Real Peace. Real People.

Hebrews 2:6–8 But there is a place where someone has testified: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, a son of man that you care for him? 7 You made them a little lower than the angels; you crowned them with glory and honor 8 and put everything under their feet.”

But there is a place where someone has testified: what is mankind that you are mindful of him?

Such a profound question with such a seemingly flippant introduction.

I mean seriously, writer to the Hebrews, that’s the best you’ve got? Somewhere someone once said. Seriously? You can’t do any better than that? Why so off-the-cuff with your introduction? Why so anti-intellectual that you don’t bother citing your sources?

What do you think this writer’s doing? Do you think he’s trying to be clearly unacademic to show us how far this is from some intellectual exercise? That he wants us realizing that the truth this question tries to get at so far surpasses every cognitive ability that he won’t touch scholarship with a ten-foot-pole? Or do you think it’s because the citation was so widely known? That everybody knew it because it was at the front of everybody’s ancient hymnal – that he’s quoting here Psalm 8?

Or do you think it’s actually a literary tactic? That by being so flippant with the introduction that we’d be forced in our minds to run even quicker to the citation; to remember where the quote first came to life; to think back to its original source, Psalm 8? And do you think he did that so we’d reconsider what Psalm 8 is about – God’s heavens? Do you think he wants us pondering how God’s fingers fashioned everything up there? Do you think he wants us contemplating again how God didn’t use some tool to shape the moon and each of the stars? That the psalm says it was his fingers; that he personally created and cared for and set into orbit each star and each planet; that he wants us to awe at God’s might that gathered gravitational pull and mustered gaseous fires into tight compact looking lights called stars? Do you think he wants us to thrill at God’s power and God’s wisdom that set worlds spinning each on their own axis and sends moons making their way around their own planets?

Do you think part of what he meant when he asked, “What is mankind that you are mindful of him?” Or do you think it was something more?

Do you think it’s more than wanting us to think about God’s powerful fingers that set those heavenly bodies in place? Do you think it’s also that he wants us to intellectually get blown out of the water as we stare up into the sky and see a septillion stars there – each carefully made with divine fingers? Do you think that that’s it? Do you think he knew that we’d see our complete inability to grasp the depth of space and the sheer number of the stars? Do you think he wants us to stop everything and look up like children into the twinkling of the night sky and just get a sense of our own insignificance against its expanse? Do you think he wants us to be swallowed up with its immensity, its depth, its magnitude and its size so that we begin to see how just how small, just how micro, just how little we are?

Do you think that that’s it?

Or do you think he’s after something altogether different? Do you think he’s emphasizing not the expanse of the sky or the magnitude of the stars and our smallness in comparison, but really that we were made just a little lower than the angels; that we were crowned with glory and honor and that everything was put under our feet; that he’s highlighting for us how far we’ve fallen from that; that we’ve harnessed the energy of the atom not first to power our world, but first to destroy each other; that we’ve used our understanding of biology and human reproduction not only to bless the youngest of our race, but also to ensure that some of them won’t ever see the light of day; that he gave us spouses to love and nurture and protect and we end up being the ones sometimes who damage them the most. Do you think he wants us to think through all of our very real relational failures and misguided planetary priorities? Do you think he wanted us to see how far we’ve fallen from the glory and the power and the perfection that God intended us to have?

Do you think that that’s why he asked, “What is mankind that you are mindful of him?”

Or do you think it’s a combination of all of the above? Do you think he thought about those stars and was in awe of God’s care and power? Do you think he thought about the multitude of them and sensed his own insignificance? Do you think he thought about the crown of creation responsibility that he also threw off and shrunk down when he thought of it? That he felt so small not just against the night sky, but especially against the night of his own sin; that he felt microscopic not only under the hugeness of God, but also also under the hugeness of his shirked responsibilities toward that God?

Or do you think it was something more?

That he knew the immensity of space and the multitude of the stars and the hugeness of his own spiritual inadequacy. And, yet, he still didn’t shrink away. That the writer lifted up his voice. That he called out to God with joy. That he said how majestic is your name in all the earth. Because once again he saw God’s fingers. This time not shaping the stars in the distant galaxies. This time he saw God’s fingers up close and infantile wrapped up around his mother’s forefinger. And he must’ve thought about how those fingers would grow and work and become God’s hands. Hands that this time wouldn’t be off lovingly setting moons into orbit, but this time would be off being pierced through with the sharp nails of human sin. Because he was to grow up and be the one who wouldn’t throw off his crown of creation responsibility. He would wear it for us ringed with thorns though it was.

Do you that’s why he asked, “What is mankind that you are mindful of him?”

Or do you think he asked it simply so that we’d re-ask the question too? And that by the asking of the question we’d fumble around for its answer and in that fumbling the Spirit would do his great faith building work; that when we ask, “What is mankind that you are mindful of him?” we come to see that the answer is so ellusive and high that we’re actually never supposed to answer it. We’re supposed to celebrate that the fact we can ask it at all. That just as God mindfully set the stars in their orbit, God was mindful of us too – people who had willfully left theirs. That he was so mindful of us that he entered our orbit, our hay, and our manger; and took up sin, our death, our thrown down creation and our lost lives. So that we could all reenter his orbit, his throne room, his righteousness, wear his crown, and find our eternal lives in him.

