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Dr. George A. Purnell
December 29, 2009
“Merry Christmas?”
Luke 1:39-55
Christmas is about birth, the birth of a son to a peasant couple. Luke’s is the only gospel that tells us of this birth. And from its outset, the gospel of Luke portrays the prominent role of women in the emergence of Christianity. All the attention at the beginning of Luke’s gospel focuses on two women, Mary and Elizabeth, and on their pregnancies.
Interestingly, despite the fact that a woman had to give birth to our Lord, the other gospels do not emphasize the role of women in our faith story.
Mark and John dispense with the birth altogether. Their gospels begin with Jesus as a grown man.
Matthew tells us his opening chapter that the angel came to Joseph – who was upset because his intended bride was pregnant – in a dream and said: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” Joseph is the main character in this drama as told by Matthew, and this would be consistent with the patriarchal nature of the culture and time of Jesus’ birth. Mary is a bit player. God wants Joseph to know that he can marry her and take this son as his own.
In Luke’s account, the roles are reversed. We read that “the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph”…to tell her that she would have a son. Gabriel delivered his message to Mary, not to Joseph. In fact, Joseph is not mentioned again until the actual birth, and after chapter 2 of Luke’s 24 chapters, Joseph disappears from the story altogether.
When Mary asked how this could be, since she had not known any man, the angel replied: “the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and…the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for herwho was said to be barren.”
Luke’s emphasis is radical for his day. Women were ignored in that culture, and these women were suspect for reasons other than their gender: Elizabeth because she had been unable to have children – a sure sign of divine disfavor – and Mary because of her pregnancy out of wedlock.
When she learned that Elizabeth was in her sixth month of pregnancy, Mary arose and went to the unnamed Judean town where Elizabeth lived. She stayed with Elizabeth for three months, we read. This three month period was a significant gestation period of the Christian faith, with the mothers ofJohn the Baptist and Jesus supporting each other in their pregnancies.
Why did Mary go to the home of Elizabeth when she received the startling news from the angel? It seems odd that Mary, a very young teen aged girl, would seek out a distant relative. Why not seek support from her parents (who are never mentioned in the Bible) or from people in Nazareth, where she was living, when she learned she would have this child?
Mary needed to be with someone who would offer understanding and acceptance, someone who would be happy for her, not angry with her or envious of her because of her favored status before God. And she instinctively knew that Elizabeth was that person.
Still, Mary must have been anxious when she arrived at Elizabeth’s door? Where would she have gone if Elizabeth and Zechariah had sent her away? But Elizabeth greeted Mary with joy, saying: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb…For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.’”
Mary’s response to Elizabeth’s greeting and blessing is to sing. She sings a song that speaks of vindication for the underclass. It is a song of oppressed people of every age, of people seeking God’s vindication. Similar songs have been sung in the Hebrew exile of the sixth century BCE…in the slave cabins of nineteenth century America…and into my lifetime, in the struggle for human rights in mid-twentieth century America (we shall overcome).
Mary sings. She sings that famous song, the one history has called the Magnificat of Mary. It is a song that has been sung for 20 centuries now …on Broadway in New York City, at the Vatican in Rome, in local church cantatas over the centuries…
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor 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 …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…”
Much of our Bible’s most beautiful verse, found in the prophets and the psalms, was written in times of captivity and exile. When the people of Israel were defeated and discouraged, we find some of the most majestic and compelling words ever written, about a God who could make all things new and bring surprising joy out of sorrow.
When the Assyrians conquered Israel – and her people either lived as captives in their homeland or went into exile – Isaiah wrote of a bright future:
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined…For a child has been born for us, a son given to us;…and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace…”
And, like Mary’s Magnificat, this song is sung all over the world, in Handel’s Messiah.
Somebody once said that happiness is what you feel when you think you’ve got everything you want (and that is why no one is ever completely happy). Joy, on the other hand, is what you feel when you discover you already have what you need.
