1 00:00:09,160 --> 00:00:14,000 Today's teaching scripture comes from Luke chapter 1, verses 39 2 00:00:14,080 --> 00:00:18,360 to 56. It says in those days Mary set 3 00:00:18,360 --> 00:00:22,240 out and went with haste to a Judean town in the Hill Country 4 00:00:22,680 --> 00:00:25,840 where she entered the House of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 5 00:00:26,440 --> 00:00:29,040 When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leapt in her 6 00:00:29,040 --> 00:00:32,800 womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and 7 00:00:32,800 --> 00:00:36,320 exclaimed with a loud cry. Blessed are you among women, and 8 00:00:36,320 --> 00:00:37,960 blessed is the fruit of your womb. 9 00:00:38,560 --> 00:00:42,080 And why has this happened to me? For the mother of the of my Lord 10 00:00:42,080 --> 00:00:44,920 comes to me. For as soon as I heard the sound 11 00:00:44,920 --> 00:00:48,160 of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. 12 00:00:48,720 --> 00:00:52,760 Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of 13 00:00:52,760 --> 00:00:54,520 what was spoken to her by the Lord. 14 00:00:55,160 --> 00:01:00,000 And Mary said, my soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices 15 00:01:00,040 --> 00:01:03,480 in God my Savior. For He has looked with favor on 16 00:01:03,480 --> 00:01:07,200 the Lily state of His servant. Surely from now on all 17 00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:10,440 generations will call me blessed, for the mighty One has 18 00:01:10,440 --> 00:01:14,320 done great things for me, and holy is His name indeed. 19 00:01:14,320 --> 00:01:16,480 His mercy is for those who fear Him. 20 00:01:16,480 --> 00:01:21,160 From generation to generation He has shown strength with His arm. 21 00:01:21,320 --> 00:01:24,560 He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. 22 00:01:24,960 --> 00:01:28,040 He's brought down the powerful from their Thrones and lifted up 23 00:01:28,040 --> 00:01:30,640 the lowly. He has filled the hungry with 24 00:01:30,640 --> 00:01:33,120 good things and sent the rich away empty. 25 00:01:33,880 --> 00:01:38,120 He has come to the aid of his child Israel, in remembrance of 26 00:01:38,120 --> 00:01:41,120 His mercy, according to the promise he made to our 27 00:01:41,120 --> 00:01:44,480 ancestors, to Abraham, and to his descendants forever. 28 00:01:45,120 --> 00:01:49,400 And Mary remained with her about 3 months and then returned to 29 00:01:49,400 --> 00:01:52,120 her home. This is the word of the Lord. 30 00:01:56,120 --> 00:02:01,600 So friends, I want to say hello and welcome to those of you who 31 00:02:01,600 --> 00:02:05,840 are listening. No one is listening to this in 32 00:02:05,840 --> 00:02:10,199 real time because today I'm, I'm recording this on December 14th, 33 00:02:10,199 --> 00:02:13,600 but we had a snow day. We canceled our service today. 34 00:02:13,600 --> 00:02:19,440 And so I am preaching to no one for the first time since the 35 00:02:19,440 --> 00:02:21,160 pandemic. It's a strange feeling. 36 00:02:21,480 --> 00:02:25,680 But because our Advent series is tied to the traditional themes 37 00:02:25,680 --> 00:02:29,080 during Advent and I felt like I had something important to say 38 00:02:29,080 --> 00:02:32,520 this week and next week, we elected to just go ahead and 39 00:02:32,520 --> 00:02:35,640 record the sermon this week and release it as its own podcast. 40 00:02:35,640 --> 00:02:39,880 So today is Gaudet Sunday. Historically, this Sunday has 41 00:02:39,880 --> 00:02:42,480 functioned as a kind of pause in Advent. 42 00:02:42,760 --> 00:02:47,160 It's a brief reprieve in a season that's otherwise fairly 43 00:02:47,160 --> 00:02:51,880 quiet and reflective, even heavy, where our focus is on 44 00:02:51,880 --> 00:02:55,120 waiting for the arrival of Jesus and waiting for the Kingdom of 45 00:02:55,120 --> 00:02:58,920 God to come in fullness. And the church has always known 46 00:02:59,080 --> 00:03:02,520 that waiting can be hard. And so right here, just before 47 00:03:02,520 --> 00:03:07,600 the end of Advent, we are told rejoice, lift your head, take a 48 00:03:07,600 --> 00:03:11,080 breath. There is a week to focus on joy. 49 00:03:12,800 --> 00:03:16,480 But this is important. The joy Advent names is not 50 00:03:16,920 --> 00:03:19,520 light or easy. It's not the joy of distraction 51 00:03:19,520 --> 00:03:22,480 or denial or some kind of mindless celebration. 52 00:03:22,760 --> 00:03:25,200 It's not the joy of pretending the world isn't heavy. 53 00:03:25,880 --> 00:03:29,520 Advent joy is hard fought joy. It's joy that has learned to 54 00:03:29,520 --> 00:03:33,440 survive in the middle of the deep ache of being human. 