That he asked “What is man that you are mindful of him?” just to deepen us in the fact that he was and that we’d see in Jesus’ manger just how mindful he was. And there at the manger find ourselves not melting away from the immensity of God and and sensing our own insignificance amongst the rest of his creation, but drawn to the heights of faith only beginning to see how significant we are to that huge God. That he was mindful of you. And even as he fell asleep in that pile of prickly hay that Christmas night he slept tight. Mindful even in his dreams of you. That’s what he dreamed of. That’s why he had come. For your forgiveness. For your eternity. For your salvation. So that you could forever ask, “What am I that you are mindful of me?” Not with any intent of ever answering the question, but filled with perfect and holy awe that you could ask it at all. Merry Christmas, Peace family. Amen.

Luke 1:46–56 And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, 49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me — holy is his name. 50 His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. 51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. 52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. 53 He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. 54 He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful 55 to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors.” 56 Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.

Magnificat anima mea Dominum. I suppose that by opening this sermon with Latin words I might be admitting a little too much about myself. Like the fact that I’m a total nerd. I even went to a preppy high school where I studied classical languages like Latin. But I didn’t start with Latin words to make myself look nerdy. I did it to make the point that even the Latin version of Mary’s song has gained so much traction that when I say Magnificat to you it refers to one thing and one thing alone: Mary’s song. The Latin I quoted you is actually the Latin translation of Mary’s opening words here in Luke. Magnificat. Magnifies. Anima mea. My soul. Dominum. Lord. Or as we say in English, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” Magnificat anima mea Dominum.

You know what I think is the greatest testament to the Magnificat’s power though? That it’s never played at the mall. Despite the fact that it’s actually the first ever Christmas carol, it isn’t ever played alongside Jingle Bells or White Christmas. Not to be too trite about this, but it turns out that Belk isn’t a fan of the idea of sending the rich away empty handed. It turns out that the Magnificat is just far too subversive. By the way, that’s not my word for it, that’s what people generally say about it. It’s subversive. It’s undermining. It fundamentally threatens not just consumerism as we know it, but also wrecks our current social fabric and endangers governmental powers all over the world. In Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was later executed by the Third Reich preached this about the Magnificat, “It’s the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about the power of God.” In Argentina in the 1970’s, any public display of the Magnificat was outlawed. Want to know why? People were putting its words on posters in the capital plaza to rebel against their brutal military government. So it was outlawed. It was too subversive.

And it always was. Even for its author. Mary had to come to the Magnificat. Or, rather, it had to come to her. It took an awful lot of intervention in her life when you think about it. You remember that whole Gabriel confrontation that we worked through last week? In case you didn’t notice it then, notice now that that left Mary hanging. She wasn’t singing when Gabriel left. Not yet. In fact, Luke sort of brazenly points out how lonely and probably even heartbroken this little fifteen-year-old Jewish girl was. Did you catch that last week? I’m not saying she wasn’t trusting. I’m not saying she wasn’t obedient or willing after Gabriel came. I’m just saying she hadn’t yet arrived to the singing. Luke makes it quite clear how abrupt and quick the interaction was; and how that confrontation left Mary hanging and wanting. Luke makes it a big deal at the end of the Gabriel confrontation saying, “Then the angel left her.” (v. 38) So Mary experiences this disorienting spiritual dump. It all happened in the space of about thirty seconds and then Gabriel was gone. And left behind was this poor fifteen-year-old who was all alone in the world dealing with all the immensity of Gabriel’s message.

Which is, of course, why the angel pointed Mary in the direction of her older relative, Elizabeth. And, thankfully, Mary took the hint and this sad and spiritually hurting teenager “hurried,” (v. 39) to her. Mary wanted to make some spiritual and emotional sense of what was happening to her. And she couldn’t do it alone. That much is clear. She could not have done it alone. So when she shows up to Elizabeth’s house, the Holy Spirit fills Elizabeth with joy and speaks truth to Mary’s troubled, young heart saying, “No, seriously, this is good, Mary. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!” (v. 42) It’s only after that intervention. It’s only after that interaction and that comfort that Mary finally sings. She had to arrive to the Magnificat. Or, rather, it had to arrive to her. And why? It was subversive. Just as it is subversive and dangerous to every human spirit. At least, it is to its status quo. The Magnificat flips how we see ourselves and totally undermines our egos. That’s why it’s never where we start. It’s always where we arrive. Or, rather, it’s what arrives to us.

And why? In the song, wealthy oppressors get sent packing and ruling authorities get ransacked and tossed from the positions. To quote Mary, they get, “brought down from their thrones.” (v. 52) Which on it’s face sounds just fine and even nice. None of us would really mind seeing our tyrannical bosses and our nasty, unfaithful government officials get dealt with. And, finally, this song does say that will happen. You know what the trouble is? The Magnificat is not just talking about those kind of tyrants or social justice. You know which tyrant Mary goes after first? Your inner you. Did you catch that? As she sets up the part of the song that’s all about us she starts by making it personal. She says, “let me tell you about the Lord’s ‘mighty deeds’ (v. 51).” “He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.” (v. 51) So her first take down isn’t of Castro’s Cuba, Hitler’s Germany, bad federal social policy, or even your cranky boss. It’s a take down of my inner self. It’s a take down of whatever me that’s in there that pats itself on the back for its own goodness or thinks highly of itself; sits on its throne looking down on all the lesser mortals of the world; or is a tyrant willing to use the people around me and even God to advance its own agenda.

