Sermon Tone Analysis

Mary’s Hope (and ours as well)

What is it about Christmas that warms our hearts so much, that give us hope?

There are many things people hope for.

Some of the things people hope for seem less than interesting to others.

Some people hope for simple things, others hope for greater things.

We all have hope, and we all need hope.

In our world today, many are hurting.

Relationships especially seem broken.

Most people would tell you of a close friend or relative who they no longer connect with.

Losing people we cared for and loved and for many, people who were friends and confidants for many years are no longer connecting.

This leaves us with all kinds of questions, and many of us are tempted to blame ourselves or others for what has happened.

We know that scripture tells us that the body of Christ is to be unified, and that the power of Christ in our lives should be sufficient to preserve the bond of unity no matter what difficulties we encounter.

So we look at what has happened and wonder.

Why do people become disconnected, when they seemed to be so well-connected before?

There is grief, much like the grief that happens to all the family members involved in a divorce.

Much like the grief of losing a loved one through death.

Like the family who has lost a loved one, the holidays can seem to be unbearable when our traditions and the festivities we once enjoyed together are now spent without those ones we loved.

We all know what it is like.

We have all experienced severed relationships, whether through death or divorce or bitterness unchecked, and we long for those relationships to be restored, and have great pain and sorrow to have felt something that was a part of our lives suddenly ripped away.

It is like losing part of ourselves.

In times of anguish and when we can’t see how God is working in our circumstances, it can be tempting to lose hope, to go the opposite direction of hope to despair, but for the Christian this is not an option.

We are commanded to have joy, yet this seems impossible when we look at the world around us so broken, and even sometimes in God’s church, such brokenness that some decided that they no longer felt that the power of God and the application of His Word could fix the relationships among us.

We are to have hope, yet the pain we feel can cause us to throw up our hands and give up.

The more we see of the brokenness of a sinful world, the more we can despair, and the more we can become cynical.

But Christmas reminds us, that there is hope!

When we think the world has never seen brokenness like we experience, when we think evil has never been greater, when we think that people have never been so quick to give up on relationships, and when we think that no good remains, we can look to the events of Nazareth and Bethlehem and remember that in those times, people were crying out much as we are today, begging God to intervene in our lives, to show that he has not gone dormant but continues to actively involve himself in our lives.

Mary was a young girl, a teenager in times that really were not much different than today.

Yes, economics and technology and cultures have changed, but the basics are still the same: Man is by nature depraved, sin abounds, relationships are not as God intended, families experience pain, sickness, and anguish over the loss of loved ones.

Today and then, the same.

Israel as a nation had gone for a few centuries without hearing form God.

He spoke through no prophets.

He had tried for years to speak through prophets, who were continually rejected and even killed.

The people had gone astray.

Yet, Israel held onto the hope and promise that would come through the Messiah.

Mary and Joseph had been selected as part of this drama.God had revealed to Mary His intentions of bringing the Savior in her time, and through her.

Mary, a young girl, who had little but faith, was chosen to be the vessel to carry the greatest gift in the history of the world and forevermore that gift will never be topped.

She was to bear the baby who was God himself.

The very creator of the world, Jesus Christ, The Messiah, The anointed one, the blessed hope.

Jesus Christ was the answer to all of those who cried out in their hearts in Mary’s day and for generations before, longing for the solution to their problem, longing to see that the little hope that remained in their hearts was not pure fiction, it wasn't a fantasy, but that God was real, and would prove himself faithful, and now in Mary’s generation, He was going to do this magnificent thing, that would stun the world, and His method of salvation would stupefy the wisest men, because no one can really understand how the Great God of the universe would condescend to become a baby, not only descending to the most helpless state of humanity, that of an unborn baby, but even to be born in a humble place, and to be laid in a humble makeshift crib, a manger.

The King whom angels bow to was in the womb of a young woman, who like many of her people for centuries before, had cried out in her soul for the salvation to come.

This young woman was truly blessed and given a special place in history.

In the gospel of Luke, we learn that Mary went to visit her cousin, Elizabeth.

John the Baptist, the son of Elizabeth, was yet in the womb.

Two great men prophesied for ages, both together in the same room, both unborn.

If you have any question that the unborn are significant, look at what happens here.

The baby leaped in the womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and realized that Mary was carrying the child who would be announced by her own son, and that Mary’s child, was he Lord!

Imagine referring to an unborn child as the Lord!

And not just Lord as in master, but Lord as in God, as in the Great I AM!

And here is Mary, giving a Song of Praise.

It wells up within her.