55 00:03:34,120 --> 00:03:37,760 One of the clearest expressions of that kind of joy in all of 56 00:03:37,760 --> 00:03:43,160 the scriptures is Mary's song in Luke chapter 1, The Magnificat. 57 00:03:43,680 --> 00:03:48,200 Something about the Advent season and even this song always 58 00:03:48,200 --> 00:03:52,440 reminds me of the first time I read Wendell Berry's Jaber Crow. 59 00:03:53,920 --> 00:03:56,960 If you've never read that book, or, or if you've never heard of 60 00:03:56,960 --> 00:03:59,240 it or had any exposure to it, I commend it to you. 61 00:03:59,240 --> 00:04:04,400 I find it to be one of the most lovely things that I have ever 62 00:04:04,400 --> 00:04:07,200 read in my life. If you know that book, you know 63 00:04:07,200 --> 00:04:10,440 it's not a cheerful story in any obvious sense. 64 00:04:10,800 --> 00:04:14,240 It's slow, it's patient, it's marked by disappointment, 65 00:04:14,560 --> 00:04:19,120 unfulfilled longing, and honestly, the quiet accumulation 66 00:04:19,120 --> 00:04:21,720 of loss over the course of Jaber's life. 67 00:04:21,839 --> 00:04:25,920 He spends much of his life waiting for love that doesn't 68 00:04:25,920 --> 00:04:29,280 resolve the way that he had hoped, and for a world that 69 00:04:29,280 --> 00:04:32,720 keeps changing in ways that he can't stop with the passage of 70 00:04:32,720 --> 00:04:35,520 time. He's waiting for a goodness that 71 00:04:35,520 --> 00:04:40,280 never necessarily arrives super cleanly or all at once. 72 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:45,320 And yet, I find Jaber Crowe to be one of the most joyful books 73 00:04:45,680 --> 00:04:48,920 that I have ever read. Not because he or any of the 74 00:04:48,920 --> 00:04:51,880 characters in the story of Wid's suffering, and not because 75 00:04:51,880 --> 00:04:55,320 things turn out neatly, but because over time, his love 76 00:04:55,320 --> 00:04:59,520 deepens and his attention toward the important things in life 77 00:04:59,520 --> 00:05:02,360 sharpens. His faithfulness to people and 78 00:05:02,360 --> 00:05:06,880 place and friendship and commitment becomes a kind of 79 00:05:06,880 --> 00:05:09,520 sacrament. And his joy doesn't come from 80 00:05:09,520 --> 00:05:12,800 being proven right or ending up on the right side of history. 81 00:05:13,080 --> 00:05:16,920 It comes from staying faithful and from learning to receive 82 00:05:16,920 --> 00:05:21,360 life as a gift, even when that's a painful experience. 83 00:05:22,360 --> 00:05:25,160 I think that's the kind of joy that Mary is singing about. 84 00:05:25,160 --> 00:05:28,960 Mary's joy is not the joy of everything working out in the 85 00:05:28,960 --> 00:05:31,000 moment. It's the joy of God entering the 86 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:36,440 long, unresolved middle of human history and refusing to abandon 87 00:05:36,440 --> 00:05:41,480 the humans in the middle of it. It's the joy that knows tragedy 88 00:05:41,480 --> 00:05:45,640 and waits without any kind of guarantees, and still dares to 89 00:05:45,640 --> 00:05:49,280 trust that God is at work beneath the surface of things in 90 00:05:49,280 --> 00:05:54,800 our lives, in our life together, that we do not yet understand. 91 00:05:55,120 --> 00:05:58,440 And the song that Mary sings in Luke chapter 1 is not the song 92 00:05:58,440 --> 00:06:01,560 of someone who has escaped the ache of being human. 93 00:06:01,560 --> 00:06:05,360 It's the song of someone who's discovered that that ache itself 94 00:06:05,360 --> 00:06:09,000 has become a place where God is very present to us. 95 00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:13,880 And so I sense that this week, you know, even as, as we're not 96 00:06:13,880 --> 00:06:19,240 gathered together, but just knowing the, the state of things 97 00:06:19,520 --> 00:06:26,760 in the world and in many of our lives, this kind of thin joy 98 00:06:27,160 --> 00:06:38,040 that relies on, you know, being nice and avoiding tragedy and is 99 00:06:38,040 --> 00:06:40,440 just sort of a, a polite kind of joy. 100 00:06:41,280 --> 00:06:43,920 It won't, it won't sustain us. It won't hold. 101 00:06:43,920 --> 00:06:47,840 Because the kind of joy that Advent offers isn't this, this 102 00:06:47,840 --> 00:06:50,920 thin or easily digestible kind of thing. 103 00:06:50,920 --> 00:06:56,200 It's a joy that costs something. It's joy that's formed in people 104 00:06:56,200 --> 00:06:58,760 slowly over the course of a life well lived. 105 00:06:58,760 --> 00:07:03,120 It's a joy that by the Spirit becomes a source of life for us, 106 00:07:03,400 --> 00:07:07,160 even when the circumstances of our lives remain unresolved. 