Preaching text: Luke 1:46-55
If the season of Advent could be said to have a theme, it is this: “The world is not as it should be, and Christ is coming to make things as they are meant to be.” It echoes out from the apocalyptic readings we get on the first sunday. It is found in the words and the mission of John the Baptist. And we hear it today in Mary’s words of praise that we know as the Magnificat.
The world is broke and God is going to fix it.
This is however not a message of Good News to those who benefit from the brokenness of the world. Or by those who think they will someday or somehow. I’m starting to understand why Advent is not popular and why there’s this great rush to get to Christmas. It’s not unlike the way we approach Easter as well: Rushing along to avoid the crucifixion to get to the resurrection, here we rush to the birth without dwelling on all the messy reasons of why Jesus is being born.
It also explains a great deal of early Christian history. Why the crucifixion occurred and why the early disciples were almost all martyred for the faith. The vision of Advent is transformation of a world that doesn’t necessarily want to be transformed.
Which brings us back to this virgin girl whom God has selected to bear the salvation of the world. His pick is not accidental. Again, in an effort to mute the radical nature of the King she carries in her womb, we’ve made Mary into a demure little creature, pretty, dressed in blue, and completely harmless. But as the words of her song imply, she is anything but.
An increasingly popular song around this time of year is “Mary, did you know?” Well, read the words of the Magnificat again and then ask the title of that song a second time. Of course, she knew. In fact, she knew more than the lyrics of that modern song leads on. She knew that he would be rejected. She knew he would be arrested. She knew she would have to watch him die.
And she also knew that this what it would take. The world is broken and God is going to fix it. Her son was how. His life. His death. And his resurrection.
We portray her as something of a weakling. Yet Mary is one tough cookie, a radical herself, hungry and eager for God to get to work. She was not chosen by accident. This teenage punk (as I’ve called her before) was the perfect vessel for God’s son.
We would do well to emulate her. To think like her. To be as fearless as she. To hunger for what God seeks to do with this lost world. But the question before each of us is do we? Are we? Is there anything of Mary’s fire in us? Or are we comfortable with the world as it is?
Many of us are, of course, very comfortable with the world as it is. Particularly here in America where the true ravages of hunger, poverty, disease, and war are spared most of us. We are the privileged few who do not experience the brokenness of the world except on rare occasions. Often times, we don’t even realize how broken things really are.
But they are quite broken even if we don’t always see it. I had a moment when I saw it just this week. There was an article about a great discovery. Some lucky chap had found a newspaper from the 1770s
How on Earth do people do it? Those without insurance or other aid? They don’t. Research suggests that anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 people die each year in this country from diseases they can’t treat because they can’t afford to. Jesus healed the sick, made the lame to talk, the blind to see. He knew disease was breaking the world. Do we?
It was a tragic scene that crossed our TV screens some weeks ago. A young girl, so emaciated you could count every rib. She became the poster child for the horrific war in Yemen. Seven years old, little Amal Hussain captivated the world after her picture was featured in the New York Times. She also died not long after that photo was taken. Starved to death. Jesus fed the multitudes and called for us to lay down our swords. He knew hunger and war break the world. Do we?
And speaking of tragedies of children, many of us heard this week about Jakelin Caal Maquin, the little Guatemalan refugee girl who died in ICE custody. She too was seven years old. Held in captivity because a portion of our people are frightened without reason of those coming here for a new life. Jesus himself was a refugee at one point, and he was ever eager to welcome the outcast and the stranger. He knew xenophobia, bigotry, and fear break the world. Do we?
And lest we think it’s only the big tragedies that hear about in the news, it’s not. No, it’s the inner struggle as well. It’s the brokenness inside us. It’s that compulsion that keeps us going back again and again to cigarettes and alcohol, porn or drugs. It’s that fear of “those people” that has no basis in reality and yet chills our hearts nonetheless. It’s the poison of our hearts and minds, the poison we dare not admit often times even to ourselves. Jesus knew about that too when spoke that what is within corrupts and breaks the world.
This is what Jesus came to change. This is what Jesus came to fix. He came to fix the world and he came to fix you and me, because we can’t do it. Sin prevents that. Even our best efforts are naught without him. But don’t let that discourage you. All good repair jobs take time. And God is at work. He is working in each one of us. He is working in the world, often times through people like us. People who see that brokenness and say aloud “no more.”
Hold onto hope, my friends. Mary’s vision is coming to pass. Her son is born, lived, died, and rose again. The world will be put to right in its time. Not our comfort at the brokenness nor the brokenness itself can stop it. The world is broke and God WILL fix it all. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment