Songs of Christmas Part Two
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During Offering, read by Chuck, on screen:
And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.” And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.
Do You Hear What I Hear Intro (Chuck)?
Noel Regney was an aspiring composer in Europe with a deep love for classical music. Is effort to create classical music was interrupted by World War II. He was forced to fight for the Nazis but eventually escaped and joined the resistance fighters in his native country of France. Instead of composing music that would bring others peace and joy, he was literally fighting for peace.
After the war, music brought him to the states and he was staying in the luxurious Beverly Hills Hotel in New York and he saw a beautiful woman named Gloria Shayne playing the piano in the dining room. Even though he only spoke French and she only spoke English, somehow he introduced himself to her, they fell in love, and married within a month.
Their marriage was unique. What did a French classical composer and an American rock and roll singer have in common? They couldn’t even speak the same language. Yet it was their unique personalities brought together, from different continents, different life experiences that would create a song that would cause millions through the decades to stop, look and listen at Christmas. To magnify Christmas…to ponder it carefully.
Learned Lesson? Through War?
Noel had prayed that World War II would be the war to end all wars. Who would want to go back to such a bloody time in history. Certainly the rulers of the world had learned their lesson. But his heart was broken when the Korean War broke out and then Vietnam. France was involved in both. As more and more men died, Noel wondered if there would ever be true peace on earth.
As Noel picked up his pen to compose, his heart was drawn back to the first Christmas. Fighting off some of the most horrific memories he had of fighting for the Nazis and then fighting in the resistance, and fighting back his anxiety about world events, Noel began exploring and magnifying the first Christmas, as he did the noisy dangerous world around him grew strangely quiet. Noel remembered his childhood and the scene of sheep walking through the beautiful landscape of France. Noel pondered the innocence of a newly born lamb.
Noel wrote the words, and brought the poem back to his wife and asked his wife to write the music because Noel didn’t want the song sounding classical. He knew his wife could write in today’s music. She wrote the melody, but she inserted one note that caused the lyrics to no longer fit the melody.
When Noel heard the beautiful melody, instead of deleting the one note, he added one word. Instead of “said the wind to the little lamb” he wrote, “said the NIGHT wind to the little lamb…do you hear what I hear.”
When Gloria asked Noel to change one more line, Noel balked. Gloria said, “I told him that no one in this country would understand, “a tail as big as a kite. Yet he wouldn’t change that. As it turned out, he was right, it is a line people dearly love.
The song became a hit and the husband and wife song writing team said that of the hundreds of times the song has been covered, their favorite is Robert Goulet’s version. When he came to the line, “pray for peace people everywhere” he almost shouted the line as if demanding peace.
The hands of the woman who wrote the music have been silenced by a condition that stops her from playing the piano and the voice of the man writing the lyrics has been silenced by a stroke that rendered him unable to speak. Yet their song plays throughout malls and concert halls every year, encouraging us to listen more carefully, to examine more closely, to magnify more deeply the only story in history that makes sense, Jesus coming into the world.
Do You Hear What I Hear? Band Plays.
Mary and Elizabeth (lives turned upside down)
Mary and Elizabeth were a lot like Noel Regney and Gloria Shayne when it comes to their song writing. Two broken women coming together, from different generations, with different callings and life experiences.
Elizabeth and Mary, who were cousins, out of nowhere, had their lives turned upside down. Elizabeth, who was the mother of John the Baptist, was the wife of a high priest named Zechariah. Zechariah had been visited by the angel Gabriel and had been told that Elizabeth would bear a son. Zechariah and Elizabeth were way past the child bearing years so Zechariah asked Gabriel how he could know this was true…in other words, the man who had an angel standing in front of him, asked for a sign. By definition, an angel visiting you and speaking to you IS a sign. So Gabriel shut Zechariah’s mouth, rendering him unable to speak during Elizabeth’s entire pregnancy. The very fact that Elizabeth was pregnant was a trial since she was old. Their reputation as righteous spiritual leaders was at stake. Mary, of course, was also visited by Gabriel and told she would also bear a son, Jesus. Mary was a virgin, she was pledged to be married to Joseph. Parents, imagine your teenage daughter telling you that she’s pregnant, but she has never had sex, and that an angel told her that God was the Father and that the Holy Spirit had impregnated her. Imagine being her fiancé and hearing that. Even after Joseph was visited by an angel, there were still tremendous trials ahead for them. They would need to travel due to the Roman Census. They would be on the run for the first few years of their lives. Elizabeth and Zechariah also had many trials ahead of them as it is believed that Zechariah was martyred shortly after John the Baptist was born.
Hallelujah-Magnify
Mary’s song is called the Magnificat. Magnificat is from the word magnify.
Last week we looked at just one word of worship, Hallelujah, which means praise the Lord. We saw that brokenness in our lives can stay as brokenness or through Jesus that brokenness can become a Broken Hallelujah. That all the hallelujahs in this life are broken in some way and that none of them are the final hallelujah which belongs to Christ alone. That one day all of our broken hallelujahs will become part of that final hallelujah.
