right job.  When I am completely healthy.  These messages set us up for disappointment and failure on so many levels.  And the worst part is, when we hold on to these conditions, we are captive to the mistaken belief that rejoicing is only possible when the problems of this world, and our own lives, have been resolved, everything is in order, even perfect.  This is an expectation that we, and life itself, are never going to meet.  Our country is torn apart by violence, racism, to the point where at times it can seem so dark as to be beyond all hope, and it can even feel that we must have been abandoned by God for such sorrow, or pain, or devastation, to exist.

Thanks be to God, the good news of Jesus’ birth does not come to a world unbroken.  The promise in John is not that there is no darkness, but that the darkness has not overcome the light.  Isaiah’s cry is not to a people living in wholeness, success, and comfort.  Isaiah calls to a people living in exile, experiencing the reality of the destruction of the temple which they saw as the house of God.  As far as the people were concerned, God had been cast out and had abandoned the people with the tearing down of the temple, many had died, Israel was scattered.  Isaiah’s song goes out not to a people united and free, with a temple standing in glory, but to the ruins and the wastelands.  And as they stand in the ruins, the people are called to sing and praise, trusting in the comfort of a God who promises restoration.  They may not have been feeling joy, but they were called to rejoice.

We are, in many ways, living as much in the ruins and wastelands as the people of Israel were in the time of Isaiah.  As we hear Isaiah’s cry, and John’s promise, for ourselves, the darkness, the sin, the grief, the pain of this life we live are not swept aside or discounted, but assumed.  And the promise to us is the same as it has been from the beginning.  No matter how dark the world we live in, and how hard it may be at times to feel joy, the light of God shines in the darkness, and will never be overcome.

This Christmas Day, we come together as people of the light.  We know the darkness—it is all around us.  God came to this broken world in Jesus so that we also know the light.  We know that God is always with us, right in the midst of our very human experience, not only in the joys but also in the sorrows.  We know the extravagant love that brought our God to us, and God’s promise to heal and transform us and this broken world.  We know the faithfulness of the people of God in the stories handed down for generations and generations.  And we know the faithfulness of our God, who comes to us as light in the darkness.

We are called every day, but especially on this day of rejoicing in God’s coming to us in Jesus, to be the presence of God in this world.  We rejoiced in the light of God this week when we opened Mount Olive’s doors and the hungry among our members and the hungry among our neighbors shared food and fellowship at the Community Meal.  We rejoiced when we came together to provide gifts for children whose parents are struggling to cover basic needs.  We rejoiced as we decorated this sacred space, and rehearsed music, and prepared to celebrate liturgies together, claiming the promise of God alive in our midst.

We are called to continue to rejoice as we offer love and comfort to those in this community and in our families who are particularly burdened with the darkness of this life, letting them know that they are not alone and that the God of light stands with them.  We are called to rejoice as we stand with those crying for justice, and become willing to change so that justice is possible.  And, we are called to rejoice as we celebrate with those experiencing life, healing, and love.  All around us are opportunities to witness to the light that the darkness will not overcome.  How will you rejoice today?  To whom will you carry the light?

If Advent is about waiting and watching and hoping, Christmas is about rejoicing, regardless of our circumstances.  Jesus, Emanuel, God with us, has come to be a light in the midst of our darkness.  A single candle in a dark room can bring light for the one who carries it, and for those who stand near them.  And from the light of just one candle, countless candles can be lit, and the light grows.  The darkness will never overcome it.  God comes to us in Jesus and brings the light, and in the light we can rejoice!

Thanks be to God!

This night is not an escape, a sweetness that makes us forget the darkness of the world; it is God’s entering into that darkness to make light – in Jesus, then in us.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Nativity of Our Lord, Christmas Eve
   texts:  Luke 2:1-20; Isaiah 9:2-7

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined.”

That’s Isaiah’s claim.  This birth, this child, is God’s light in the darkness of this world.  And there’s plenty of darkness.  We’re destroying the environment, we’re drowning in hatred and prejudice, we see little hope to an end to war and hunger and oppression.  In our personal lives, things aren’t perfect; loved ones suffer, loved ones die; family members disappoint us, or we them.  We fear the future, other people, other nations, our own actions.  We know about walking in darkness.

If Isaiah tells the truth, this child, this birth, is the transformational gift of God for the whole world.  God’s light actually shining into our deep darkness.