107 00:07:08,080 --> 00:07:12,240 So Mary, I think in this song that she sings, is trying to 108 00:07:12,240 --> 00:07:14,840 wake us up. She's singing because the Christ 109 00:07:14,840 --> 00:07:18,600 Project is God's answer to the heaviness of the world, a 110 00:07:18,600 --> 00:07:23,160 transformation from the inside out and not an escape from it. 111 00:07:23,720 --> 00:07:27,240 And it's this kind of joy that doesn't float above suffering. 112 00:07:27,240 --> 00:07:30,560 It's it stands right in the middle of it and it says God is 113 00:07:30,560 --> 00:07:36,080 already at work in this. To really hear Mary's song, we 114 00:07:36,080 --> 00:07:38,120 have to pay attention to when it's sung. 115 00:07:38,960 --> 00:07:42,480 This moment from the Scriptures comes very early in Luke's 116 00:07:42,480 --> 00:07:48,280 Gospel, before Jesus is born, before he preaches, before he 117 00:07:48,280 --> 00:07:50,880 heals anyone, before he confronts the religious leaders 118 00:07:50,880 --> 00:07:56,320 or Roman power. Nothing has meaningfully or 119 00:07:56,760 --> 00:08:00,400 tangibly changed yet about the circumstances of the people in 120 00:08:00,400 --> 00:08:02,880 this story. The world looks exactly the same 121 00:08:03,240 --> 00:08:08,040 as it did before, and Mary herself is not someone that 122 00:08:08,040 --> 00:08:11,120 history would expect to carry a song like this. 123 00:08:11,880 --> 00:08:14,600 Tori spoke about this beautifully when we were 124 00:08:14,600 --> 00:08:17,280 together last week. She's young, vulnerable, 125 00:08:17,280 --> 00:08:20,400 socially insignificant. She has no platform, no 126 00:08:20,400 --> 00:08:24,680 protection, no authority. She is a poor, unmarried woman 127 00:08:24,840 --> 00:08:28,120 in a small occupied country, living under the shadow of 128 00:08:28,120 --> 00:08:31,920 empire and constant anxiety about survival. 129 00:08:31,920 --> 00:08:35,559 And she is the person that Luke puts at the center of his 130 00:08:35,559 --> 00:08:40,600 Gospels opening movement. Mary sings in a world that's 131 00:08:40,600 --> 00:08:45,720 ruled by Caesar, a world that's ordered by power and violence, a 132 00:08:45,720 --> 00:08:49,640 world where Rome decides who matters and who doesn't, a world 133 00:08:49,640 --> 00:08:54,000 where her own future is suddenly uncertain and dangerous. 134 00:08:54,320 --> 00:08:59,600 And yet she opens her mouth and sings this joyous song about 135 00:08:59,600 --> 00:09:04,640 Thrones falling, the lowly being lifted and the hungry being 136 00:09:04,640 --> 00:09:06,000 filled. And I think that's important 137 00:09:06,000 --> 00:09:09,320 because it tells us something crucial about the kind of joy 138 00:09:09,320 --> 00:09:13,920 that Advent is seeking to name. It's not some kind of a victory 139 00:09:13,920 --> 00:09:18,600 lap or a celebration. It's not joy on the other side 140 00:09:18,600 --> 00:09:22,920 of resolution. It's joy that is hard fought and 141 00:09:22,920 --> 00:09:27,760 being born in the middle of the ache of the real circumstances 142 00:09:27,760 --> 00:09:32,440 of our lives. Mary's joy comes from an 143 00:09:32,440 --> 00:09:34,880 understanding that God has acted. 144 00:09:35,160 --> 00:09:38,400 God has entered the story, and even though the world hasn't 145 00:09:38,400 --> 00:09:42,920 caught up to that reality yet, Mary knows that nothing can stay 146 00:09:42,920 --> 00:09:45,560 the same after this moment in her life. 147 00:09:45,560 --> 00:09:49,400 That's the heartbeat of the coming Kingdom of of Jesus. 148 00:09:49,400 --> 00:09:54,480 This passage is a foretaste of the shift that's coming that 149 00:09:54,480 --> 00:09:57,800 accompanies God's final putting right of all things. 150 00:09:57,800 --> 00:10:01,960 And so Advent teaches us to live in this strange space, to wait 151 00:10:01,960 --> 00:10:07,080 with alertness and hope, because God has already begun the work 152 00:10:07,560 --> 00:10:11,560 of repairing the world, even when the evidence for that feels 153 00:10:11,560 --> 00:10:13,920 thin. And so Mary is singing, not 154 00:10:13,920 --> 00:10:18,200 because the ache for something different is gone, but because 155 00:10:18,200 --> 00:10:21,840 it's been made known to her in an intimate way that God is 156 00:10:21,840 --> 00:10:25,000 coming close enough to redeem it. 157 00:10:26,080 --> 00:10:29,840 So when we look at her song, Luke tells us that she sings, My 158 00:10:29,840 --> 00:10:34,160 soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my 159 00:10:34,160 --> 00:10:37,520 Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowly state of his 160 00:10:37,520 --> 00:10:39,840 servant. And what strikes me immediately 161 00:10:39,840 --> 00:10:44,560 about this is, is the order of Mary's song. 162 00:10:44,560 --> 00:10:49,440 The first half doesn't focus on what God does, but on who God 163 00:10:49,440 --> 00:10:51,640 is. Mary names God as Savior. 