And today that one word of worship I want to focus on is Magnify. Verse 46:
And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord,
I love the word magnify. The word magnify is only used here in the new testament and once in the book of Romans. It is used a dozen times in the Old testament.
And your name will be magnified forever, saying, ‘The Lord of hosts is God over Israel,’ and the house of your servant David will be established before you.
I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving.
Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together!
Magnify Defined
Magnify means to make something appear larger than your eye sight will allow you to see…so you can explore it more fully.
We all magnify something. In fact, we major on magnifying. We are magnifying machines. That’s what we do…all day long. We are always magnifying something.
Microscopes and Telescopes
Both microscopes and telescopes magnify objects—but in far different ways.
A microscope makes something small become much bigger than it actually is.
A telescope makes something that seems small or insignificant appear or be revealed to be as great as it actually is.
The question is this: are you a microscope or a telescope?
Mary could have easily have been a microscope.
There were so many smaller matters that she could have magnified when visiting her cousin Elizabeth. She had all this stuff happening in her life. She had people whispering about her, she had an uncertain future. She could have easily been a microscope.
Our natural tendency is to be a microscope. To take small matters, things far smaller than God, and put them under a microscope and study them. Think about conflict. You have a conflict with someone. Someone has wronged you, treated you unfairly. Someone made a decision that hurt you. So we put that situation under a microscope and try to figure out what they were thinking, why they did what they did, what they meant when they said this or that. What part of what they are saying is wrong and how can we prove it to them. Fixating on small objects.
Or we magnify ourselves. I read verses earlier that use the word magnify by magnifying God. Magnify the Lord with me. My soul magnifies the Lord. But magnify is also used in another sense.
Let them be put to shame and disappointed altogether who rejoice at my calamity! Let them be clothed with shame and dishonor who magnify themselves against me!
And you magnified yourselves against me with your mouth, and multiplied your words against me; I heard it.
Ez 35: 13
When we magnify ourselves, we are microscopes because we are taking something small, something tiny and making it appear far larger.
We are called to be telescopes, to be people who make God seem as great, as magnificent, as gracious as he truly is.
But how do we do that?
It is amazing to me how we miss the point of these stories in Scripture.
As I was studying this passage this past week, I found that the account of Gabriel visiting Zechariah is remarkably similar to the account of Gabriel visiting Mary. Both were visited by an angel, Gabriel. Both were told not to fear. Both were told they had found favor with God. Both were told their sons would be great. Both were told that there would be an impossible pregnancy.
But Zechariah questioned Gabriel but Mary accepted the message of Gabriel without questioning, and in total submission…so Mary was faithful, be like Mary. Zechariah didn’t have enough faith…don’t be like him. Only that is not what happened:
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
What a minute…I thought Mary didn’t question…I thought Mary was faithful. The reality is Mary questioned Gabriel, Zechariah questioned Gabriel. Mary was’t punished for questioning, but rewarded and honored, Zechariah was punished and lost his ability to speak, and shamed, for 9 months.
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.
So everyone tries to figure out why was Zechariah punished for questioning but Mary wasn’t?
Some say that Zechariah was older and more mature than Mary, so Zechariah shouldn’t have questioned.
Others say that it is all about the faith expressed…that in verse 20 Gabriel says to Zechariah that because he didn’t believe his mouth would be shut. But in verse 45 look at what Elizabeth says to Mary:
And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”
One commentator said he can imagine Mary and Elizabeth in one room and Zechariah in another. Zechariah’s mouth has been shut and Elizabeth says the part about Mary believing loud enough for Zechariah to hear…as if to chastise him.
Another says that Gabriel is an angel…and then he went into this long thing about how angels aren’t perfect, so maybe Gabriel had a rough day when he saw Zechariah and became impatient, but was in a better mood when he saw Mary.
Another says that Zechariah was the last real high priest, so shutting his mouth represented the idea of Christ now being the new high priest.
All of these are interesting…but notice that neither Mary nor Elizabeth are magnifying this issue.
I read actual sermons that pull out the example of Mary’s faithfulness juxtaposed against Zechariah’s unfaithfulness and literally end with the words, be like Mary.
Isn’t it possible that there was no reason why Gabriel punished Zechariah for questioning but didn’t punish Mary for doing the same thing? Isn’t that the way grace is?
When we magnify ourselves, our situations we become so transactional and fair. You do this for me, I do this for you. Let me study closely what I did in the marriage and what you do in the marriage. Grace isn’t like that. Grace is wild and unpredictable. Grace deals with different people differently.
Both Mary and Zechariah are broken in so many ways. Their lives have been turned upside down…and the grace of God meets them at that point in much different ways. The grace of God mends them in different ways.
Kintsugi
When I was in China, I was surprised to find missionaries there not just from America and the West but missionaries from other far eastern countries. One Japanese missionary we visited reached people and built a house church through art. He was a master at the Japanese art form of Kintsugi.
Kingsugi is the craft of repairing and remaking broken pottery, broken ceramic, broken porcelain. So a customer would bring in a broken piece of pottery—perhaps a well loved heirloom that had been broken---and he would use a mix of lacquer and gold to mend the piece back together. The mended piece of pottery became even more valuable because of it’s brokenness.