It’s actually not that surprising that that’s where Mary started her song. It’s what had just happened to her. Any illusions that she had of her ample holiness had vanished when Gabriel had showed her what real holiness looked like. Any misconceptions that she was the real queen and controller of her life had gotten thrown out the window when the Holy Spirit had hovered over her womb. And, honestly, that’s what always happens when we authentically confront the truths of the Magnificat. They threaten our inner tyrant. And make no mistake. It’s there. I’ll be the sacrificial victim on this one. I was thinking about this so I asked my wife earlier this week, “What are you proud about?” I immediately took the question back realizing that ironically it was my pride that had made me ask it. I asked it to dodge the much more difficult and personal question about pride I should’ve asked. So I took the question back and asked instead, “What I am proud about?” And after I asked it, I remember physically wanting to duck because I knew the answer would come. Not that Melanie doesn’t love me. She does. Enough to tell me the truth. You know what the most telling part of that moment was for me when I played it back in my mind? It’s that it took her absolutely no time to reply. None. She didn’t say, “You know. You’re awfully humble. Let me get back to you. I’m going to have to think about that for a while.” It’s that she was able to dig right in.

That’s why the Magnificat is so subversive. You can’t sing it. You can’t read it without it getting at the real you and saying, “I see your inmost thoughts. I see how you struggle with vanity. I see that you want to see yourself in a good light so badly that you’ll do just about anything to get others to see yourself that way too. I see how you think whatever hardship you have in your life isn’t really deserved; how you think God owes you more and so much better. I see how you see the Planned Parenthood people as morally inferior and how intellectually challenged you think people are of a different political persuasion.” Do you see it now? Oppression isn’t something that largely happens to us from the outside in. The greatest oppression we experience is our inmost pride - the idolatry of self. And by the way, people who are able to make these spiritual observations about themselves? They are, “the humble,” (v. 52) Mary was talking about. The humble are the people who admit their inner tyrants and quake and their monstrosity. The humble are those who are bothered and upset the dark power. The humble are those who yearn and hope and pray not just for perfect and ultimate reversal of the social structures of the world, but first and primarily – to borrow Mary’s words – the humble are people who hunger for their own inner dictators to get tossed down and be truly filled with good things.

That’s really what the Magnificat is all about. It’s about being filled. With Jesus. And who better to teach us how that happens than the woman in whom the oh-so-subversive Jesus was literally was growing? Probably at this point just as an embryonic, pencil-point-sized human. And it’s this tiny, fetal Jesus about whom Mary claims that he, “has lifted up the humble and filled the hungry with good things.” (v. 52) Reversal Jesus. Status changing Jesus. 180 degree Jesus. Table flipping Jesus. That’s who Mary says Jesus is. Mary’s Jesus does reversals. He lifts up the humble. He fills up the hungry with good things. And don’t you just love how she talks about these reversals. Here she is barely even pregnant. I’m telling you. She sprinted to Elizabeth after Gabriel. I can almost guarantee you that she wasn’t showing yet. It’s like I told you. Jesus was pencil-point-sized in her. Nothing more. And look at how she talks about him. It’s crazy, crazy faith. She says this embryonic Jesus has lifted up the humbled. And has filled the hungry with good things. Like it he had already pulled it off. I mean, honestly, this was a human Jesus who if you want to give him any resume at all can only list one feat: he had managed to become a multi-celled human. And here Mary’s already crediting him with the greatest spiritual victories of all.

She hadn’t started with that kind of faith. It’s a faith she arrived to. Or, rather, it’s a faith that was given her. And not to be too cliché, but that is the Christmas gift that just keeps on giving as we come back to the manger year after year after year. You just can’t stare again into that manger and not deepen in faith. You just can’t. You just can’t imagine that Jesus came down because one day he said, “Hey dad, can I go play with the earthlings? I’d like to see what it’s like. I think it might be fun.” He came because the earthlings were something more than a hot mess. We were all walking totalitarians needing to be unseated – obsessed with ourselves. So he reversed the situation and became obsessed with us, which was the first reversal. More reversals followed. God became a creature. God was conceived. God was born. Reversal. Reversal. Reversal. And then God died. Reversal. And then death died and Jesus lived again. Reversal. The lowly become exalted. Sinners become saints and those headed for death live on. These are Jesus’ reversals. But before any of that ever happened, Mary saw another reversal happening inside her: faith. It had unseated her pride. And here she was singing and celebrating that with all her heart. Magnificat anima mea Dominum. The reversals had begun. They had begun with her. And she couldn’t stop thrilling.