164 00:10:52,360 --> 00:10:56,040 She speaks of God's holiness. She locates everything that 165 00:10:56,040 --> 00:10:59,760 she's about to speak about in God's mercy and faithfulness 166 00:10:59,760 --> 00:11:03,840 across the generations. She locates the intervention of 167 00:11:03,840 --> 00:11:07,600 God and the love of God in the promises of God that she would 168 00:11:07,600 --> 00:11:09,800 have known from the Hebrew Bible. 169 00:11:10,320 --> 00:11:13,920 And so in Mary's story, worship comes first. 170 00:11:13,920 --> 00:11:16,640 And that matters because the Bible is doing something 171 00:11:16,640 --> 00:11:22,040 genuinely new here. Fascinatingly, you know, one of 172 00:11:22,040 --> 00:11:27,360 the quiet revolutions of ancient Israel's faith is that worship 173 00:11:27,360 --> 00:11:30,640 is no longer a technique for getting God to act. 174 00:11:31,120 --> 00:11:34,440 It's a response to a God who has already acted. 175 00:11:34,440 --> 00:11:36,480 It's a response to the grace of God. 176 00:11:36,480 --> 00:11:39,160 And so this is something that scholars note that's just 177 00:11:39,640 --> 00:11:43,840 particularly unique about ancient Israelite religion in 178 00:11:43,840 --> 00:11:46,480 the Hebrew Bible. In much of the ancient world, 179 00:11:46,480 --> 00:11:48,080 religion work the other way around. 180 00:11:48,080 --> 00:11:51,520 You worshipped in order to activate divine power. 181 00:11:52,280 --> 00:11:56,680 Rituals, ethical behavior, even reverence for the natural world 182 00:11:56,880 --> 00:12:00,920 were all sort of ways of arranging yourself correctly so 183 00:12:00,920 --> 00:12:04,880 the gods might respond to you. Worship was a lever that you 184 00:12:04,880 --> 00:12:07,080 would pull in hopes of getting a result. 185 00:12:07,960 --> 00:12:12,000 But Israel's story and Mary's song flips that logic. 186 00:12:12,600 --> 00:12:15,560 Israel doesn't sing in the Hebrew Bible to make God move. 187 00:12:15,560 --> 00:12:18,400 Israel sings because God has already moved. 188 00:12:18,640 --> 00:12:23,000 God creates and liberates and makes covenant 1st. 189 00:12:23,680 --> 00:12:25,440 And obedience and worship follow. 190 00:12:25,440 --> 00:12:28,840 Not as a way of manipulating God, but as a way of living 191 00:12:28,840 --> 00:12:33,080 truthfully in a world that's already been touched by grace, 192 00:12:33,080 --> 00:12:37,160 almost as a way of displaying our awareness that the world 193 00:12:37,160 --> 00:12:39,680 that we live in, even though we don't see it fully worked out 194 00:12:39,680 --> 00:12:41,800 yet, has already been touched by grace. 195 00:12:41,800 --> 00:12:45,000 And so that's the order that Mary is standing in. 196 00:12:46,240 --> 00:12:50,840 I think Mary's song flows out of deep trust in the character of 197 00:12:50,840 --> 00:12:54,480 God. It's not ideology dressed up as 198 00:12:54,480 --> 00:12:56,440 praise. It's it's a kind of praise that 199 00:12:56,440 --> 00:13:01,000 tells the truth about reality. Worship here is not escapism or 200 00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:05,080 denial or retreat. It's how Mary names what's 201 00:13:05,080 --> 00:13:08,280 actually true beneath the surface of appearances. 202 00:13:08,280 --> 00:13:12,800 Before she says anything about Thrones or hunger or wealth, she 203 00:13:12,800 --> 00:13:16,840 roots herself in the conviction in the story that she knows that 204 00:13:16,840 --> 00:13:20,080 God is merciful and holy and faithful from generation to 205 00:13:20,080 --> 00:13:23,880 generation. And that grounding is what makes 206 00:13:23,880 --> 00:13:26,360 the rest of the song that she sings possible. 207 00:13:26,880 --> 00:13:28,960 So Mary doesn't sing to make God act. 208 00:13:28,960 --> 00:13:33,200 She sings because God has acted, and once God has acted, the 209 00:13:33,200 --> 00:13:37,240 world can no longer be understood in the same way. 210 00:13:38,480 --> 00:13:43,400 And only then does Mary turn to what God actually does in the 211 00:13:43,400 --> 00:13:46,360 world. She says he has shown strength 212 00:13:46,360 --> 00:13:49,240 with his arm. He has scattered the proud in 213 00:13:49,240 --> 00:13:53,120 the imagination of their hearts. What a beautiful line in the 214 00:13:53,120 --> 00:13:56,840 imagination of their hearts. So she's saying this isn't just 215 00:13:56,840 --> 00:14:00,200 about external power or visible oppression. 