Birth of a Revolution
Luke 1:39 – 56
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
Daniel T. Hans
December 16, 2007

We have to make a quantum leap to get from the Bible’s first Christmas to our present Christmas.  Nowhere in the ancient texts do we catch even a glimpse of the festivities surrounding current Christmas celebrations.  While holiday harmony is the tune of today’s Christmas,
candid conflict characterized the first Christmas.

Mary’s song, called The Magnificat, stands in stark contrast to our current Christmas mood.  Her song lays the foundation for conflict within the life of anyone who takes seriously Mary’s lyrics.  Considering the tone of Mary’s song, “conflict” may be too soft a description.  Revolution” is more in tune with this mother-to-be’s sonnet.

Like a parent standing over a child’s crib praying about the future of this little human cocoon wrapped in a baby blanket, Mary sings about the future of her child and future of the world as a result of her child.  But Mary’s song is no tame lullaby; it is a call for radical reversal.  It sounds more like a song by Pete Seeger or Bob Dylan or Joan Baez in the 1960s than by the Blessed Virgin.  Mary’s song is a song of protest, a revolutionary ballad.

I

First, Mary sings of a moral revolution. “God shows mercy to those who honor him… and has scattered the proud with all their grand plans…”
A life not given over to God’s eternal good direction is a life not directed toward any lasting good. The Brookings Institute published a report a number of years ago titled “Religion in America.”  The study stated bluntly that secularism (the idea that society should be built on non-religious principles) provides no adequate foundation for democracy in America. The study said that “human rights are rooted in the moral worth with which a Loving Creator has endowed each human soul and that social authority is legitimized by making it answerable to transcendent moral law.”

The report rejected the argument advanced by religious antagonists that removal of religious symbols from government sponsored settings makes government neutral on religion.  The report added that the Founding Fathers never intended the First Amendment to the Constitution to prevent the state from “acknowledging the dependence of civil society on transcendent direction.”
The moral character of individuals, of nations and of the entire world depends upon the degree to which we humbly exalt God. The moral revolution of which Mary sings and which our world needs begins as we set our lives next to Jesus’ life and set our nations next to Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of God. In such comparisons no one can find reason to boast. All must bow on bended knee.

II

A second revolution chanted by Mary is of a social nature. “God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.” The birth of Jesus is a call to remove the social barriers of class distinction and racial discrimination. Before Thomas Jefferson wrote it, Mary sang it:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Mary’s song is not pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by. The verb forms used in the passage are past tense, completed happenings, often referred to as “the prophetic past tense.” The Old Testament prophets spoke with the same sense of completion as they looked ahead to the guaranteed fulfillment of God’s yet unfulfilled promises. In the birth of Jesus, God brought about a social revolution, the outcome of which is certain yet not fully present. With God, a promise made is a promise kept!

This claim is hard to accept because we want full justice now. We are like the woman in the story of the $100 Mercedes.  A man drove by and saw a new Mercedes in front of a house with a sign: For Sale $100.  Thinking it was a mistake, nevertheless, he stopped.  A woman in the house confirmed that the Mercedes was for sale for $100.  As he pulled out his wallet, he asked, “Why are you selling it so cheap?”  She replied, “My husband just ran off with another woman and called me and told me to sell his car and send him a check.”  Instant justice!  That’s what we want to see.

God’s promise of social justice through Christ’s presence is certain. Yet, at present there remain many social injustices.  But don’t lose sight of the instances of justice that are present.  Within the past 20 years we have seen dictators like Panana’s Manuel Noriega, Romania’s Nicolae Ceasusescu and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein brought down from their thrones of oppression; and we have seen corporate thieves like Michael Milken, Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers, humbled and emptied by their greedy embezzlements.  During that same period, we have seen a poet named Vaclav Havel and an electrician Lech Walesa lifted up as presidents; and we have seen corporate leaders like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet contribute tens of billions of dollars to charity.

III

With the passion and power of Pavarotti, Mary sings on about economic revolution. “God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.”  With this verse we might wonder if somehow the pens of Marx and Engels edited the song.  Mary sings of hope for the poor and judgment for the rich whose hearts have no room for the poor.

Maria was a young mother of seven living a desperate single life in Honduras.  She was uneducated and marginally employed. Her husband visited her drunk when it suited him.  Clean water was something Maria and her kids have never known.  All seven children had parasites. Asked, “What has been the happiest time in your life?” she offered no answer.  After a long pause, she said, “Maybe when it ends.”

Maria and hundreds of thousands of mothers like her need those who celebrate Christmas to listen anew to Mary’s song in ancient Palestine.
In the realm of economic justice and opportunity, the world has little changed in 2000 years. Jesus was born into a world that had no room for him. Many of those whom Jesus calls “the least of these my sisters and brothers” are still being born into a world with no room, no home, no hope for them.  Several years ago, a man with a New York City ad agency designed a campaign that captured the spirit of Mary’s aria of economic revolution. On posters with a picture of Jesus, he put the caption: “How can you worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore one on Monday?”

IV

Mary sang of moral, social and economic revolution in a world where people live only for themselves, where might makes right, and where possession is nine-tenths of the law. Marxism is just such a revolutionary movement calling for this broad based transformation of society. Yet, Marxism has failed and will fail whenever it is tried. The failure is not because change in the moral, social and economic fabrics of society is hopeless, but because Marxism is an incomplete and empty revolution.  Marxism lacks the essential ingredient for lasting societal change – that being a spiritual revolution within the individual.

Moral, social and economic changes of a lasting nature will occur only when people’s hearts are changed by an encounter with God.  The birth of a new world cannot be separated from the birth of Jesus, who is God with us in this world. The most radical notes of Mary’s song appear in the first and last verses.  Her prelude contains this self-reference: “God has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.” J.B. Phillips’ translation of the Bible reads: “God has noticed me.”

It takes a spiritual awakening within a person to believe that the Eternal, Almighty Sovereign would stoop to our weakness and become one of us.
Mary is dumbfounded that God notices her and comes to her aid. The individual, no matter who it may be, is important to God. Whatever your need, God notices you and God will help you.

Mary concludes her song with the words: “God has helped his servant Israel.” Reversing the conventional wisdom that says the weak serve the strong and the have-nots serve the haves, Mary sings about:
the Holy One approaching the sinful;
the Powerful One attending to the powerless;
the Infinite One coming to the finite; and
the Eternal One being present in the moment.
Mary’s song of Christmas intones that: “The One who needs nothing helps those who need everything.”  (Robert McAfee Brown, Unexpected News)

Those who are helped by God’s hand are to become helping hands to others.

Those who are raised to new hope and new life through Christ are to give themselves to lifting up others. Those who are blessed by God are to become a blessing to others. That is the melodious message of Christ’s birth and that must become the melodious message of our Christmas. It all hinges upon whether we will allow God to give birth to a revolution within us – a revolution that begins spiritually in us and then leaps into every area of life throughout the world.with God all things are possible.

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