And so Mary sang. I hope you sing her subversive song with her this Christmas. And I hope you’ll sing with me. I hope you’ll sing the Magnificat. I hope you’ll let it so fill your soul that even as you continue to wrestle your inner tyrant you’ll already believe he’s been dealt with. I hope you’ll joy in the Spirit believing he will one day own you and perfectly fill you with all of his gifts. I hope you sing about the God who made you deserving of that reversal by making the first one. God became one of us. I hope you sing about the pencil-sized, fetal Jesus whose commitment to forgiving your pride not only led him to attach himself to Mary through an umbilical cord, but led him to attach his adult divine self to a cross. I hope you sing and I hope you sing with joy about the God who so profoundly raises the lowly that you’re not only thinking of the life you have here, but especially about the resurrection you’ll have there. I hope you sing about these truths with so much confidence that you talk about them just the way Mary did. Like it’s already done.

And I hope you keep on singing. I hope you never stop. I hope you sing through the tears here. I hope you sing through the grief here. I hope you keep on singing right through everything right on into eternity. That’s what this song is for. It’s for lifting up the humble. It’s for filling the hungry with good things. It’s for carrying us all the way to the great and final reversal – where the hungry are all forever filled and the humble are all eternally exalted. Until then, Peace family, we’ll just keep on singing. We’ll sing the subversive, the world-shaking and soul-transforming Magnificat until the Great Reverser even reverses Christmas. When it won’t be God coming to live with us for only a time. It will be us going to live with God forever. We’ll sing until that last reversal has happened. We’ll sing with Mary. We’ll sing Magnificat anima mea Dominum. Amen.

Luke 1:46–56 And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, 49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me — holy is his name. 50 His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. 51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. 52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. 53 He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. 54 He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful 55 to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors.” 56 Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.

Magnificat anima mea Dominum. I suppose that by opening this sermon with Latin words I might be admitting a little too much about myself. Like the fact that I’m a total nerd. I even went to a preppy high school where I studied classical languages like Latin. But I didn’t start with Latin words to make myself look nerdy. I did it to make the point that even the Latin version of Mary’s song has gained so much traction that when I say Magnificat to you it refers to one thing and one thing alone: Mary’s song. The Latin I quoted you is actually the Latin translation of Mary’s opening words here in Luke. Magnificat. Magnifies. Anima mea. My soul. Dominum. Lord. Or as we say in English, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” Magnificat anima mea Dominum.

You know what I think is the greatest testament to the Magnificat’s power though? That it’s never played at the mall. Despite the fact that it’s actually the first ever Christmas carol, it isn’t ever played alongside Jingle Bells or White Christmas. Not to be too trite about this, but it turns out that Belk isn’t a fan of the idea of sending the rich away empty handed. It turns out that the Magnificat is just far too subversive. By the way, that’s not my word for it, that’s what people generally say about it. It’s subversive. It’s undermining. It fundamentally threatens not just consumerism as we know it, but also wrecks our current social fabric and endangers governmental powers all over the world. In Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was later executed by the Third Reich preached this about the Magnificat, “It’s the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about the power of God.” In Argentina in the 1970’s, any public display of the Magnificat was outlawed. Want to know why? People were putting its words on posters in the capital plaza to rebel against their brutal military government. So it was outlawed. It was too subversive.

And it always was. Even for its author. Mary had to come to the Magnificat. Or, rather, it had to come to her. It took an awful lot of intervention in her life when you think about it. You remember that whole Gabriel confrontation that we worked through last week? In case you didn’t notice it then, notice now that that left Mary hanging. She wasn’t singing when Gabriel left. Not yet. In fact, Luke sort of brazenly points out how lonely and probably even heartbroken this little fifteen-year-old Jewish girl was. Did you catch that last week? I’m not saying she wasn’t trusting. I’m not saying she wasn’t obedient or willing after Gabriel came. I’m just saying she hadn’t yet arrived to the singing. Luke makes it quite clear how abrupt and quick the interaction was; and how that confrontation left Mary hanging and wanting. Luke makes it a big deal at the end of the Gabriel confrontation saying, “Then the angel left her.” (v. 38) So Mary experiences this disorienting spiritual dump. It all happened in the space of about thirty seconds and then Gabriel was gone. And left behind was this poor fifteen-year-old who was all alone in the world dealing with all the immensity of Gabriel’s message.

Which is, of course, why the angel pointed Mary in the direction of her older relative, Elizabeth. And, thankfully, Mary took the hint and this sad and spiritually hurting teenager “hurried,” (v. 39) to her. Mary wanted to make some spiritual and emotional sense of what was happening to her. And she couldn’t do it alone. That much is clear. She could not have done it alone. So when she shows up to Elizabeth’s house, the Holy Spirit fills Elizabeth with joy and speaks truth to Mary’s troubled, young heart saying, “No, seriously, this is good, Mary. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!” (v. 42) It’s only after that intervention. It’s only after that interaction and that comfort that Mary finally sings. She had to arrive to the Magnificat. Or, rather, it had to arrive to her. And why? It was subversive. Just as it is subversive and dangerous to every human spirit. At least, it is to its status quo. The Magnificat flips how we see ourselves and totally undermines our egos. That’s why it’s never where we start. It’s always where we arrive. Or, rather, it’s what arrives to us.

