Seasonal

And we're gonna read 26 through 2 36 of Luke chapter 1. In the 6 month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth for town and galilee to a virgin pledge to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The Virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said greetings, you who are highly favored. The lord is with you.

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angels said to her, do not be afraid Mary. You have found favor with god. You will conceive and give birth to a son and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the most high.

The lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever his kingdom will never end. How will this be, Mary asked the angels, since I am a virgin, The angel answered, the holy spirit will come on you and the power of the most high will overshadow you. So the holy 1 to be born will be called the son of God. Even Elizabeth, your relative is going to have a child in her old age and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month for no word from god. Will ever fail.

I am the lord's servant Mary answered. May your word to me be fulfilled? Than the angel left her. At that time, Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the holy spirit.

In a loud voice, she exclaimed, blessed are you among women and blessed is the child that you bear. But why am I so favored that the mother of my lord should come to me. As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leap for joy Blessed is she who has believed that the lord would fulfill his promises to her. And Mary said, my soul glorifies the lord, and my spirit rejoices in god my savior for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on, all generations will call me blessed for the mighty 1 has done great things for me.

Holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm. He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but he has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever just as he promised our ancestors. Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about 3 months and then returned home. We're gonna be mainly focusing on that wonderful song, Mary's song in Luke 1 verse 46. So it would be helpful to have that open in front of you.

And as we explore it together. Let's first bow our heads and pray and ask for the Lord's help. Father, we thank you that no word from God will ever fail. Thank you that all of your promises are true. That we can depend upon them, that we can take our stand upon them, that we can trust you even if all around us, would have us doubt your existence and doubt the truthfulness of your word.

We thank you that everyone in this room who knows and loves the lord Jesus can testify to the truthfulness of your word. We have known it experientially lord that your word never fails us, that it's always true, that when we live by it and obey you by your grace, it is only ever always good for us to walk your ways. And we pray that as we look at this song, which lifts up your majesty and your mercy to sinners like us. We pray that you'd help us to want to sing with the same voice in which Mary sang, and we ask these things in Jesus' name. Many.

Alongside his his bigger, more well known books, c s Lewis wrote a number of shorter stories. And I read 1 recently, which I really loved. It's called the shoddylands. I don't know if you're familiar with that, then if anyone's ever read that, the shoddylands And it's about this man who's at college in in Oxford at Oxford University. He's at college.

And he's looking forward to and he's expecting a a visit from his friend called Dervant. And his friend comes, the time arrives at Dervant knocks on the door, and he goes down and opens his door and much to his irritation and much to his disappointment, Dervant has turned up with his new fiance, Peggy. And here's what he says about that. I loathe either men or women who speak as if they were coming to see you alone and then spring a husband, wife, or fiancee upon you. I don't know if you've ever had that experience.

He was very frustrated. He was looking forward to talking with Darwin about old times and stepping into familiar shoes. And now there's a new fiance and they've got to make polite talk. Okay? So he's very frustrated about this.

Anyway, they're carrying on and they're talking together. And then all of a sudden, without fainting, or without nausea or without any explanation, the main character awaits and finds himself in an altogether different world. And this world is fuzzy and dull and featureless and he hates it. So he's walking through this new world that he's found himself in and above him is something like the sky except much more boring than any sky that you've ever seen. It's just 1 gray smudge going across the horizon, which is a little bit of like guy that we often see, but even worse than that.

Okay? And everything is like this. So he describes the trees as the crudest, shabbiest apology for trees that you could imagine. And he describes them like lamp posts, with a dollop of green paint on them that has been smudged. That's what the trees look like.

They look something like themselves. You know what it is? And yet, it's so much more boring and less real than it is. The people are like that. The trees are like that.

The flowers are like that. The grass is like that. Everything is like that. He says it's reduced to the most boring featureless version of its self. It's like a second rate universe where everything has been put together on the cheap.

And he says, I doubt if my disgust can be fully conveyed to anyone who has not had a similar experience. So he hates this new work. Anyway, carries on. He finds himself on some kind of high street, and he's looking at the shops. And most of the shops are exactly like everything else, like trees in the sky except for a few shops which are crystal clear.

So the lights are on, the colors are rich, He looks through the window and he can see broaches and tiara's and rings and dresses and perfumes and all the textures are right and the shapes are defined well and it looks it just looks beautiful. So unlike everything else, And so he's thinking, what is this world? Why on earth? Or rather, where in hell am I? Trees no good.

Grass is no good. Sky no good, flowers no good, people no good, shops first class. Where am I? And so he carries on down the high streets And at the end of the high street is a harbor and before before that around that harbor is a beach. And on the beach is the most hideous repulsive thing of all.