We need to be careful we aren’t overcome by the beauty of these words, the beauty of Christmas music, the beauty of these brief minutes here tonight, and forget all these proclaim this is God’s truth that changes the world.

We need to be careful we don’t see this liturgy as a moment of escape from a difficult life, a scary world, from our problems and anxieties, and forget that this birth, this child, signals the precise opposite of escape for God and for us.  God has entered our world, our darkness, our anxieties, our fears, our pain and that of all people, and has an answer in this child and in us that will finally heal all things.

This night cannot be simply a beautiful moment that has no impact on our lives or the world.

This night cannot be simply a time to sing words of deliverance and hope from God without believing this deliverance and hope is true and already working in the world.

Much of what passes for “Christmas spirit” and “holiday cheer” are artificial attempts to manufacture a sense of hope and joy centered on this night.  All the planning, all the purchasing, all the hoping for a perfect holiday, all attempt to make something that isn’t real.  We try to create joy and hope, we desire perfection in celebration, in family behavior, in food, in gifts, as if all that is the real good news.  But if our lives, our families, our city, our world, are not whole and at peace and perfect in October or in February, pretending they are in this one season, hoping they will be, is guaranteed to disappoint.

This night either signals the grace of God alive in the world that we can rely on, proclaim, trust in every day that follows tonight, or it’s just an escape from reality.  And reality is going to hit us pretty hard tomorrow, or the next day.  Maybe even tonight.

In fact, we can only see God’s Good News when we realize our families don’t always get along, when our celebrations fall apart, when we just can’t get into the spirit, when we suffer pain and loss at this season, when others frighten us, or disappoint us, when the world looks as if it is broken beyond repair.

Because when we know we’re living in darkness, and don’t need to fake that we’re not, the Good News that God’s doing something to lighten that darkness is something we can hear, believe, and live.

So listen to the angel: this is no ordinary baby.

The shepherds weren’t sent to a beautiful star-lit crèche to be overcome with sentiment at a baby in his mother’s arms.

They were told by the angel of God that if they went they would find a Savior, a Messiah, a Lord in that baby.  The challenge the angel gives the shepherds and us is to force ourselves away from the distraction of the sweetness of this night, of a little baby, and see God’s answer to the pain of the world.

A cute baby only distracts us.  The Son of God can actually save us.

The angel says that’s exactly what this baby will do, that news of this baby’s coming is “great joy for all the people.”

Listen to Isaiah: the yoke of oppression is broken in this child.  The birth of this child signals the end of enslavement for all people.  The end of oppression.  If this is true, if Jesus will do this, then there is real joy for all people.

Listen to Isaiah: the boots of the tramping warriors and the garments rolled in blood will be burned for heating.  This is even more potent than beating swords into plowshares.  This child is the Prince of Peace, Isaiah says, and in his coming wars will end, and all the implements of war will become fuel to warm the children of this world.  If this is true, if Jesus will do this, then there is real joy for all people.

This is the truth we seek tonight: how is the coming of this child the beginning of God’s ending of human violence and hate and killing?  How is it God’s answer to our own fears and pain?  How is God born as a baby any kind of answer to this dark world, to all people?

That is, does a vulnerable God – an able-to-be-wounded God – who lives as one of us, change anything?

It’s the only thing that can.  If God came to clean house in a world of sin and pain, well, we saw what happened last time in the Great Flood.  If God truly wants “endless peace,” as Isaiah proclaims, that can only happen with our transformed hearts and minds, not with violence and power and destruction.  God as divine warrior and judge and punisher only means lots more garments rolled in blood, lots more boots of tramping warriors.  God cannot be allied with the powers of this world that use violence and killing to achieve their ends, that think only force can change things.

So the Son of God doesn’t destroy, he allows us to destroy him.  He shows the power of love by letting go of his divine power, starting with this birth.  In his dying and rising there is a new order in this world: that those who follow God’s path can change the world.  When we follow the way of the cross we find God’s grace and love in our darkness, and we become part of the ending of violence and hate.  We can’t take such tools and make any good use of them.  We can only put ourselves in their way and by our own wounding, like Christ’s, begin to change things.  Begin to be light ourselves.

When we listen to the angel’s words about this unassuming birth in an unexceptional place to unremarkable people, and we really start to claim those words as our hope, our belief, then what we do tonight, what we hear tonight, what we experience tonight can stay with us.

Well beyond the disappointments of the day after, well into the slog of January, well into the darkness of this world, we are different because of this truth, and so is the world.

So listen to the angel.

