December 22, 2024
Hope is Worth the Risk
Luke 1:46-55
Shannon Jordan
Our second passage this morning is Mary’s Magnificat. These familiar verses are found in the midst of a conversation that Mary is having with her older cousin Elizabeth. While in Luke 1, a lot has happened to get to where we start in verse 46! Elizabeth and her husband, Zechariah were childless until they were old. Barrenness in that era was a place of shame, as children were considered a blessing from God—a reward for righteousness. Zechariah had an encounter with Gabriel, who told him to fear not, that even though they were old, that they would have a son, and to name him John. Zechariah asked how that was going to happen since, again, they were old. Then Gabriel answered he was an angel of God and said that Zechariah would be mute since he didn’t believe. It happened as Gabriel said it would—Elizabeth got pregnant and went into seclusion. An angel also went to Mary and told her to “fear not, for she has found favor with God,” and was going “to have a child and she would name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the son of the Most High, and he will be given the throne of David.” In the Matthew account, an angel also visited Joseph, telling him to fear not, and to take Mary as his wife even though she was pregnant and not with his child.
Our passage this morning finds us in a Judean town in the hill country where Mary “went with haste” to visit Elizabeth. When Mary entered the house the child in Elizabeth’s womb leapt. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and explained with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? And blessed is she who believed that there would be fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
Mary responded to this with these words…
Hear the word of the Lord:
And Mary said,
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’
This story has quite a few “fear nots” or “do not be afraids.” Zechariah, Mary, Joseph and in Luke 2, the Shepherds. Let’s talk a minute about fear. What is your risk threshold? What do you fear? What do you worry about? Last week in faith formation we talked about what we would do if we weren’t afraid. What risks would we take if we knew there was really no risk? The answers were varied. Some people would say what they really think, while others would hike more risky trails. In my marriage one person would do an open door helicopter tour of the mountains and volcanoes of Hawaii to take photos of stunning vistas—and the other one wouldn’t! We talked last week about the common refrain in scripture to fear not and I encouraged people to begin to recognize where fear, or risk aversion, impacts their choices. It is usually very hard to do what God has called us to do if we are frozen with fear.
The Magnificat is the result of people living beyond their fears and into the power and promise of God.
Mary, instead of succumbing to the fear she must be feeling, finds herself in this place of radical praise and thanksgiving instead of a place of fear and anxiety. Mary had clearly come to this place believing that the hope she has for her future, the hope that she has for her world, was worth the risk of living fully into God’s plan. Of leaning into her faith in God. To living with a hope that is available when we have that faith.
The Magnificat is a confident, bold, proclamation to God’s power, God’s priorities and God’s promises.
The Magnificat is Mary praising God and highlighting, magnifying, what God has done with focus on God’s power.
What is fascinating about these verses is that they are in the past tense. It isn’t a song about what God WILL do, but what God HAS done. With our limited understanding we can’t fully comprehend, but somehow God’s already worked in the future. And even though we don’t understand, we can trust God.
The Magnificat is not a to do list for us, but a done list for God. What God has already accomplished.
Mary here is proclaiming God’s power and building her faith as she affirms what she believes. That is one reason we do an affirmation of faith each week. We affirm what we believe and strengthen our faith, which allows us to hope. Our hope is firmly grounded in our faith in an all powerful God.
This is a practice we can see throughout scripture. We see in the laments in the Psalms…they have a distinct pattern where they tell the problem, then who God is and what God has done and in the vast majority of these psalms the writer ends with hope—because they end with the power of God and not the magnitude of the problem. The Psalm that Jesus quotes on the cross, Psalm 22, that begins with “My God My God, why have you forsaken me?” ends with “all the families of the earth shall worship before God, For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.”
Being hopeful is not about ignoring the difficult places in life. Being hopeful does not mean we are Pollyanna’s or sinning if we do not feel hope. Again, in the laments, a third of the Psalms, the writers are naming their pain and difficulty. It is OK to not feel hope. However, if we can find it—when we remember God’s power—hope gives us a path out. Hope allows us to persevere, and gives us strength and comfort in these hard things. The hard stuff doesn’t usually go away, but our focus can change.
And let’s be clear, Mary is still in a tough place. She remembers who God is, and she magnifies what God has done instead of her circumstances, and can respond with joy and confidence because she remembers that God’s power is absolute.