Speaking for myself, prosperity has not brought the most joy to my life. When I prosper, I become smug and safe and boring. It seems that the more I have the less grateful I feel, and the more I expect to have.
It has been in seasons of distress that I have discovered joy, and it has come in the realization that God is with me and that I have what I need to keep the darkness from overcoming me…
I once had a divorced woman come to see me shortly after Christmas. She had four young children. Her job was repetitive and deadening in its routine. She was working longer hours for the same pay, and her boss was always asking her personal questions that made her uncomfortable. She felt like she was doing an inadequate job as a mother, because she was gone early, home after 6, too tired after supper to be effectively engaged in their lives. She told me she looked and felt ten years older than her years…
Whereas December used to be her favorite time of the year, she found the month depressing now, she said. The department store ads showed obviously successful, well to do, happy people in a gathering of friends and family…people with seamless lives…unlike the life she knew. As she shopped, she realized that her budget would not allow her to buy things she knew her children would enjoy (and that the culture led them to expect)….
Late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, she was driving home from some last minute shopping and she was caught in congested, slow moving traffic. She was frustrated, because she needed to be get home to get all the presents under the tree and fix dinner. As she sat in traffic, she turned on the radio and the holiday songs made her feel worse. She switched from station to station, but whichever station she tuned in was playing secular happy songs: “Jingle Bell Rock,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, “Santa Clause is Coming to Town.” She turned her radio off and drove home in silence…
After opening presents with her children and having dinner, her ex husband came to take the children to his home. He had them overnight and they opened presents at his house when they woke up.
So, rather than stay at home alone, she decided to come to the 11 p.m. Christmas Eve service. She told me that she listened intently to the words as the song ‘Away in a Manger’ was sung:
“Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head. The stars in the sky looked down where he lay, the little Lord Jesus, asleep on the hay.
The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes, but little Lord Jesus no crying he makes; I love thee Lord Jesus, look down from the sky and stay by my cradle till morning is nigh.
Be near me Lord Jesus, I ask thee to stay close by me forever, and love me, I pray; bless all the dear children in thy tender care, and fit us for heaven to live with thee there.”
She said she felt a sense of peace over her, because she realized that the religious carols of the season were not songs about jingle bells or having a Merry Little Christmas, but rather songs about a peasant couple being unable to afford an inside room the night their child was born…with animals as crib mates and poor shepherds outside on a cold dark night being the first visitors…songs depicting a child born into poverty…and she began to weep.
Then, a soloist sang “O Holy Night”:
“Oh holy night! The stars are brightly shining; it is the night of the dear Savior’s birth! Long lay the world in sin and error pining till he appeared and the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!
Fall on your knees, oh hear the angel voices
Oh night divine
Oh night when Christ was born
Oh night divine
Oh night divine
Truly he taught us to love one another, his law is love and his gospel is peace. Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother and in his name all oppression shall cease. Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we, let all within us praise his holy name.
Fall on your knees, oh hear the angel voices…”
And as she listened, tears that had welled in her eyes earlier began streaming down her cheeks…
When the congregation stood to sing the closing hymn, she was unable to give voice to the stanza: “Silent night, holy night, Son of God, love’s pure light; radiant beams from thy holy face with the dawn of redeeming grace, Jesus, Lord, at thy birth, Jesus, Lord at thy birth,” because she was overcome with joy.
She said she cried openly, as she lighted and lifted her candle and sang the words of the final stanza:
Silent Night, holy night, wondrous star, lend thy light; with the angels let us sing, Alleluia to our King, Christ the Savior is born, Christ the Savior is born.”
Uncertain of what was happening to her, Mary found help in Elizabeth’s home. And Mary sang. Because even though she was unsure about what God was doing in her life, she had faith that God’s way would prevail in the world. So she had reason to sing.
And so do we. For to us a child is born, who is Christ the Lord. Glory to God in the highest. Peace and good will be yours, today and always. Amen.
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