Don’t be afraid, the angel says – of darkness, of pain and suffering, of the inadequacies of life – don’t be afraid.  Do not be afraid, because in us, in all God’s people, God is making a difference through this child.  Freed from our fear, our expectations, our addiction to power, we are able to see how it might be that we can bear the same self-giving, sacrificial love into this world of darkness and pain and be God’s light and healing.

We’re not here to escape.  We’re here to marvel at the news and seek God’s grace to let it sink into our hearts and minds so we not only believe this coming makes a difference, but actually live lives that are part of that difference.

We leave here tonight changed, like the shepherds.  Like them, we leave to make known what has been told us about this child.  When we do that, when we live that, then as it was long ago it will be again, and all who hear us, see us, meet us, will be amazed.  And light will shine in the darkness.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

This night is not an escape, a sweetness that makes us forget the darkness of the world; it is God’s entering into that darkness to make light – in Jesus, then in us.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Nativity of Our Lord, Christmas Eve
   texts:  Luke 2:1-20; Isaiah 9:2-7

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined.”

That’s Isaiah’s claim.  This birth, this child, is God’s light in the darkness of this world.  And there’s plenty of darkness.  We’re destroying the environment, we’re drowning in hatred and prejudice, we see little hope to an end to war and hunger and oppression.  In our personal lives, things aren’t perfect; loved ones suffer, loved ones die; family members disappoint us, or we them.  We fear the future, other people, other nations, our own actions.  We know about walking in darkness.

If Isaiah tells the truth, this child, this birth, is the transformational gift of God for the whole world.  God’s light actually shining into our deep darkness.

We need to be careful we aren’t overcome by the beauty of these words, the beauty of Christmas music, the beauty of these brief minutes here tonight, and forget all these proclaim this is God’s truth that changes the world.

We need to be careful we don’t see this liturgy as a moment of escape from a difficult life, a scary world, from our problems and anxieties, and forget that this birth, this child, signals the precise opposite of escape for God and for us.  God has entered our world, our darkness, our anxieties, our fears, our pain and that of all people, and has an answer in this child and in us that will finally heal all things.

This night cannot be simply a beautiful moment that has no impact on our lives or the world.

This night cannot be simply a time to sing words of deliverance and hope from God without believing this deliverance and hope is true and already working in the world.

Much of what passes for “Christmas spirit” and “holiday cheer” are artificial attempts to manufacture a sense of hope and joy centered on this night.  All the planning, all the purchasing, all the hoping for a perfect holiday, all attempt to make something that isn’t real.  We try to create joy and hope, we desire perfection in celebration, in family behavior, in food, in gifts, as if all that is the real good news.  But if our lives, our families, our city, our world, are not whole and at peace and perfect in October or in February, pretending they are in this one season, hoping they will be, is guaranteed to disappoint.

This night either signals the grace of God alive in the world that we can rely on, proclaim, trust in every day that follows tonight, or it’s just an escape from reality.  And reality is going to hit us pretty hard tomorrow, or the next day.  Maybe even tonight.

In fact, we can only see God’s Good News when we realize our families don’t always get along, when our celebrations fall apart, when we just can’t get into the spirit, when we suffer pain and loss at this season, when others frighten us, or disappoint us, when the world looks as if it is broken beyond repair.

Because when we know we’re living in darkness, and don’t need to fake that we’re not, the Good News that God’s doing something to lighten that darkness is something we can hear, believe, and live.

So listen to the angel: this is no ordinary baby.

The shepherds weren’t sent to a beautiful star-lit crèche to be overcome with sentiment at a baby in his mother’s arms.

They were told by the angel of God that if they went they would find a Savior, a Messiah, a Lord in that baby.  The challenge the angel gives the shepherds and us is to force ourselves away from the distraction of the sweetness of this night, of a little baby, and see God’s answer to the pain of the world.

A cute baby only distracts us.  The Son of God can actually save us.

The angel says that’s exactly what this baby will do, that news of this baby’s coming is “great joy for all the people.”

Listen to Isaiah: the yoke of oppression is broken in this child.  The birth of this child signals the end of enslavement for all people.  The end of oppression.  If this is true, if Jesus will do this, then there is real joy for all people.

Listen to Isaiah: the boots of the tramping warriors and the garments rolled in blood will be burned for heating.  This is even more potent than beating swords into plowshares.  This child is the Prince of Peace, Isaiah says, and in his coming wars will end, and all the implements of war will become fuel to warm the children of this world.  If this is true, if Jesus will do this, then there is real joy for all people.

