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Adopted Into Love, Joy

December 16, 2007

In our morning scripture reading, we read the beginning of Mary’s Song, sometimes called “The Magnificat”. We often skip this passage during the Christmas season because it seems so terribly radical, far too radical for the orgy of Christmas shopping that we indulge every year. In thinking about the coming Messiah, alive in her own womb, Mary saw the world being turned upside down and most us rather like the world just as it is – right-side up.  Even so, if we want to experience God’s vision of Christmas, we need to spend some time singing Mary’s song.

Let’s look at it and then I want to offer some reflections on God’s plan of salvation for the world and for you and me. First the song”

And Mary said:

“My soul glorifies the Lord

⁴⁷ and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

⁴⁸ for he has been mindful

of the humble state of his servant.

From now on all generations will call me blessed,

⁴⁹ for the Mighty One has done great things for me—

holy is his name.

I mentioned God’s plan of salvation. It comes directly from Mary’s name for God, “God my Savior.”  First she gives honor to God, “My soul glorifies the Lord. And then she acknowledges her own role as “servant.”  Clearly, Mary affirms that the principal actor in this cosmic drama is none other than God.  Now watch as she sees God turning the world upside down.

⁵⁰ His mercy extends to those who fear him,

from generation to generation.

Mercy! Mercy on those who fear God; Mary lives in a world where mercy does not happen. She is about to be forced to walk a hundred or so miles at the whim of a distant tyrant who wants to collect taxes. She and her husband and child will soon be forced to run for their lives because the fear of a psychotic despot named Herod the Great. And now, in the name of the Ruler of the Universe, Mary is declaring that God has mercy on all who fear and respect and honor him.

⁵¹ He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;

he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

God has, and will again, scatter the proud, the arrogant, the self-sufficient. Who might she have in mind?  And now watch for the next line.

⁵² He has brought down rulers from their thrones

but has lifted up the humble.

The humble will be lifted up and rulers will be brought down from their throne. Who are the rulers?  She is predicting the fall of Rome! She is declaring God’s judgment on tyranny and oppression. In the spirit of the ancient Exodus from Egypt, she is saying that God will tear down the structures of injustice and establish God’s own Kingdom of justice and righteousness and peace.  And she has not finished.

⁵³ He has filled the hungry with good things

but has sent the rich away empty.

Here she reflects the ancient judgment of the prophet Amos. The left out and the lost and the hungry will be fed and those who hoard the good things of life will be left empty. God will turn the world upside down.

⁵⁴ He has helped his servant Israel,

remembering to be merciful

⁵⁵ to Abraham and his descendants forever,

even as he said to our fathers.”

Luke 1:46-55 (NIV)

The lost of this world will receive the care and attention that they deserve by virtue of being the Children of God.

Mary’s song is clearly an anticipation of Jesus’ proclamation that “The Kingdom of God is near.”  God is very near. One of the names for Jesus is Immanuel, “God with us.” God’s Kingdom of mercy and justice and love and peace are on the way and the day is coming to an end when the world will be ruled by tyrants whose only agenda is their own power and wealth and luxury.  God has begun the process of taking the world back for his own purposes!

If you pay attention to Mary’s Song, when you look at the gentle little family in the stable with the animals around and the baby in the manger, you will see the clear drama of it all. From that little manger, a spiritual revolution is about to begin. That is what Mary means when she sings of “God my Savior.” God is about to save the world from the forces of Evil and Sin. But it is more than the world. It is very personal. Mary sings of “God my Savior.”  The pronoun is “my.” God is her personal savior!

As near as I can tell, this seems to be God’s current strategy for the recreation of this world. Well, first, what God’s strategy is not.  The most obvious strategy for God to devise would be the strategy of coercion. God could send an army of celestial warriors to earth, wipe out the tyrants, defeat evil in all of its manifestations, and simply force people like us to live like we are supposed to live. To those who cheat and steal and lie and take advantage of the weak and steal from the poor God could simply wipe them out and force the rest of us to do the right thing, now and forever more....Amen.

But if you read the newspapers this week or listened to the news or perhaps if you are simply honest with yourself about your own moral and spiritual imperfections, you know that God did not do that and will not do that until the end of time.

So what is God doing? What is God’s plan? It appears the God is still approaching men and women, not quite like he approached Mary, and saying, “I want you to allow my Spirit to be born in you.”  No. ladies, you will not give birth to a Messiah, that has happened already and will not happen again, but by Spirit living in you will give birth to a new life in you. Your positive response to that request from God is the beginning of your personal salvation. The Christian word for that moment is conversion and it means that you have invited God to transform your life from within even if it means turning your life upside down. Love and forgiveness and mercy and kindness and justice and peace will become the dominant themes of your life and that may be very very different from your present life. That is why we call it “Conversion.”

And why would you want to do that?  You will do that because you will realize that in both this world in and in the next, the life that grows from the Spirit of God living within you is the very best life possible both in this world and in the next.

The simple, and sometimes hard to believe reality is this; God’s life is the most joyful life. When we are in harmony with God we are in harmony with the way that God created us to live and when we are in harmony with our own best nature, we experience joy.

Now, as God transforms your life, he is also transforming the world in which you live. As God transforms you into somebody new, your part of God’s world becomes something different.  You are a key player in God’s strategy to remake this old sinful world.

What else happens? When you invite God’s Spirit, as we know God in Jesus Christ, to transform your life, as you are converted, you learn that something miraculous happens. God says to you, I no longer hold your sins against you. You are forgiven of all your sins. You are now living with me as a brand new person. Christians call that justification. Even though you are literally as guilty as sin, God declares that you are as clean as clean can be. Your sins are taken away.

Now what happens?  As God’s Spirit lives within you, as you walk with God day after day after day, as you follow Jesus as Lord and Savior, an ongoing, never-ending process of transformation takes place. God’s spirit works to make you more and more and more like Jesus. 

There is an ancient spiritual principle that says this: We become like the one that we love. As we give our attention to Jesus, as we look and look and look at Jesus, we become like Jesus. Or if we give our attention to that which opposes Jesus, we will become opponents of Jesus. We become like that which we love and that to which we give our attention. The old Christian word for this in sanctification and it simply means that as we give our attention to Jesus, God’s Spirit will make us more and more like Jesus. Or to paraphrase the Apostle Paul, “If any person is in Christ Jesus, he or she is a new person.”

As a part of this transformation, you find a new family, a new community. You are adopted into the family of God, into the church of Jesus Christ. In God’s family, there is only one requirement, that you are a disciple of Jesus Christ. Nothing else matters but being a disciple of Jesus Christ.

And finally, the ultimate transformation, God will invite you home to heaven where the transformation will be fulfilled and you will live with God and all of God’s people forever.  The Christian word for that is glorification. 

A quick observation; too often, we want to go straight from conversion to glory and we fail to give attention to that process by which God makes us into a new Jesus-like person and we miss the part by which God uses us to transform the world that God loves and for which Jesus was born and lived and finally died.

This is what Christmas means, if Mary’s Song is a part of it. God is in the process of making a new world. And God is in the process of making new people. And God wants t live in you and in me and God wants to make us new.

And the ultimate question is, will we invite God to live with us and transform us and make us new? 

I invite you, invite Christ, invite God’s Spirit to be born in you. Invite God to make you into the person who will live eternally with God in heaven. Invite God to live in you so that your part of God’s world will be made new.

Amen