There is an enormous woman in an orange bikini. On this beach, just dominating the skyline. And as he looks at her, he is both drawn to her and repulsed by her. He can't sort of stop looking at her in in that weird way. And he realizes very quickly that the person he's looking at is none other than Peggy herself.

Or at least, it's it's how Peggy would like to be seen. So this is a woman who looks a bit like Peggy, but not exactly like her. She's like Peggy, but if she was a model and all the advertisements. So it's like the perfect bikini clad version of Peggy. That's what he sees dominating the the skyline.

And he's sort of stunned by it but drawn towards her. And then all of a sudden, he wakes up and he's back in the room with Darwin and Peggy. They don't seem to have noticed anything's happened to him. He manages to pick up where he left off and continues the conversation. And then at the end of the story, he's reflect acting on what has happened to him.

And although he can't say for sure, this is his analysis of what happened. I was for a second or so, let into Peggy's mind, at least to the extent of seeing her world the world as it exists for her at the center of that world is a swollen image of herself. Now that's fairly cutting, isn't it? Considering it's only just matter. I mean, might be the kind of thing you say after months, but on a first occasion, it feels a little harsh.

And yet that's what he sort of sees. In her world, everything except herself is boring and featureless. She is the only clear defined reality. She dominates the skyline of her world and the shops and things she's not interested in are blurry and boring. The things that she loves, well, those are the things that are all clear and colorful.

Now what is that all about? Well, here's 1 definition of a narcissist. A narcissist is a person with an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others.

And that is clearly how Peggy is being interpreted in this story. She is a woman he thinks with an unreasonably high sense of her own importance. But there's a sense in which All sin is like that, isn't it? All sin starts with a swollen image of ourselves. The reason that we sin in any way is because we have become too big in our own universe, and the God that we claim to worship has become desperately small.

So I think about when I feel self pity, something like that, when I'm moping around, feeling that life and things should be better for me. What is it the root of self pity? Well, it's be it's because I have become too big in my own world. My needs well, those are like the shops. They're crystal clear to me.

I know what I need and I know what I feel I should be given. But the needs of others and their concerns of what they might be going through. Well, that's boring and features. Self pity begins with a swollen image of myself. And I think it's not too simplistic to say that all sin shares that common root.

A swollen image of ourselves, at the center of our world and a desperately small image of God. And Lewis says, when that happens, everything else becomes a smudge. And that is literally true, isn't it? I don't know if you've ever been on your device and you've been walking along, just taken up with some kind of image of another person or image of yourself where you're watching some video about self improvement, how you could better yourself in this way. And when you're taken up with yourself like that, you literally miss the beauty of the world all you around around it.

You you literally miss it. Everything else has become featureless and blurry. Compared to the swollen image of self at the center of the universe. And you know as we come to this song here, in Luke 1, we discovered that it could not be more different to that way of thinking and that way of living. This song is traditionally called the Magnificat, and it translates the first word.

My soul magnifies in the older versions. My soul glorifies the Lord. And this is what we're looking at this evening. At the center of this song. Dominating the skyline in Mary's world is a magnificent beautiful, god.

He takes up the world in his beauty and power. Just listen to her. My soul magnifies the Lord. And my spirit rejoices in god my savior, massive god we're introduced to at the start of this song. The word glorifies there is actually the same word that Paul uses, same Greek word, as we find in Philippians 1 20.

And here's what he says. Paul says, I eagerly expect and hope. That I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always, Christ will be exalted in my body. Whether by life or by death the word exalted is the same word glorified or magnified. This is what Mary is saying.

This is what Paul is saying. This is his song. This is her song. Whatever happens to me in life or death, I want Christ to be exalted. I want Christ to be the main event.

I want the swollen image of God to be taking over my life. That's what I want. Now you might think, well, that sounds like a depressing song because I much prefer life when my needs and my wants are more central. But the reality is it couldn't be more different. If we are like Peggy, we will never be happy.

We'll never be happy if we like her because we were not made to inhabit a world in which we play such a major part. We weren't made for a world where we are at the center, but when things are this way around, everything is happy and beautiful and as it should be. See verse 46 again, my soul glorifies the Lord And my spirit rejoices in god my savior. I mean, if if she thinks that's bad news, she's doing a good job of covering it, isn't she? She clearly thinks that's a that's a happy thing to have God so big and so central.