This is the truth we seek tonight: how is the coming of this child the beginning of God’s ending of human violence and hate and killing?  How is it God’s answer to our own fears and pain?  How is God born as a baby any kind of answer to this dark world, to all people?

That is, does a vulnerable God – an able-to-be-wounded God – who lives as one of us, change anything?

It’s the only thing that can.  If God came to clean house in a world of sin and pain, well, we saw what happened last time in the Great Flood.  If God truly wants “endless peace,” as Isaiah proclaims, that can only happen with our transformed hearts and minds, not with violence and power and destruction.  God as divine warrior and judge and punisher only means lots more garments rolled in blood, lots more boots of tramping warriors.  God cannot be allied with the powers of this world that use violence and killing to achieve their ends, that think only force can change things.

So the Son of God doesn’t destroy, he allows us to destroy him.  He shows the power of love by letting go of his divine power, starting with this birth.  In his dying and rising there is a new order in this world: that those who follow God’s path can change the world.  When we follow the way of the cross we find God’s grace and love in our darkness, and we become part of the ending of violence and hate.  We can’t take such tools and make any good use of them.  We can only put ourselves in their way and by our own wounding, like Christ’s, begin to change things.  Begin to be light ourselves.

When we listen to the angel’s words about this unassuming birth in an unexceptional place to unremarkable people, and we really start to claim those words as our hope, our belief, then what we do tonight, what we hear tonight, what we experience tonight can stay with us.

Well beyond the disappointments of the day after, well into the slog of January, well into the darkness of this world, we are different because of this truth, and so is the world.

So listen to the angel.

Don’t be afraid, the angel says – of darkness, of pain and suffering, of the inadequacies of life – don’t be afraid.  Do not be afraid, because in us, in all God’s people, God is making a difference through this child.  Freed from our fear, our expectations, our addiction to power, we are able to see how it might be that we can bear the same self-giving, sacrificial love into this world of darkness and pain and be God’s light and healing.

We’re not here to escape.  We’re here to marvel at the news and seek God’s grace to let it sink into our hearts and minds so we not only believe this coming makes a difference, but actually live lives that are part of that difference.

We leave here tonight changed, like the shepherds.  Like them, we leave to make known what has been told us about this child.  When we do that, when we live that, then as it was long ago it will be again, and all who hear us, see us, meet us, will be amazed.  And light will shine in the darkness.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Mary sings that God is turning the world upside down, looking for the lowly, the hungry, those in pain, to lift them up and bring life to them.  That will mean loss for us, but the grace is that God also comes to us.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Fourth Sunday of Advent, year B
   texts:  Luke 1:46b-55 (The Magnificat, the psalm for this day); 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Can we really sing this song?

“You have shown the strength of your arm and scattered the proud in their conceit.  You have cast down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly.  You have filled the hungry with good things, and you have sent the rich away empty.”

We sang this.  Mary sang this.  Are we sure we want what we’re singing?  This is Exodus language, “the strength of your arm.”  That’s how God freed the Israelite slaves.  This is end-of-Babylon language; God brought back the exiles with a “strong hand and an outstretched arm.”

We should be careful about singing this song.  If the proud and conceited, the rich and mighty are going to be cast down, well, don’t look too far.  We’re talking about ourselves.

Mary could sing this song.

Mary was hungry.  She certainly was lowly.  Pride and a sense of being mighty never crossed her mind.  She sang of God’s revolution, that in her child to come God would turn the world upside down.  This was good news to her.

Gabriel told her the wonder that her child would be the promised heir to David’s throne.  “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High.”  In Samuel today David is promised his house will last forever, there will always be a king in his line.  So this lowly, hungry young woman on the bottom of society’s pile is to give birth to a new ruler of Israel.

Mary had good reason to sing this song.

But Mary didn’t know that God’s plan was very different than Gabriel and Nathan seemed to imply.

She didn’t know that God’s plan to have a Shepherd King had changed significantly since David’s day, that God would come and offer his life for the world as Shepherd.  The fulfillment of the promise would not be in creating a new emperor, or overthrowing a government, replacing the proud with the lowly only to have the lowly become the new dominators and tyrants, the way the world does such things.

It would be by the Son of God dying for love of the world, ruling from a cross, and transforming those who would follow into agents for this new world.