The Magnificat also highlights or “magnifies” God’s Priorities:
Priorities are important. This is a busy season in the church. I restarted a practice recently that asks in the morning what I want to accomplish that day. What are my priorities…what will make me happy to accomplish, and what I will be disappointed if I don’t accomplish. What are my priorities for the day.
The Magnificat reminds us of God’s priorities. Knowing God’s priorities can and should inform our own priorities.
Mary reminds us that God sees the lowly state of his servant. She shares that God scatters the proud and lifts the lowly. God sends the rich away empty but gives the poor good things. God is giving mercy to Israel by sending this child.
These words are in the midst of the Gospel of Luke, a gospel that regularly looks at people usually overlooked by the culture.
Look at who is lifted up as key players in this story. A barren couple, an unwed pregnant teenage girl, a lowly carpenter, and shepherds. This story does not take place with the powerful or the wealthy…they do not have power or prestige or resources.
God’s priorities continue throughout Luke… in Luke 4, Jesus outlines his mission:
18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
Most of us are familiar with the Beatitudes in Matthew from the Sermon on the Mount.
‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Luke has a section in Luke 6 that also has many of the beatitudes:
‘Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
‘Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
‘Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
But Luke continues with the woes…highlighting how the Kingdom of God is not the same as the culture of the day or the culture of our day.
‘But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
‘Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
‘Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.
God’s priorities are different than ours. Our good can be God’s bad and our bad can be God’s good. As we read scripture and learn more about God’s priorities, we can allow the Spirit to transform us into people who love and follow God, regardless of the risk.
God’s promises.
Finally, the Magnificat reminds us that God keeps God’s promises. We can learn to live in hope, learning that it is worth the risk, as we see how God keeps God’s promises.
We live in a world that easily forgets its promises. Something comes along and priorities change, power changes, focus changes, and promises are broken.
But not God’s.
Each week at the early service and at least monthly at the 11 am service, we join in the sacrament of communion. The words of institution are a regular reminder that God keeps God’s promises. When the bread is broken, we say that this is Christ’s body, broken for us, and when we eat it we are to remember Christ. And Christ’s life. And when the cup is presented, we say that this is the cup of a new covenant, sealed in Christ’s blood, shed for the forgiveness of sins—and we are to that in remembrance of Christ. We are reminded in the sacrament that God keeps God’s promises.
Not only that, but scripture overflows with passages on God keeping God’s promises. Promises of protection, guidance, comfort, peace, strength, mercy, grace. When I am especially sad, or down, or concerned, the Psalms remind me of God’s goodness and faithfulness.
Psalm 34 says that The Lord is near to the broken-hearted, and saves the crushed in spirit.
Lamentation reminds us that God’s mercies are new every morning and Isaiah reminds us that those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.
The Gospels remind us that the peace of Christ is with us and Revelation tells us that God will wipe every tear.
Reading and praying scripture reminds us over and over that God is trustworthy and true. God loves us. God’s love never ends.
Being hopeful can be hard. Life can throw us curveballs and is rarely predictable.
And it shouldn’t be.
If life were easy and clear we wouldn’t need faith. We wouldn’t need hope. And I would say we would rarely think we needed God. It is usually when we are at the end of ourselves that we realize we need God.
We are all familiar with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream. A dream of equality and peace. A dream bathed in hope based on faith in a powerful God. This is not a man controlled or restrained by fear. As a matter of fact, Dr. King wrote often about the negative impact of fear and how his faith kept him from being controlled by his fear and how it enabled him to live into a place of hope…where he was able to share his dream with generations. In his sermon, Mastery of Fear, Dr. King wrote, “There is probably no emotion that plagues and crumbles the human personality more than that of fear.” He went on to say that fear is the basis for war, racism, and hatred. We can be crippled by fear and anxiety. He reminded the listeners that “Perfect love casts out fear.” He also said, only a couple of months before his assassination, that “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” He is one of many examples of people who live in a place of hope and not of fear.
How can we magnify the power, priorities and promises of God so that we can respond to God’s call on our lives with hope and confidence?
When life is going well, we can practice praising God. We can practice magnifying God’s power and priorities, and promises.
Why?
Because when life is not going as well. When God calls us into a difficult decision making process, or circumstances, when the Spirit is telling us to fear not…and if we have been practicing worry…we will worry well. If we have been magnifying fear, we will be really good at fear. If we have been practicing hope? Then we can boldly and joyfully look into the adventure that God is taking us on, knowing that indeed, hope is worth the risk.