And I don't know about you, but I I need to hear this all the time. I need this all the time. I think my biggest battle with sanctification really is to sort of lay hold of this and believe this in a way that actually makes a difference and changes me. And if you're anything like that, then let's just spend some time meditating on this on this song. I've only got I've only got 1 point So the plan is it will be a bit briefer and it's this.

And it's something to do to get where Mary gets meditate on his mercy to magnify his name. That's it. The only point, meditate on his mercy. To magnify his name. Verse 46, the song begins, and this song is overflowing with old testament language.

If you know the story of Hannah in 1 Samuel chapter 2, a a lot of the language that Mary uses has been borrowed and pinched from Hannah Song in 1 samuel 2. There's echoes of all kinds of psalms in here. This language of rejoicing in God, my Savior is borrowed from Babcock 3 and his song. It is it is overflowing with the old testament. And there's some people who think Yep.

And and therefore, Mary could never have actually written this because she was just, you know, a girl, you know, an unknown girl, an educated girl, and some part of town, but I think that's that that is to do her a massive disservice. And why would she not be familiar with the traditions of the scriptures? Why would she not have learned these stories? About Hannah in the song. So this this song is from someone who knows her bible really well.

And the big theme of it is that with god, the proud and the rich are scattered, but that god looks with kindness on the weak and the humble. Proud scatters, poor raised up. You see that in verse 46 to 48. My soul glorifies the lord and my spirit rejoices in god my savior. For he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.

From now on, all generations will call me blessed. I saw in a paper this week the top TV audiences, top 10 TV audiences of 20 22 And the little table did not include sporting fixtures, and it did not include things like the 6 o'clock news, but everything else was fair game. And as you might guess, the most watched thing of the year was the Queen's funeral After that was the Queen's Jubilee concert. And then the next 3 highest audiences this year. I'm a celebrity get me out of here.

Great program, by the way, the Eurovision song contest and strictly come dancing. Okay? Those were that after the Queen, is I'm a celeb, Eurovision, strictly. And what that tells us is a number of things, but not least that millions of people in this country still love celebrity stuff. You know, we're drawn towards the the sparkle and the shine of celebrities.

We wanna watch them, see what they do. Loads of us love that kind of thing. And yet when you come to this story, it's got none of that celebrity shine. Has it? None of that gloss.

I can't imagine it attracting the same amount of viewers who strictly come dancing for that reason. 1 commentator says, From all indicators, Mary's life would not be extraordinary. She would marry humbly give birth to numerous poor children, never travel further than a few miles from home, and 1 day die like thousands of others before her and nobody in a nothing town in the middle of nowhere. And that is not a great CV. By today's standards, I'm a nobody in a nothing town in the middle of nowhere with numerous poor children.

Not sort of thing that you would advertise about yourself. And yet look at the the kind of 12 week scan results she gets in verse 31 or really it's before then. But you know what I mean? Verse 31, you will conceive and give birth to a son and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and we will be called the son of the most high.

Now that is an amazing scan result. It's not the sort of information that you normally get in baby scans. They normally tell you that the little heart is beating fine and the organs are all where they should be. And if you're me, the the head is on the 90 ninth percentile. You know, it looks like got a healthy brain there and that's the kind of information you get.

They never say, oh, I can see that she's gonna be an accountant. Oh, yeah. Very clear, he's gonna be a plumber. You know, they don't provide that kind of information in the scan. But here, what have we got in verse 31?

It's a future statement, he will be called great, and he will be called the son of the most high. You know, to us, this is familiar stuff isn't it? But Mary, is blown away that these worlds are colliding, that the world of the high and wholly and the heavenly and the mighty is coming into the poor and the weak and the humble and the ordinary. For us, it's just the Christmas story, but this this is extraordinary to the people who were first involved. And yet this is the pattern of scripture, isn't it?

First 46 to 48. 48 has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. Verse 50, as mercy extends to those who fear him. But verse 51, he scatters those who are proud in their inmost thoughts He's brought down rulers from their thrones. He's lifted up the humble.

This is what we see of the lord time and time again. In Paul's letters, he says, or God says through him, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. And the intelligence of the intelligence I will frustrate. It's not to say there's anything wrong with intelligence, but there is a sort of intelligence that thinks it can explain the world apart from god, and he promises to scatter that and frustrate that everywhere he finds it. The wisdom of the wise, I will destroy the intelligence of the intelligent, I will frustrate and he comes to the humble, the ordinary, the weak.

People like Mary. But the thing about this song is that this is not just God being gracious to ordinary people. It's God's being gracious to sinful people. And that is really crucial. Otherwise, we might end up distorting the gospel.