Forty days after her son’s birth, Mary begins to hear this truth.  Simeon tells her of the sword that will pierce her heart.  Mary begins to learn this turning upside down was going to be very costly for the Son of God, her son, and for her.

Had she known, would she have asked the same thing: can I really sing this song?
 
And what of us?  Will we sing it?

Mary’s song tells about the heart of Jesus’ coming: it’s the beginning of God’s revolution, where the elites are brought down and the lowly lifted up.

We should be careful what we ask for, what we sing.  Glibly rejoicing in God’s overturning of the world order, even if subversively instead of with oppressive power, shows we don’t understand what that means to those of us on the top of the pile.  Celebrating the cross of Jesus without understanding what it calls to us who follow Jesus, shows our blindness to God’s plan.

If we are not the lowly, the hungry, that means we are the others, the powerful, the mighty, the rich, the full.  How will we meet God, if Magnificat is true?  In fear, because we’re about to be scattered, cast down, sent away empty?

If we’re not prepared for how God has come into the world, we should be careful what we sing.

But we need this song: it says where God will be.

If we sing this song, we remember we can only meet God where God is.

God is at the kids’ table in the kitchen, not at the grownups table with the important people.  God is on the floor with the dogs and the grandkids, not sitting neatly in a suit on the couch, because that’s where the playing can happen.  God is there, and with any whom others discount as not fully as important as the rest.  Such lives matter to God.

God is in the poorest places in this country, in this city, with those who have nothing, who must strategically plan their days and their weeks to find the right resources from this church and that church, this agency and that agency, stringing together food and shelter for their families.  Some while working multiple jobs.  Some unable to find jobs.  God is there, because such lives matter to God.

God is with those who face discrimination and humiliation because of who they are born to be, who don’t recognize the same world some of us enjoy.  With those who, even in this new era in which we find ourselves, still are cast out because of their orientation, because of the way they were made to be loving.  God is with those who are judged not by anything they do or don’t do, by their good actions or their bad actions, but only by the color of their skin.  God is there, because such lives matter to God.

God is with anyone who feels less than others, anyone who struggles with shame and guilt, anyone who deals with fear and anxiety, anyone who is chased by depression, anyone who can’t seem to do things right no matter how hard they try, anyone who seems to face bad luck at every turn, anyone who mourns.  God is there, because such lives matter to God.

We sing this song because the heart of God is where we want to be and this is where the heart of God is.

This song teaches us much.

As we meet Jesus we see that the world’s way of revolution – flipping the roles, setting new people in a place of domination – is not how this song will work.  Jesus doesn’t destroy the proud or keep the rich from eating.  The proud are brought down and the lowly lifted up so all are equal before God.  Every valley exalted, every hill made low, all are on the same level.  The rich are moved away from the table so the hungry can come and eat, but the table has room for all.  It’s a feast for the whole creation.  There’s room enough for all, grace enough for all.

God identifies most deeply with the lowly, not just to lift them up, but to walk with them in the moving.  The birth of this baby in humble surroundings is only the beginning of the Son of God’s place with the lowest and the neediest and the hungriest and the poorest, to move them into the grace of God.  Following Jesus, we find, means we go there, too.  We willingly participate in this sharing, this overturning.

We can sing this song because Jesus’ heart is that all are fed and whole and blessed.  That could mean us, too.

When we sing this song, the light dawns on us that maybe we aren’t so high and mighty after all.

As we sing with Mary, we begin to recognize our own need and hunger, our own lack.  For some of us it’s nothing like many people face every day.  For many of us it’s more a spiritual hunger than a physical, more a spiritual poverty than a physical, more a spiritual lowliness than a physical.  But it’s still a need.

Mary’s song teaches us that it’s OK to admit we’re lowly, needy.  We never were that important to start with.  Once we realize we’re in need, we’re on the right track.  Those who have no need of a physician, Jesus says, aren’t necessarily healthy.  They just don’t think they need a doctor.

All we need to have happen to find our place at the table, to find God at our side, is to recognize how desperately we need that.  To set aside our pride, our sense of power and privilege, our need for material security.

We are the proud and mighty and full in many ways. God’s revolution means we will let go of a lot of things.  We’re going to have to come down while bringing others up, so all can live and eat and thrive.

When we can sing that, we also find God’s deep love for us.

So let’s sing with Mary, let’s sing this song and help it come to reality.  It’s a song of hope and promise for everyone who is brokenhearted, everyone who is brought down, everyone who needs the love and grace of God.

The good news is, that also means us.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen