Reflections...

A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on 24th December 2006, Fourth Sunday of Advent, by Rev. Dr. Jochen Teuffel. The scripture readings that day were Micah 5:2-5a, Hebrews 10:5-10 and Luke 1:39-55.


39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country,
40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
41 When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit
42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, «Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?
44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.
45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.»
46 And Mary said,
«My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
50 His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.»

“Let’s be realistic.” We know such exhortation. Yes, there can be illusions in life, expressed by visions or dreams referring to things which will never come to pass. Be realistic, such call comes up whenever fervent expectations go beyond the limit of our daily experiences. We may call people with those illusionary expectations enthusiasts. Enthusiasm is stirred up by great visions, which are all about power, mightiness, and changes beyond the normal moves in daily life. Such vivid visions may have an impact on daily life, they can move people, channel their expectations, however most of the time they don’t come to pass at least not in permanent way. So often great dreams are gone with their dreamers past away.

Be realistic, one may say, be modest in your expectations. Let the things beyond the horizon of your daily life not blur your duties. The voice of realism call for to come to terms with things as they are and to limit expectations to the very little steps. Improvements are called for instead of dramatic changes. However the voice of realism advocates resignation to some extend. Realism simply means: That is it, life confined to its current reality, nothing beyond.

«My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.

We have heard the Magnificat, Mary’s Song, after she was blessed by her cousin Elizabeth. Strong words which sound quite enthusiastic.

50 His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.

How about Mary? Can we call her a realistic person, or is she rather enthusiastic? Certainly she is not very life-experienced, probably 14 years old, the common age when Jewish daughters became engaged. What she recalls as mighty deeds of the Lord cannot be the experiences of her own life. The very strange thing is that she praises God although his deeds do not match the expectations of a teenager. She is even facing her own premarital pregnancy, the Son conceived appears to be an illegitimate pregnancy, something which can hardly be explained to others. How dare she praise God for her pregnancy saying that for the Mighty One has done great things for me. Her situation is totally different to her cousin Elizabeth and also to Hannah (the mother of the prophet Samuel), women fairly advanced in years, who were barren. When they got pregnant unexpectedly after all these years of hardship they certainly expressed their joy in praising God. Hannah and Elizabeth both could whole-heartedly confess: the Mighty One has done great things for me. But in terms of a premarital pregnancy, how can Maria praise it as a great thing for her, even if the conception was by the Holy Spirit?

A fourteen years old teenager named Mary sings the praise of God for someone whose birth to come must be an embarrassment in the eyes of her environment. She praises God for a son whom she is going to loose on the cross, a son who will even reject her publicly (as it happened in Mk 3:33) She sings the praise of God for his mighty and yet invisible deeds which are not really related to her own life experience.

When God acts on earth it all starts in the lowliness of life, in the womb of a teenager, invisible, inconspicuous, unexpectedly certainly not the great things people are dreaming of or longing for. God acts against our own expectations and our own experience. His deeds are strange to us. The Son of the Most High was born not in palace but in a barn in Bethlehem, and his final destination on earth was not a throne but the cross on Calvary. God’s greatness and mightiness does not realize itself in human visions and dreams but in the birth of his Son, Jesus the Christ on earth. And it was a teenager who could praise God for his deeds already when she conceived his Son in the lowliness of her life. And her praise goes beyond the horizon of her own life in Nazareth.

«My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

Her Spirit rejoices in God’s deeds unseen yet promised to come. Mary was blessed by her cousin because of her faith: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” God’s great deeds are not designated by our own experiences or our own expectations but by his word. Not what we want to see not what we want to come to pass matters, but what God has promised. It all depends on his promise. If you believe in God’s promise then you are neither a realist nor an enthusiast.
A realist thinks things can only be changed according to our capabilities whereas an enthusiast believes that things are to be changed according to our own visions. However, our life in faith lies beyond realism and enthusiasm. Realism as well as enthusiasm refer to external things, but crucial are not things or circumstances but our life itself, whether it is connected with God or not. If our life is not connected with God then we are lost no matter how we perceive our circumstances. Even the most blessed person on earth is lost unless his or her life is connected with God. And the connection does not depend on our circumstances of life but whether we are recognized by God’s Word.

And this is it, what Mary praises «My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.

God has recognized me, God has recognized us in his word, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant God’s recognition of our life in its lowliness is Jesus Christ, his Son enfleshed born from a virgin, Immanuel his cognomen, God with us. The Son of God true man, to take us in community with him, we belong to God because of his Son, he has looked with favor on us although being sinners alienated from God. He looked on us in the lowliness of our life with all its false shine yet in favor. And so we are to praise God with the words of Mary (a teenager): My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Amen.
Great things announced may elevate people above the misery of their life. If one is not complacent with things as they are, vivid visions may create something like a counter-reality imagined which pleases human longings.

The bitter truth is that the one who does have intensive or concrete expectations is the one who will get disappointed. If you don’t have any expectations you won’t become disappointed.

There is only one but decisive reference to her life: My spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. God has looked with favor on the lowliness of a 14 years old teenager. And what he has announced to her by the angel Gabriel lies beyond her imaginations:

«Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
31 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.».

However all her praise expresses an unshakeable trust in God, trust which comes out of the lowliness of her life. Her personal expectations towards a better life are not part of her praises. No enthusiasm towards a change of her life on earth. Her praise refers to things which are not related to her own life.