And why? In the song, wealthy oppressors get sent packing and ruling authorities get ransacked and tossed from the positions. To quote Mary, they get, “brought down from their thrones.” (v. 52) Which on it’s face sounds just fine and even nice. None of us would really mind seeing our tyrannical bosses and our nasty, unfaithful government officials get dealt with. And, finally, this song does say that will happen. You know what the trouble is? The Magnificat is not just talking about those kind of tyrants or social justice. You know which tyrant Mary goes after first? Your inner you. Did you catch that? As she sets up the part of the song that’s all about us she starts by making it personal. She says, “let me tell you about the Lord’s ‘mighty deeds’ (v. 51).” “He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.” (v. 51) So her first take down isn’t of Castro’s Cuba, Hitler’s Germany, bad federal social policy, or even your cranky boss. It’s a take down of my inner self. It’s a take down of whatever me that’s in there that pats itself on the back for its own goodness or thinks highly of itself; sits on its throne looking down on all the lesser mortals of the world; or is a tyrant willing to use the people around me and even God to advance its own agenda.

It’s actually not that surprising that that’s where Mary started her song. It’s what had just happened to her. Any illusions that she had of her ample holiness had vanished when Gabriel had showed her what real holiness looked like. Any misconceptions that she was the real queen and controller of her life had gotten thrown out the window when the Holy Spirit had hovered over her womb. And, honestly, that’s what always happens when we authentically confront the truths of the Magnificat. They threaten our inner tyrant. And make no mistake. It’s there. I’ll be the sacrificial victim on this one. I was thinking about this so I asked my wife earlier this week, “What are you proud about?” I immediately took the question back realizing that ironically it was my pride that had made me ask it. I asked it to dodge the much more difficult and personal question about pride I should’ve asked. So I took the question back and asked instead, “What I am proud about?” And after I asked it, I remember physically wanting to duck because I knew the answer would come. Not that Melanie doesn’t love me. She does. Enough to tell me the truth. You know what the most telling part of that moment was for me when I played it back in my mind? It’s that it took her absolutely no time to reply. None. She didn’t say, “You know. You’re awfully humble. Let me get back to you. I’m going to have to think about that for a while.” It’s that she was able to dig right in.

That’s why the Magnificat is so subversive. You can’t sing it. You can’t read it without it getting at the real you and saying, “I see your inmost thoughts. I see how you struggle with vanity. I see that you want to see yourself in a good light so badly that you’ll do just about anything to get others to see yourself that way too. I see how you think whatever hardship you have in your life isn’t really deserved; how you think God owes you more and so much better. I see how you see the Planned Parenthood people as morally inferior and how intellectually challenged you think people are of a different political persuasion.” Do you see it now? Oppression isn’t something that largely happens to us from the outside in. The greatest oppression we experience is our inmost pride - the idolatry of self. And by the way, people who are able to make these spiritual observations about themselves? They are, “the humble,” (v. 52) Mary was talking about. The humble are the people who admit their inner tyrants and quake and their monstrosity. The humble are those who are bothered and upset the dark power. The humble are those who yearn and hope and pray not just for perfect and ultimate reversal of the social structures of the world, but first and primarily – to borrow Mary’s words – the humble are people who hunger for their own inner dictators to get tossed down and be truly filled with good things.

That’s really what the Magnificat is all about. It’s about being filled. With Jesus. And who better to teach us how that happens than the woman in whom the oh-so-subversive Jesus was literally was growing? Probably at this point just as an embryonic, pencil-point-sized human. And it’s this tiny, fetal Jesus about whom Mary claims that he, “has lifted up the humble and filled the hungry with good things.” (v. 52) Reversal Jesus. Status changing Jesus. 180 degree Jesus. Table flipping Jesus. That’s who Mary says Jesus is. Mary’s Jesus does reversals. He lifts up the humble. He fills up the hungry with good things. And don’t you just love how she talks about these reversals. Here she is barely even pregnant. I’m telling you. She sprinted to Elizabeth after Gabriel. I can almost guarantee you that she wasn’t showing yet. It’s like I told you. Jesus was pencil-point-sized in her. Nothing more. And look at how she talks about him. It’s crazy, crazy faith. She says this embryonic Jesus has lifted up the humbled. And has filled the hungry with good things. Like it he had already pulled it off. I mean, honestly, this was a human Jesus who if you want to give him any resume at all can only list one feat: he had managed to become a multi-celled human. And here Mary’s already crediting him with the greatest spiritual victories of all.

She hadn’t started with that kind of faith. It’s a faith she arrived to. Or, rather, it’s a faith that was given her. And not to be too cliché, but that is the Christmas gift that just keeps on giving as we come back to the manger year after year after year. You just can’t stare again into that manger and not deepen in faith. You just can’t. You just can’t imagine that Jesus came down because one day he said, “Hey dad, can I go play with the earthlings? I’d like to see what it’s like. I think it might be fun.” He came because the earthlings were something more than a hot mess. We were all walking totalitarians needing to be unseated – obsessed with ourselves. So he reversed the situation and became obsessed with us, which was the first reversal. More reversals followed. God became a creature. God was conceived. God was born. Reversal. Reversal. Reversal. And then God died. Reversal. And then death died and Jesus lived again. Reversal. The lowly become exalted. Sinners become saints and those headed for death live on. These are Jesus’ reversals. But before any of that ever happened, Mary saw another reversal happening inside her: faith. It had unseated her pride. And here she was singing and celebrating that with all her heart. Magnificat anima mea Dominum. The reversals had begun. They had begun with her. And she couldn’t stop thrilling.