216 00:14:00,520 --> 00:14:03,480 It's about the stories that people tell themselves to 217 00:14:03,480 --> 00:14:08,920 justify domination, accumulation, exclusion, and the 218 00:14:08,920 --> 00:14:12,640 narratives that make inequality feel normal. 219 00:14:13,040 --> 00:14:16,880 The inner logic that that tells us, you know, this is just the 220 00:14:16,880 --> 00:14:20,720 way that things are settled for the status quo, she sings. 221 00:14:20,720 --> 00:14:24,280 He has brought down the powerful from their Thrones and lifted up 222 00:14:24,280 --> 00:14:27,880 the lowly. So she doesn't spiritualize 223 00:14:28,160 --> 00:14:30,520 power. She acknowledges that Thrones 224 00:14:30,520 --> 00:14:35,160 are real, hierarchies are real, lowliness is real. 225 00:14:35,480 --> 00:14:38,520 And so this isn't symbolic language for some kind of inner 226 00:14:38,520 --> 00:14:41,480 humility. This is God intervening in the 227 00:14:41,480 --> 00:14:44,200 real, concrete ordering of the world. 228 00:14:44,200 --> 00:14:48,360 He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich 229 00:14:48,360 --> 00:14:53,000 away, empty. This isn't just a gentle 230 00:14:53,000 --> 00:14:57,200 encouragement toward generosity. This is God reordering a world 231 00:14:57,520 --> 00:15:01,880 that has decided some lives have more value than others. 232 00:15:02,920 --> 00:15:08,360 It's a declaration that hunger is not inevitable and wealth is 233 00:15:08,360 --> 00:15:11,840 not morally neutral. It's the announcement that God's 234 00:15:11,840 --> 00:15:16,200 Kingdom confronts how resources are distributed and who gets 235 00:15:16,200 --> 00:15:18,960 protected. And it's important to say this 236 00:15:18,960 --> 00:15:22,160 clearly. Mary isn't recruiting us into a 237 00:15:22,160 --> 00:15:25,920 political party or into a, a, a particular cause. 238 00:15:26,160 --> 00:15:29,600 Apart from that, she is announcing a Kingdom. 239 00:15:29,600 --> 00:15:34,640 The Kingdom that Jesus brings is, is not just an inspirational 240 00:15:34,640 --> 00:15:38,840 upgrade to the existing ordering of things. 241 00:15:38,840 --> 00:15:41,920 It's an upheaval. It's a reordering of who matters 242 00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:46,040 and why. And so how does that Kingdom 243 00:15:46,040 --> 00:15:50,640 arrive? Not as an idea or as a metaphor, 244 00:15:50,640 --> 00:15:53,960 but you know, as we, we're sort of centering in this Advent 245 00:15:53,960 --> 00:15:58,840 teaching series that we've titled Being Born in Flesh. 246 00:15:59,200 --> 00:16:02,080 It arrives in flesh. The the incarnation announces 247 00:16:02,080 --> 00:16:06,840 that God who enters the real conditions of human life, a God 248 00:16:06,840 --> 00:16:11,760 who does not remain distant or abstract, but clearly takes 249 00:16:11,760 --> 00:16:17,200 sides with vulnerable humans by taking on vulnerability himself. 250 00:16:17,360 --> 00:16:22,680 God sides with the lowly, not by shouting from heaven, but 251 00:16:22,680 --> 00:16:27,440 actually becoming incredibly small in the person of Jesus. 252 00:16:28,120 --> 00:16:32,160 Vulnerability is not a weakness here, it's the strategy. 253 00:16:32,880 --> 00:16:37,440 You know, thinking about this text and this idea, my mind goes 254 00:16:37,440 --> 00:16:39,680 to the place in Second Corinthians when the apostle 255 00:16:39,680 --> 00:16:44,400 Paul is frustrated with the limitations of his humanity and 256 00:16:44,400 --> 00:16:46,760 and he writes about this and we have God's reply. 257 00:16:46,760 --> 00:16:51,320 My grace is sufficient for you for power is made perfect in 258 00:16:51,320 --> 00:16:55,880 weakness. And so considering just the the 259 00:16:55,880 --> 00:17:00,640 implications of Christ born as a human baby during the Advent 260 00:17:00,640 --> 00:17:05,280 season, it's a reaffirmation of of what has been made known to 261 00:17:05,359 --> 00:17:10,480 us as the strategy all along. The invitation is to let this 262 00:17:10,480 --> 00:17:15,920 idea do its work on us, that the God who comes in vulnerability 263 00:17:16,079 --> 00:17:21,880 can truly reorder our our lives, reorder our loves, and disrupt 264 00:17:22,079 --> 00:17:25,000 our assumptions about how the world works or how it ought to 265 00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:29,520 work for us. To experience the tension of 266 00:17:29,600 --> 00:17:35,160 simultaneously being affirmed by the love of the God of the 267 00:17:35,160 --> 00:17:40,280 universe and challenge. To embrace the call of God, To 268 00:17:40,280 --> 00:17:42,600 lean into the work of the coming Kingdom. 269 00:17:43,680 --> 00:17:47,000 And as we've said, this reordering doesn't arrive as an 270 00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:49,400 idea or a metaphor, but it arrives in a person. 271 00:17:49,400 --> 00:17:52,600 And so the birth of Jesus announces that God who steps 272 00:17:52,600 --> 00:17:55,600 directly into the real conditions of human life. 273 00:17:56,440 --> 00:17:59,800 This is a God who sides with the lowly, who brings down the 274 00:17:59,800 --> 00:18:02,760 arrogant. A God who refuses to let power 275 00:18:02,760 --> 00:18:05,480 or wealth or empire have the last word. 276 00:18:06,080 --> 00:18:10,880 And friends, that matters tremendously, especially right 277 00:18:10,880 --> 00:18:14,400 now, because we are living in a moment when our immigrant 278 00:18:14,400 --> 00:18:18,240 neighbors right here in Columbus are being spoken about in ways 279 00:18:18,240 --> 00:18:22,520 that strip them of dignity. People are reduced to threats, 280 00:18:22,600 --> 00:18:27,480 burdens, problems to be managed, and language is being used that 281 00:18:27,480 --> 00:18:32,360 flattens real people, families, children, workers, neighbors 282 00:18:32,720 --> 00:18:36,880 into abstractions and fears. And the Church has to be clear 283 00:18:36,880 --> 00:18:40,600 eyed about the moment that's in front of us, not reactive, not 284 00:18:40,600 --> 00:18:45,120 partisan, but awake. The incarnation doesn't allow us 285 00:18:45,120 --> 00:18:47,960 to look away from the vulnerable. 286 00:18:48,320 --> 00:18:53,600 There is no way to detach the concrete realities of the beauty 287 00:18:53,920 --> 00:18:59,360 of the Holy Family and the Advent story from the the 288 00:18:59,440 --> 00:19:02,720 realities of what's going on in the world around us right now. 289 00:19:03,120 --> 00:19:07,680 And this God who takes on flesh identifies himself so closely 290 00:19:07,680 --> 00:19:11,760 with the stranger, with the poor, with the displaced, that 291 00:19:11,800 --> 00:19:15,160 Jesus can say whatever you do to the least of these, you do to 292 00:19:15,160 --> 00:19:18,680 me. And so to insist on the dignity 293 00:19:18,680 --> 00:19:24,280 of every person made in the image of God is not a political 294 00:19:24,280 --> 00:19:26,320 stance, it's a Christological one. 295 00:19:26,440 --> 00:19:31,560 It's simply is what it means to take Christmas seriously. 296 00:19:31,920 --> 00:19:34,880 And so that's why if you sometimes feel like Christianity 297 00:19:34,880 --> 00:19:39,000 should stretch further or be more justice shaped or be more 298 00:19:39,000 --> 00:19:43,520 honest about the brokenness of our world, Mary is already 299 00:19:43,520 --> 00:19:45,800 there. It's one of the reasons I love 300 00:19:45,800 --> 00:19:47,360 this song that she's saying so much. 301 00:19:47,360 --> 00:19:48,920 The incarnation is already there. 302 00:19:48,920 --> 00:19:54,880 The Kingdom that Jesus brings friends is not a sentimental, 303 00:19:55,120 --> 00:19:58,280 feel good upgrade to your ordinary life. 304 00:19:58,480 --> 00:20:02,680 It's profoundly disruptive. And so the invitation of Advent 305 00:20:02,680 --> 00:20:07,640 isn't be a little kinder or feel a little inspired this holiday 306 00:20:07,640 --> 00:20:09,200 season. It's this. 307 00:20:09,760 --> 00:20:14,000 Let the God who truly loves you and comes in vulnerability 308 00:20:14,600 --> 00:20:19,800 reorder your life, disrupt your assumptions, and draw you into a 309 00:20:19,800 --> 00:20:25,080 Kingdom that challenges. You and I, starting with the 310 00:20:25,080 --> 00:20:29,240 parts of our own hearts that resist the work of the love of 311 00:20:29,240 --> 00:20:33,480 God. And so if anything, you know, 312 00:20:33,480 --> 00:20:37,960 giving some some thought, some consideration to the kind of 313 00:20:37,960 --> 00:20:41,280 Advent joy that we're talking about should take us further 314 00:20:41,280 --> 00:20:45,680 than we might naturally want to go into compassion, into 315 00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:49,120 justice, into solidarity, into costly love. 316 00:20:50,000 --> 00:20:53,080 The impulse to seek a world made new is good. 317 00:20:53,480 --> 00:20:58,480 And I just want to keep in front of us that Advent simply says 318 00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:02,520 that the way that the world is remade is not by human optimism 319 00:21:02,880 --> 00:21:08,400 or by some kind of moral effort alone, but by God taking on 320 00:21:08,400 --> 00:21:11,520 flesh. And what that means for the ways 321 00:21:11,520 --> 00:21:14,440 that we show up in our day-to-day lives. 322 00:21:14,800 --> 00:21:18,400 It's not a vague spirituality of being nice. 323 00:21:18,720 --> 00:21:22,640 It's the living Jesus turning everything upside down and 324 00:21:22,640 --> 00:21:25,640 inviting us to follow. You know, I found myself 325 00:21:25,640 --> 00:21:29,240 returning to a passage from Doctor Martin Luther King 326 00:21:29,240 --> 00:21:32,680 Junior's letter from the Birmingham Jail over the last 327 00:21:32,760 --> 00:21:37,280 number of weeks and months, and after he names a few courageous 328 00:21:37,280 --> 00:21:41,280 exceptions, he rightly confronts the complacency of the white 329 00:21:41,280 --> 00:21:43,800 church and the struggle for civil rights in the 60s. 330 00:21:43,800 --> 00:21:48,600 And he writes that many leaders had become, quote, more cautious 331 00:21:48,600 --> 00:21:51,640 than courageous and have remained silent behind the 332 00:21:51,640 --> 00:21:55,280 anesthetizing security of stained glass windows. 333 00:21:56,200 --> 00:21:59,200 And King goes on to say that there was a time when the church 334 00:21:59,240 --> 00:22:03,040 disturbed the power structures of society, not because it was 335 00:22:03,040 --> 00:22:07,400 trying to be extreme or trendy or provocative, but because it 336 00:22:07,400 --> 00:22:12,640 was faithful to carry out its purpose in the world, its 337 00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:18,160 mission to show people what the the self giving, cruciform love 338 00:22:18,160 --> 00:22:22,280 of Jesus looks like. And so wherever these early 339 00:22:22,280 --> 00:22:25,840 Christians went, the powers noticed not because the church 340 00:22:25,840 --> 00:22:29,760 was loud, not because it was antagonistic, but because it was 341 00:22:29,760 --> 00:22:33,760 fundamentally different from any force that the world had known 342 00:22:33,760 --> 00:22:37,280 to this point. And so, you know, I think 343 00:22:37,280 --> 00:22:40,920 there's an echo between Mary's song and King's letter. 344 00:22:40,920 --> 00:22:43,800 Doctor King isn't calling the church to outrage or to 345 00:22:43,800 --> 00:22:46,960 spectacle. He isn't asking us to mirror the 346 00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:50,200 anger of the world. He's asking us to remember who 347 00:22:50,200 --> 00:22:55,000 we are, to recover the courage that flows from worship that's 348 00:22:55,040 --> 00:22:58,800 animated by the kind of joy that we're looking at this week to 349 00:22:58,800 --> 00:23:03,040 live like a people who actually believe that God has entered 350 00:23:03,040 --> 00:23:06,840 history and that God is still at work in the Vineyard movement. 351 00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:13,200 We talk all the time about this already and not yet nature of 352 00:23:13,200 --> 00:23:16,160 the Kingdom. And this is just another moment 353 00:23:16,160 --> 00:23:20,240 where we're faced with these two realities hand in hand, that the 354 00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:25,280 the work of God, the disruptive announcement of the Kingdom of 355 00:23:25,320 --> 00:23:31,720 Jesus has come crashing into the way that things are, and we find 356 00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:36,120 ourselves continuing to wait for the full outworking of what that 357 00:23:36,120 --> 00:23:39,640 means. And so, friends, I just would 358 00:23:39,640 --> 00:23:45,080 want to remind us that genuine worship, while it's full of joy 359 00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:48,360 and full of the acknowledgement of the character of God, 360 00:23:49,120 --> 00:23:53,280 simultaneously refuses to make peace with injustice. 361 00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:57,720 It names reality honestly. It trusts God enough to believe 362 00:23:57,720 --> 00:24:02,800 that the world can be reordered. And Mary's song, I think, is 363 00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:06,680 what Jesus Church sounds like when she's so full of joy that 364 00:24:06,680 --> 00:24:10,960 she can still believe that God could turn the world upside 365 00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:15,520 down, even in our moment. And Advent asks us whether we 366 00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:17,920 still find ourselves believing that, too. 367 00:24:18,360 --> 00:24:22,520 Could it be true that this kind of joy, the joy of Christ the 368 00:24:22,520 --> 00:24:26,680 King, is still being born into the world right under our noses? 369 00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:31,040 And so, friends, Advent joy is not denial. 370 00:24:31,040 --> 00:24:33,120 It's not pretending that everything's fine. 371 00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:37,680 It's not the thin, shallow cheerfulness that comes from 372 00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:42,960 distraction or comfort. Advent joy is a kind of defiant 373 00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:45,240 hope. It's the kind of joy that dares 374 00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:50,480 to exist in a world that is both full of the activity and the 375 00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:54,400 love of God and still at the same time feels heavy. 376 00:24:54,800 --> 00:24:58,320 It's the joy that comes when you realize that God has already 377 00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:03,040 begun the reordering, even when the evidence of that reordering 378 00:25:03,040 --> 00:25:08,280 still feels thin. It's this desire for a world 379 00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:13,160 made new that is a good desire. That longing is not naive or 380 00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:18,080 misplaced. But we're reminded by this story 381 00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:22,600 that the way that the world is remade is not finally, by our 382 00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:24,840 own effort or by our own willpower. 383 00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:29,680 It's remade by God taking on flesh, by God entering the mess 384 00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:33,680 of human history and refusing to abandon it. 385 00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:38,600 This is God's answer to the heaviness of the world. 386 00:25:39,360 --> 00:25:41,760 We're not invited to escape from it. 387 00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:47,360 We're invited to believe that somehow it's being transformed 388 00:25:47,360 --> 00:25:50,600 from the inside out. God doesn't wait for things to 389 00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:54,280 improve before showing up. God comes right into the ache, 390 00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:57,840 into the confusion, into the fear, and begins the slow, 391 00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:01,120 faithful work of making all things new. 392 00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:07,120 And so friends, if you are weary or skeptical this week, if hope 393 00:26:07,120 --> 00:26:12,280 feels a little fragile or hard to access, Advent Joy is not 394 00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:16,280 asking you to fake anything. And so I'm praying. 395 00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:18,240 I'm praying for you. I'm praying for our church this 396 00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:22,600 week that we would know this kind of presence of God that 397 00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:26,920 that shows up right in the middle of the ache, in the 398 00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:32,520 middle of the confusion, the fear, the unrealized hopes or 399 00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:37,400 dreams of our lives, whether that's in our lives, you know, 400 00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:42,960 individually or our our life together in our community, in 401 00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:47,120 our city. Friends, God has not stepped 402 00:26:47,120 --> 00:26:51,640 away from your story and the reordering has already begun. 403 00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:57,840 So as I close out, I just want to pray for every person 404 00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:03,280 listening to this Lord, that you would give us the kind of grace 405 00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:09,440 and peace that we need to live in this world over the next 406 00:27:09,440 --> 00:27:14,360 week, that you would be giving joy, the kind of joy that can 407 00:27:14,360 --> 00:27:17,880 sustain us in, in the midst of reality. 408 00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:24,960 I pray for each person listening that there would be a, a sense 409 00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:30,240 of what you're reordering in us. The, the, the things that we 410 00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:33,680 love, the assumptions that we carry, the ways that we see the 411 00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:37,200 world. Pray, come, Holy Spirit, give us 412 00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:41,400 a kind of faith, a kind of attentiveness to the world 413 00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:47,240 around us and to our neighbors that reflects the the love, the 414 00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:50,600 grace and peace of Christ. Amen.