We might end up hearing something. Well, if god scatters the rich and shows kindness to the poor, then what I've got is the kind of salvation by class. Thing. Whatever I need to do, I need to avoid being rich and being educated, and instead I need to make sure I'm deliberately poor and weak because that's who God saves. Well, that would be a massive distortion of the gospel.

What Mary celebrates here is God's mercy to sinners You see that in verse 47. My spirit rejoices in God, my savior. God is her savior. That's why she rejoices. That's why she wants to have him dominating the skyline.

He's her savior. In traditional Roman Catholic teaching. He says that by the grace of God, Mary was kept free from all taint of original sin. By the grace of God, Mary was kept free from all taint of original sin. But it's hard to square with what she actually thinks, isn't it?

There is no doubt that she is highly favored The angels say that. I mean, as that quote said earlier, there were hundreds of other women who were just like Mary in a very similar condition but the lord set his favor and his grace upon her, she was chosen among all of them and she was to bear the savior. She was highly favored, but she needs a savior verse 47, and she knows it. She knows that this Christ that she is gonna bear, she will have to trust for her eternal salvation. She's gonna have to throw herself and lean herself upon his grace if she's to be saved like everybody else.

That's what excites her most. Salvation, rescue. That's what she wants to sing about. Myself and Laura yesterday, we watched this extraordinary film called 13 lives. Then if anyone has seen it 13 lives, it's about it's a film only produced this year.

And it's about the rescue of a Thai football team and their coach from a cave system in Thailand. It's based upon true story that happened in 20 18. And you've got these 12 young lads, only just early teenagers and and their coach. And basically, what happens is they had a fun time practicing together, and then they decided to go and explore the local caves And as they do, they're just mucking around in the caves. The monsoon rains begin to come earlier than expected.

And very, very quickly, the caves begin to flood up with monsoon water so much so that their exit from the cave is blocked. And so what happens is these young boys end up having to go further and further into the cave system in order to escape the water until they end up 2 and a half kilometers away from the entrance underground in this cave system with these waters, these monsoon waters rising all around them and their oxygen levels coming down all the time. And the store that the film is just the most spec It's just I would so highly recommend I'm about to spoil it all on the freight, but I would really recommend you you go and watch it. Because it's about this international rescue effort, motivated by a love for these young boys to do whatever they can to try to get them out before it's before it's too late. And the sacrifice required in order to get them out was huge.

There was 1 of the Thai navy seals who who who who tragically died drowned trying to resupply the oxygen for some of the other divers. There was this scene where because the water was not just flowing in from ground level. Most of it was coming in through sinkholes above the cave system in the in the mountain. And what they realized was that in order to give these boys the best chance, they would have to tried to divert as much of that water as they could away from the sinkholes and down onto the nearby fields. But those fields were all owned by farmers.

And to divert that much water onto those fields would mean the end of a year's worth of crops. And so there's this powerful scene where they get all the farmers together and they say, look, we've got to divert the water. They all know what that means. It's gonna destroy their crops, their income for the year. And yet they all turn around and after about a minute consultation, say, for the boys, we'll we'll we'll do it.

And so they accept at great personal cost. They're willing to take that risk. And then after, you know, 18 days it took. And a 6 hour dive, they managed to get all of these boys out 1 by 1, and they all are alive. And then the movie ends with them all at this family birthday party, which they were supposed to be going to before they got trapped.

And you just watch it and you think This is just the gospel. I mean, this film is just everything that I love about my savior. You know, there we were stuck in the darkness of sin, deep underground without light and without hope, with the waters of judgment rising all around us waiting to swallow us up and yet with great love and sacrifice Christ brings himself down into the cave system. He accepts the waters of judgment are gonna be diverted onto himself that he's gonna have to bear the cost. He's gonna have to give his life in order to redeem us from the darkness and bring us back to the family party we should always have been at.

It's just the gospel. And that is what Mary is so thrilled at in verse 47. My spirit rejoices in God, my savior. This is the 1, the high and holy 1, who's left the heavens and has come into my sin and my darkness and my distress in order to rescue me. And the truth is if we want to get rid of that swollen image of self.

This is where we have to go. How does the high and holy god treat sinners. He is mindful of them. He lifts them up. He fills them.

He helps them. He saves them. 8 times, Mary says he has done He has performed. He has brought. He has lifted.

He has filled. He has scattered. This is all god's work. He's done this. And the most amazing thing is that at this stage, Jesus Christ hadn't even been born.

He was still in her womb. And yet she uses the past tense about him. So sure is she that Christ will provide the promised rescue, that she sings as if it's already been accomplished. She trusts him because she knows that no word of god will ever fail. 1 of the saddest bits In the film is when the first rescue diver gets to the boys, the first 1 to see them after days stuck there.