And so Mary sang. I hope you sing her subversive song with her this Christmas. And I hope you’ll sing with me. I hope you’ll sing the Magnificat. I hope you’ll let it so fill your soul that even as you continue to wrestle your inner tyrant you’ll already believe he’s been dealt with. I hope you’ll joy in the Spirit believing he will one day own you and perfectly fill you with all of his gifts. I hope you sing about the God who made you deserving of that reversal by making the first one. God became one of us. I hope you sing about the pencil-sized, fetal Jesus whose commitment to forgiving your pride not only led him to attach himself to Mary through an umbilical cord, but led him to attach his adult divine self to a cross. I hope you sing and I hope you sing with joy about the God who so profoundly raises the lowly that you’re not only thinking of the life you have here, but especially about the resurrection you’ll have there. I hope you sing about these truths with so much confidence that you talk about them just the way Mary did. Like it’s already done.

And I hope you keep on singing. I hope you never stop. I hope you sing through the tears here. I hope you sing through the grief here. I hope you keep on singing right through everything right on into eternity. That’s what this song is for. It’s for lifting up the humble. It’s for filling the hungry with good things. It’s for carrying us all the way to the great and final reversal – where the hungry are all forever filled and the humble are all eternally exalted. Until then, Peace family, we’ll just keep on singing. We’ll sing the subversive, the world-shaking and soul-transforming Magnificat until the Great Reverser even reverses Christmas. When it won’t be God coming to live with us for only a time. It will be us going to live with God forever. We’ll sing until that last reversal has happened. We’ll sing with Mary. We’ll sing Magnificat anima mea Dominum. Amen.

Luke 1:26–38 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” 29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 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, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” 34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” 35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 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. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.” 38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

“This is the best Christmas gift anyone could give us.” That’s what Tim League said one year ago in neighboring Atlanta, Georgia. Billy Donnelly was even more excited. In a blog put out the same day he called it, “A Christmas Miracle.” They weren’t alone other. Maybe their exuberance was the highest. Maybe their headlines and their talking points the most emphatic, but I still remember how many news outlets carried the news with those type of words. You know what they were talking about? Not to editorialize too much, but they were talking about what is widely now considered a cinematic blunder called The Interview. You remember how that went? Sony got hacked and North Korea was mad because it made fun of them so Sony stopped the release of the movie. Until a Christmas miracle happened and the movie was released on Christmas Day. Now that the movie has actually come out a Twitter user named Stryker probably reviewed it best by saying that overall it “was a really horrible movie.”

I’m not sure anybody would claim that movie anymore as a Christmas miracle. Least of all Luke. But then again, I’m not sure he’d claim Miracle on 34th Street or It’s a Wonderful Life either. It’s not that I don’t think Luke wouldn’t enjoy a good Christmas movie. It’s just that I’m fairly certain that he wouldn’t recommend them as a way to access the real spirit of Christmas. And Luke should know. Luke’s the go to guy on Christmas. Mark says nothing about it. Matthew says only enough to establish Jesus’ true identity. And John – well – John is a whole different and profound ballgame. But Luke? Luke takes Christmas and bottles it all up and lets it shine out completely in the single character of Mary. He lets us listen in on her thoughts. He lets us hear her struggles. He lets us sense her doubts and her hesitancy. Really, that’s what’s going on here. Luke is setting up Mary as the quintessential Christmas miracle, the vignette, and the perfect picture of how Christmas happens to us. And why? So we can celebrate the greatest Christmas miracle of all.

Although, honestly, it starts out feeling a whole like more like an economic and spiritual nightmare. Because we start in Nazareth, a city full of nobodies and in a region known only for its encroaching dark paganism and idolatry, Galilee. It’s in this economically and spiritually impoverished area where we find “a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph.” (v. 27) And this Mary? Tradition holds that she was probably somewhere between 12 and 16 and may also have been Joseph’s ward. Perhaps she was even an orphan Joseph was planning to marry when she was of age. And, remarkably, to this teenage girl comes one of only two named angels in the entire Bible. To her comes the archangel, Gabriel. And despite the fact that this highly capable archangel had likely taken an angelic course in human sensitivity training probably hearing, “They’re fragile, Gabriel, and when you show up your immortality and perfection is really going to scare her. Make sure you tell her right away not to be afraid!” Despite the fact that Gabriel was as approachable and kind as was angelically possible – he did say “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you!” (v. 28) – despite the fact that he did everything possible to allay her fears and help her think his visit to her was totally and only good, Mary thinks it feels like she’s living her nightmare.  

And you know what did it? It wasn’t the angelic presence that got Mary. That’s what got those Christmas Eve shepherds. But Mary? What got her attention and what got her all worked up were, “his words.” (v. 29) Being highly favored doesn’t sound all that menacing. It raised questions for Mary I’m sure, but what almost certainly got her worked up the most were the words, “The Lord is with you.” (v. 28) Now that is a cause for alarm. At least it is if you spiritually know yourself well, which is a knowledge I’m pretty sure we’d rather not have. As a human race we’re actually sort of sociopathic about it. That’s why history has largely disregarded what here is probably Mary’s eyewitness telling of how weak she was in this moment – how fragile and troubled and doubting she was at the mere suggestion that the Lord was with her. I was reminded of how far we’ve fallen from Luke’s actual history by a historian named Paul Maier. In a book called In the Fullness of Time he says that back in 1854 the Roman Catholic Church decreed that Mary was both sinless and immaculately conceived. These are ideas that – no pun intended – Mary never would have conceived of. Not in a million years. But you know what the truth is? This rewriting of history probably says just as much about us as a human race as it does about Roman Catholicism.

We all want to believe that we’re better than we actually are and we don’t want to believe that being a Mary means owning up to our personal nightmare. We’d much rather watch Christmas movies and rewrite doctrines than do that. So we don’t have to admit what Luke’s actually saying. So we don’t have to notice that even the Lord’s own mother when first confronted with the idea of the Lord’s presence didn’t say, “Yeah, ok. Sounds good!” or confidently muse, “It’s about time he showed up. He’s left me hanging for a little too long.” So we don’t have to see that she panicked probably thinking that God’s holiness would incinerate her not-so-holy-self or melt her sinfulness into oblivion. So we don’t have to look in on her inner anguished dialogue – that’s what Luke meant with the word that’s here translated, “wondering.” (v. 29) She was probably saying to herself, “If he’s with me, he’ll see my thoughts and he’ll know the real me, and I’ll be in big trouble.” So we don’t have to come to grips with that fact that this wasn’t just a teenager with a low self-esteem or a beggarly orphan acting out her socio-economic status. So we don’t have to see ourselves the way Mary viewed herself.

It’s almost amazing how clairvoyant and forward looking Luke is on this point, isn’t it? It’s almost like he knew us. Like he knew we might try to dodge this spiritual bullet. Like he knew we’d try to make it all about trying make Santa’s good list. Like we’d fail to see that everybody made God’s list, but not the good one. Like we’d fail to see our spiritual connection to a Mary whose scared and agitated reactions were not the reactions of some witless teen, but were the clear headed and instant reactions of an orthodox and sincere Christian believer. Do you see what Luke’s up to? Luke wants us to get past the Christmas veneer. To get past the Christmas egg nog and the nice holiday work parties and the Christmas greetings. To find out that the Lord is on his way and just for a moment to say, “Uh oh. That may not end well for me.” Do you see that? Luke wants us to doubt our personal holiness and with deep repentance realize our guilt.

Then and, I might add, only then will we understand the true Christmas miracle. “Do not fear, Mary; you have found favor (or grace!) with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.” (v. 32) Do you see what the angel is really up to here? Do not fear, Mary. You have found grace. You will conceive. You are to call him Jesus. Do you see it? This is all for her. To boost her up. To give her confidence. To help her understand. And so he gets personal. He uses her name and then it’s you, you, and you. But that’s actually not the most personal part of the whole deal. Really it isn’t. It gets a whole lot more personal than that… although I’m sort of wondering if I should really call the invasion of her womb something personal. I’m not sure what that is, but I think it’s something more than personal. Which, by the way, if we understand that explains her reaction to this invasion. Having the promise of a fetal, embryonic, kingly Jesus of unknown origins suddenly invade your womb isn’t exactly the type of information that will at first calm the nerves or relieve the doubts. So she understandably asks, “How will this be since I’m a virgin?” (v. 34) And the answer comes, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” (v. 35)

And I think that probably did it for Mary. I think that did it. Because Mary recognized that kind of talk as creation talk. Creation was the time before when the “the Spirit hovered.” (Genesis 1:2) Creation was the time before when there was a great darkness that needed piercing with the Spirit’s perfect potentiality and the pure creativity. You can bet your bottom dollar that Mary knew that and that Gabriel’s announcement let her know that this time it was going to happen in her womb. Here the Spirit was going to leverage all his creative power to deal with human darkness through Mary’s conception. Here the Spirit would hover and come down and intervene to conceive the ultimate new man, God Most High. Here the Spirit would cause eternal God to take up Mary’s genetic structures and DNA strands to live in the place of all us unholy ones. He would be the second Adam. The second Mary. The second me and the second you. He would be the me I’m not and the you you aren’t either. He would be holy. He would be righteous. He would be the perfect person who would glow with Christmas spirit more than just a few weeks per year. He would be a true Christmas miracle. He would be the incarnation of God.

And that is a great Christmas miracle – one worth pondering our entire lives. And John 1 is in our Bible’s and it’s there for that reason. But that’s actually not Luke 1’s greatest miracle. True, it’s here, but it’s not Luke 1’s greatest miracle. There’s another miracle here that Luke wants us thinking about – arguably the greatest Christmas miracle of all. It’s what the angel was driving into Mary’s heart this whole encounter. “You are highly favored. The Lord is with you. Do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor. You will conceive. The Holy Spirit will come on you. Your relative will have a miraculous child too.” Do you see it? At the intersection of the person who considers themselves personally guilty and the incarnation happens the greatest Christmas miracle of all. Faith that that incarnation was aimed especially at you. And that is the greatest miracle of all. Really it is. Half the time we’re sort of sociologically blind to our sin and then when we wake up to it even just a bit it can scare us so badly that we have just a terrible time believe that grace is for us. And to at the same time know both? To be a Mary? To be a person who simultaneously understands he should be incinerated and melt in the presence of God, but also believe that that same God sent his Spirit to hover with pure creative power over a young mother named Mary to conceive the second me – a me who would give me the holiness I could not get myself? This is the true Christmas miracle: to believe in both personal sin and personal grace.