SHOW PICS OF KINGSUGI—A FEW SECONDS EACH
The brokenness becomes part of the unique history of the pottery. The brokenness becomes part of the story. Larger broken spots where the artist has to use a lot of lacquer and gold are seen as desirable and valuable.
At times the artist may choose not to fix certain parts and leave it as is since not all holes can be repaired. We all have pieces of us that have been broken that can’t be replaced.
No two pieces of pottery are broken exactly in the same way.
No two pieces have their brokenness mended in the same way. But the end result is broken beauty. A popular verse is that God brings beauty from ashes. And he does. But I also think that God brings beauty in ashes. There is beauty during the brokenness. That is what we see with Zechariah and that is what we see with Mary.
Mary doesn’t magnify herself. She doesn’t magnify her situation. She magnifies the Lord.
Do you know how we are to follow Mary’s example? Only by her pointing to Jesus. That’s it. Paul said, follow me as I follow Christ. Be like me when I am like Jesus. That’s it.
Angular Resolution
The angular resolution of a telescope is the telescope’s ability to distinguish the smallest details of an object. The angular resolution shows how powerful and accurate the telescope is. What is your angular resolution? How closely have you studied Jesus? How much have you abided in Jesus this past week? Paul said that if you want to see God, look at Jesus. That Jesus is the icon, or the image of God.
Do You See What I See?
Noel Regney and Gloria Shayne took the focus off of themselves, off of the world at war, the world in strife and focussed on Jesus and encouraged us to stop, to listen, do you hear what I hear, do you see what I see? Do you see Jesus?
Hymns
"O when shall I come to appear before the presence of my God in the righteousness of Christ! Nothing but Christ! Nothing but Christ! Give me Christ, O God, and I am satisfied!"
Martin Luther said,
Nothing but Jesus is to be preached throughout the whole world.
Nothing but Jesus is to be preached throughout the whole world. Starting with ourselves.
Are you a microscope or a telescope?
As a musician, hymns have always been a challenge for me. They aren’t a great musical form. There have been tens of thousands of hymns written through the ages, but only 50 or so are still popular. Fanny Crosby wrote over 8000 hymns…only To God be the Glory and Blessed Assurance are well known…that’s two. CS Lewis said that when he converted from atheism to Christianity he “disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music.”
And many times I am asked what are the greatest musical pieces which is an impossible question to answer…but for me, many great classical works come to mind. Beethoven symphonies, arias from great operas, certain concertos…but in my top ten, there is one hymn. One hymn that I feel is not only the greatest Christmas hymn, but one of the greatest songs from a musical, lyrical and emotional perspective, ever composed.
I think part of the reason is that the composer fixates on just one aspect of the birth of Christ and magnifies it and explores it. What kind of night was it when Jesus was born? What was the world like the night Jesus was born? Well it was filled sin and error pining. What was it like when Jesus was born? Souls began to feel their worth. A new and glorious morning. That his law would be love and his gospel would be peace.
In 1906, there was this new technology that no one could have imagined. You would speak into a generator, called a microphone, and the sound you produced would go over airwaves. Reginald Fessenden who was the chief chemist for Thomas Edison was the first voice heard over the airwaves on Christmas Eve, in 1906. His words?
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.
And it came to pass in those days that Caesar Augustus issued a decree that
You can imagine shocked radio operators on ships hearing this miraculous Christmas Eve voice interrupt their normal coded impulses. Yet when Fessenden was finished reading he picked up his violin and played the first song heard on the radio, and one of the greatest melodies of all time.
Chuck will Play Oh Holy Night
Closing (Band in place)
George Whitfield, the great awakening preacher said,
"O when shall I come to appear before the presence of my God in the righteousness of Christ! Nothing but Christ! Nothing but Christ! Give me Christ, O God, and I am satisfied!"
Martin Luther said,
Nothing but Jesus is to be preached throughout the whole world. Starting with ourselves.
Are you a microscope or a telescope?
Let’s close with another song of Christmas that magnifies Jesus…that explores Jesus…that asks the question, who was this Jesus, who is this little baby?
What Child Is This? (Band, congregation)
When I was in China, I was surprised to find missionaries there not just from America and the West but missionaries from other far eastern countries. One Japanese missionary we visited reached people and built a house church through art. He was a master at the Japanese art form of Kintsugi.
Kintsugi is the craft of repairing and remaking broken pottery, broken ceramic, broken porcelain. So a customer would bring in a broken piece of pottery—perhaps a well loved heirloom that had been broken---and he would use a mix of laquer and gold to mend the piece back together. The mended piece of pottery became even more valuable because of it’s brokenness. The brokenness became part of the unique history of the pottery. The brokenness became part of the story. Larger broken spots where the artist has to use a lot of laquer and gold are seen as desirable and valuable. At times the artist may choose not to fix certain parts and leave it as is since not all holes can be repaired. We all have pieces of us that have been broken that can’t be replaced.
No two pieces of pottery are broken exactly in the same way.
No two pieces are mended in the same way.
