Lifted Up!

Sermon Luke 1:39-55 December 23, 2018 Advent 4C

Lifted Up!

Listening to the words from Mary they resonated over and over again…’lifted up’…lifted up kept singing high above all the other words…and then I realized a song from many years ago…

Alan Jackson came to the US in 1890 to New York. He wrote over 9000 published hymns and tune beginning in 1896. This is one of his hymns that was sung in the tiny Christian church I attended as a youth. It’s strange how some things stick with you. It’s strange how words from old bubble their way back into our memory. It’s not really the verses but the refrain that got stuck in my brain…

I was sinking deep in sin
Far from the peaceful shore
Very deeply stained within
Sinking to rise no more
But the Master of the sea
Heard my despairing cry
From the waters lifted me
Now safe am I

Love lifted me, love lifted me
When nothing else could help
Love lifted me
Love lifted me, love lifted me
When nothing else could help
Love lifted me

All my heart to Him I give
Ever to Him I’ll cling
In His blessed presence live
Ever His praises sing
Love so mighty and so true
Merits my soul’s best songs
Faithful, loving service too, to Him belongs

Love lifted me, love lifted me
When nothing…

In these days of Advent these words have been rolling around in my head with the song of the Magnificat…yes, love lifted them…and so love lifts me too. 

Today is a day to be lifted up!

As I was reading the story of Mary and Elizabeth it occurred to me that their lives intersected at a moment when they realized their lives would never be the same again. It’s not every day that someone is visited by an angel and given a prophecy. It is not everyday that someone who has felt disgraced among her people can feel lifted up among her people.

This fourth Sunday of Advent is a reminder of our very present opportunity to live the promise of Christmas in the present moment.

It is on this Sunday when we can be drawn into the power of the love of God with us in our waiting and with us in our hopes for the future.

This is the Sunday that we witness the lowly lifted up and the women who have been cast aside praised above all and called blessed.

Shame and disgrace no longer hold a place in God’s world. Those who would be disgraced by society, God has declared them blessed for today and for future generations!

So, this beautiful story of two women coming together in the waiting-the advent of something new-of the new birth of their babies, provide us a window into the waiting world.

Most of us know what its like to live in anticipation. We have experienced interviewing for a new job in the hopes of getting it. In our waiting for the answer we begin to actually live as if we have received the job. We make plans for a move and for what life will be like with the new experience. We begin living in the present the hope of the future.

That’s what Advent is about-we live today the truth of tomorrow.

Mary and Elizabeth had a choice of living in the disgrace of the world around them or living in the present truth of the glory of God to come through their sons.

How are we still bending to the world around us?

How are we allowing the words of the world claim over who we are?

How are we succumbing to the shouts of the crowds to subdue the truths we possess within us?

Mary and Elizabeth are perhaps the finest example of living out the truths God had placed within them. They had the strength and the fortitude to live with faith even though they knew the world was about to turn upside down.

In this season of Advent are we able to find the strength and the fortitude to live with faith knowing the world will turn upside down?

Our world as we know it today, maybe not yours, but mine; maybe not mine, but yours, is about to change forever.

How does that look in the face of God?

How does that look in the face of my neighbor?

How does that look in the face of the person sitting next to me in the pew?

You see when we witness the birth of Jesus again this year-the world will turn upside down-or so we hope-so we believe-so we live.

We believe the words Mary sings as if they are as true today as they were yesterday and 2000 years ago.

If we don’t believe them to be as disturbing as they were then, we have lost our hope and faith in Jesus to bring about the upturning of our world.

We need the song Mary sings to lift us up!

We need to be lifted up because we too have suffered.

We need to be lifted up because we too have been lowly and disgraced.

We need to be lifted up because we too are living from one fear, one breath, one moment to the next.

We need to be lifted up because we too know that our lives are about to change.

Mary sings the Magnificat because she chooses faith in the present and begins to live the promise of God’s Incarnation as if it has already happened.

Perhaps, today’s message is for us to live the promised blessings now. Perhaps, each moment we breath can be our moment of song.

Let us begin with the words of Mary-My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior…

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and it will be too late to choose how Christmas will arrive for us. 

The plan of Advent every year is to walk each day of it as if Christmas has already come.

Be lifted up, 

friends, 

God rejoices in you, 

let us rejoice in God. Amen.

Christmas Eve Meditation 2018

Christmas Eve Meditation 2018

Preface to the opening of worship:
We are here because we have heard a promise of
peace and we have faith its day will come we have heard a rumor of justice and we
have faith its day will come we have heard a whisper of hope and we have faith its day will come we have heard a hint of love and we have faith its day will come we have heard of the birth of the
Christ-child and we have faith his day is here. Welcome to Christmas Eve.

We are arriving at the space of where heaven and earth intersect.
It’s here where we listen to those familiar words that bring us comfort. The story one more time brings us hope.

If we hear it again, then perhaps it will be true for us again throughout the coming year.
Perhaps, it will be true that peace and love exist.
Perhaps, it will be true that God loves us.
Perhaps, it will be true that God really did come down in love for me and for you and for everyone we know and do not know.

Because tonight we choose to believe even if every other day of the year we choose not to believe. Because tonight the mystery of the amazing love of God enfolds us all.

Tonight, the angels are singing for the shepherds and they are singing for us. They are
telling us that Jesus Christ is born, they are telling us that we must go to Bethlehem and
we must see for ourselves that Jesus Christ is born today.

Tonight, we choose to believe the power of God to save us from ourselves and from the
warring, raging world.

Tonight, we come down to receive this Savior who was born into an unwelcoming world to teach all of us to become welcoming people for one another.

Tonight, we choose to believe that God has enough power to bring heaven to earth so the
whole world will be filled peace.
We will become instruments of peace because the Prince of Peace has been born in us today. And this year, perhaps for the very first time, we really believe it and so we choose to live this truth from this day forward.

Tonight, there is the intersection of humanity in suffering and despair with the wonder
and joy and celebration of new life arriving and eliminating all suffering, releasing all
despair and bringing everlasting life. Bringing the fullness of joy born in each of us as we
share life with one another-this is everlasting.

You see, each time we visit and see the face of another person we experience in that the
visit a moment of the Holy with us. 

This moment when we touch the face of another we touch the face of God,
for God is with us and in us.
The Prince of Peace has been born in us this night.
There is an eerie power of peaceful presence in times such as these.

And so on this most wonderful night of nights as we witness the intersection of heaven
and earth through the touch of God come down in the incarnation-Jesus Christ born to
us today-perhaps, you as well as me are wondering if there is a touch from God for me?

And yes, dear friends, God is here for you and for me.
Believe the words, trust the story,
allow the mystery
to enter in.

God is here!
Jesus Christ is born in us today! Amen!