The first part of her song is about how God has blessed here, and the second part speaks of the fulfillment of prophecy that was taking place.

Let’s look at Mary’s song, also known as the Magnificat:

Luke 1:46–55 (ESV)

This song is called the Magnificat, which is latin for “My Soul Magnifies the Lord”.

Notice the language of Mary “The Lord”, “God my Savior”, “he who is mighty” “holy is his name” “his mercy” “he has shown strength” she speaks of justice, she speaks of generosity, and God’s faithfulness.

Here is Mary, in a world where the same relational problems we experience today as just as common, and the longing for God to make things right just as much an aching desire as it is for us, and Mary voices all of her desires in this song.

She says “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior”.

Oh, brothers and sisters, do our souls magnify the Lord?

Do our spirits rejoice in God our Savior?

Psalm 34:3 “Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together!”

Oh God, our prayer is that we would sense, like Mary did that day, the hope we have!

May we magnify you!

May we exalt you, and may we rejoice in you as God our Savior, as Mary did!

Why does she magnify Him?

Because he looked on her humble estate.

He recognized Mary as a humble person, who did not think much of herself, but honored God in her reverence towards him.

And scripture says that whoever honors God, God will honor.

Are we humble enough to realize our smallness in comparison to God?

Is He so great to us that we realize that for us to receive his attention he must condescend to us?

That the only way we could get near Him is because He desires to come near to us? Oh God, May we be as humble as Mary was, and realize how much we owe you, that every breath is yours, and may we have such reverence to you that we must be humble, and make us humble, we pray, that we may be lifted up by you!

Generations would call her blessed.

Indeed, I proclaim it today: Mary was blessed by God.

What a blessing it was for her.

But Mary didn't see herself as blessed in the sense of being worshipped or venerated, Mary was blessed because she realized how insignificant she would be if God did not personally taken interest in her.

Oh God, may we take stock of our own wretchedness, our own lowly estate, as Mary did, and may we realize that when you bless us, it only brings glory on you, not on us.

The glory is all yours, and the privilege is all ours to partake in the blessings you give.

Bless us in this way, Oh God, that we may realize our need for humility, and that we would truly be humble.

The mighty one has done great things for Mary, and so she sings.

He has done great things for us, so we sing.

Our hope is in Him, the Lord Jesus, who is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

He has done great things for us, and he is holy.

Mary recognized that the name of God is holy, and we must also realize the holiness of God.

When we think of it, we should marvel, when we consider the holiness that is the nature of God, it should make us shudder in reverence and fear of Him.

And if we could understand just a little bit about His holiness, we would marvel all the more that He even allows us to live for even a moment.

When we get that sense of his holiness that causes us to marvel that we could even stay alive in the sinful state we are in, then how much more does the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross mean to us, how much more does the realization of the cost that must have had to be paid for us to ever live, much less have hope for eternal life?

And hope for eternal life we have, because the story is written in the book, the Word of God, which is referred to by many metaphors in scripture; as food, as light, as a lamp, as a hammer, as a two-edged sword, as a seed, as a sign, and many other metaphors for Holy Scripture are found in the depths of its riches.

And hope for eternal life we have, because the prophets told of it, and Jesus fulfilled it, and his witnesses continue to proclaim it and live it and testify to the life-changing power of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And we who believe in Him must believe that what Paul wrote to the Ephesians was true, that no dividing wall of hostilities must exist between believers in Christ, and so we have hope still of restored relationships, even of those who may have rejected our fellowship!

Oh God, may we sense your holiness in such a way that we may become even more grateful for what you have done for us, and may we live with a reverence for you and the work of the church that we are privileged to carry out.

May we forgive and love those who have hurt us, and may we look forward with great hope that that which is impossible with man is possible with God, and may we continue to desire and pray that you would restore all things as they should be.

“His mercy is for those who fear him” Fear here is not a knee-knocking, shaking in your boots fear that God will smite you if you fail to live up to his standards, fear in this sense is that holy reverence of Him.

Those who fear him experience his mercy.

God’s mercy is incomprehensible to us.

All of us have offended him.

Any sin is our selfish nature, willfully proud, rejecting His rule in our lives.

And compromise to the world at the expense of following his holy ways in an offense to Him, yet his mercy allows us time to come to him in faith.

It allows us an opportunity by faith to accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf.

Oh God, may we experience your mercy because of our reverence and deference to you.

May we understand that you would be completely right if you had chosen not to show mercy, that in your justice, you could have smote all of us by now.

And may this realization cause us to have even more love for you and our fellow man.