And he's talking to the boys and he's trying to make sure that they're okay. And he sees that just behind 1 of them, is this small pile of rubble, no big than about half 1 of the boys pile of gravel. And he says, what is this? And they say he's 1 of the voices in broken English, dig dig dig dig. And he says, you've been trying to dig you've been trying to dig your way out.

And they say, yeah. And that's all that they'd accomplished in 12 days. Just a little pile of stones, all of them trying to dig their way out. And you kind of think when it looks it looks pathetic, it looks hopeless and yet you can totally understand that that's what you would do. And isn't that a little picture of how our own efforts just fail to get us out of darkness?

We dig and we dig and we try and get our way out, not realizing we're 2 2.5 kilometers from the entrance, miles underground, totally hopeless with just a bit of gravel at our at our feet. We need this 1 to come in and rescue us because our own efforts will never do it. And the way that we magnify the lord, this lord, is by leaning into that mercy. The way that we lift him up and exalt him is by trusting him wholly in order to rescue us. My spirit rejoices in God, my savior.

And isn't this the message that our world needs to hear? Tonight, there have been thousands of people gathering in a stadium in order to magnify the achievements of men. And it is something to celebrate, and we should praise God for his common grace and the sport that we can enjoy, and there is something we love in seeing great sports people triumph. But it is interesting, isn't it how much time and money and even human life? We are willing to give, to build stadiums, to help us to magnify the achievements of men when there is precious little that encourages us to magnify the mercy of God.

In our politics, it is so rare to hear expressions of need, isn't it? That we can't do this? That this challenge is beyond us. That we need help from outside of ourselves. Now I know leaders have got a lead and in some way that's an unrealistic way of leading, but it is interesting, isn't it the language of we can do this this challenge we can beat.

Things will be better. Just trust us. No problems here. When everything is literally on its knees, we have to magnify ourselves with all the discussions that rage around gender and sexual identity and all these things we hear all the time. There are so many ways of trying to unpick and answer those parts of the world.

And yet perhaps it is more helpful sometimes just to take a step back and say what is the world view behind all of this? Well, it's a swollen image of self, isn't it at the center of the world and a desperately small image of God? And I have to say, sadly, that is often the case with me. It is often the case. That I can sing this song in theory but not in practice because I'm more like Peggy than Mary.

It's the truth. I'm more like Peggy than Mary. Got myself and my own needs clear, but the concerns of God and his glory too small. And yet, this song tells me that there is hope for me and that it's not too late and that if I can set my eyes on the extraordinary mercy of God. I can know the same joy that she that she knows.

Interesting just at the end of that story before he comes out of the dream. He's still there gazing at Peggy, and he hears this knocking from outside. And the knocking he describes as soft as wool and sharp as death. And with the knocking is a voice, child child, child, let me in before the night comes. And then I was back, drunk with the sheer delight of being back in the real world, free outside the horrible little prison of that land.

The soul that does not magnify the lord will magnify something else. And that is a horrible little prison of a place. But to magnify the lord is to be set free from sin and is to be free to delight in everything else in its proper place. And I don't just need to hear that message once at the beginning of my Christian life. I need to hear that all the time.

All the time. How about you? The very last line of the story is the main character feeling very unsettled. And he says, suppose this sort of thing were to become common. And how if some other time, I were not the explorer, but the 1 explored.

In other words, if someone was to climb into your mind, what would the world look like? Someone was to be able to get in and have a walk around what would be dominating the skyline. The Lord says to his child, child, child, let me in before the night comes. Should we pray? Just give you a moment to read over that song, think through.

Some of the things that we've heard. Father, we confess, and we are sorry that so often we, certainly so often I, more like Peggy than Mary, that myself and what I need and what I think is important and the things that I value are so clear in my mind and yet the needs of other people and the preciousness of your name can be all blurred and smudgy and boring to me. And Lord, we're sorry for that, and we thank you that coming to this song, we are taken into the real world, that we breathe clean air, that we find a woman singing of the glory of the Lord, and rejoicing in God, her Savior. And we thank you, Lord, that you did not just sow this mercy to her, but that your mercy extends to those who fear him from generation to generation. Further, we pray that you would help us to fear you, to trust you, to have you, as the all consuming reality in our lives.

We thank you that you are merciful to sinners like us and that you call us out of the darkness. You rescue us from the caves of this world and you show us the light and the truth of Jesus. Help us, we pray, please, this Christmas and on into the New Year to fight our sin with this song. My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior. In Jesus name.

Oh, man.