And of the two, believing grace is the greater miracle. For Mary, God’s power or holiness was never in question. Mary knew it and sensed it to a powerful degree. It was never what Gabriel tried to help her grasp. What Gabriel drove at; what he preached about; and what he said was all aimed at answering a much higher question: Is this all-capable and holy God for me? Is he for the me whose economic prospects are exactly those of a housemaid from Nazareth? Is he for the me who’s marriage prospects are spectacularly tanking in the moment? Is he for the me who’s self-knowledge of guilt somehow always seems to vacillate between shallower than a kiddie pool and deeper than the Mediterranean? As Gabriel spoke; as the Spirit hovered; and then as Mary held her Son she came to believe the same gospel that’s true for us all. That the Holy One had come to be the second me. To be holy. To be right. To be just. To be me for me before God. And to whatever extent we ponder on him we will access the true Christmas spirit. Not that Miracle on 34th Street is bad or It’s a Wonderful Life isn’t worth watching. But Luke would say that Christmas happens when I – even with all my dark self-knowledge – believe that the Spirit hovered for me and the Christ was conceived for me. Luke would say that that faith is the greatest Christmas miracle of all. Amen.

Luke 1:26–38 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” 29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 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, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” 34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” 35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 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. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.” 38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

“This is the best Christmas gift anyone could give us.” That’s what Tim League said one year ago in neighboring Atlanta, Georgia. Billy Donnelly was even more excited. In a blog put out the same day he called it, “A Christmas Miracle.” They weren’t alone other. Maybe their exuberance was the highest. Maybe their headlines and their talking points the most emphatic, but I still remember how many news outlets carried the news with those type of words. You know what they were talking about? Not to editorialize too much, but they were talking about what is widely now considered a cinematic blunder called The Interview. You remember how that went? Sony got hacked and North Korea was mad because it made fun of them so Sony stopped the release of the movie. Until a Christmas miracle happened and the movie was released on Christmas Day. Now that the movie has actually come out a Twitter user named Stryker probably reviewed it best by saying that overall it “was a really horrible movie.”

I’m not sure anybody would claim that movie anymore as a Christmas miracle. Least of all Luke. But then again, I’m not sure he’d claim Miracle on 34th Street or It’s a Wonderful Life either. It’s not that I don’t think Luke wouldn’t enjoy a good Christmas movie. It’s just that I’m fairly certain that he wouldn’t recommend them as a way to access the real spirit of Christmas. And Luke should know. Luke’s the go to guy on Christmas. Mark says nothing about it. Matthew says only enough to establish Jesus’ true identity. And John – well – John is a whole different and profound ballgame. But Luke? Luke takes Christmas and bottles it all up and lets it shine out completely in the single character of Mary. He lets us listen in on her thoughts. He lets us hear her struggles. He lets us sense her doubts and her hesitancy. Really, that’s what’s going on here. Luke is setting up Mary as the quintessential Christmas miracle, the vignette, and the perfect picture of how Christmas happens to us. And why? So we can celebrate the greatest Christmas miracle of all.

Although, honestly, it starts out feeling a whole like more like an economic and spiritual nightmare. Because we start in Nazareth, a city full of nobodies and in a region known only for its encroaching dark paganism and idolatry, Galilee. It’s in this economically and spiritually impoverished area where we find “a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph.” (v. 27) And this Mary? Tradition holds that she was probably somewhere between 12 and 16 and may also have been Joseph’s ward. Perhaps she was even an orphan Joseph was planning to marry when she was of age. And, remarkably, to this teenage girl comes one of only two named angels in the entire Bible. To her comes the archangel, Gabriel. And despite the fact that this highly capable archangel had likely taken an angelic course in human sensitivity training probably hearing, “They’re fragile, Gabriel, and when you show up your immortality and perfection is really going to scare her. Make sure you tell her right away not to be afraid!” Despite the fact that Gabriel was as approachable and kind as was angelically possible – he did say “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you!” (v. 28) – despite the fact that he did everything possible to allay her fears and help her think his visit to her was totally and only good, Mary thinks it feels like she’s living her nightmare.  

And you know what did it? It wasn’t the angelic presence that got Mary. That’s what got those Christmas Eve shepherds. But Mary? What got her attention and what got her all worked up were, “his words.” (v. 29) Being highly favored doesn’t sound all that menacing. It raised questions for Mary I’m sure, but what almost certainly got her worked up the most were the words, “The Lord is with you.” (v. 28) Now that is a cause for alarm. At least it is if you spiritually know yourself well, which is a knowledge I’m pretty sure we’d rather not have. As a human race we’re actually sort of sociopathic about it. That’s why history has largely disregarded what here is probably Mary’s eyewitness telling of how weak she was in this moment – how fragile and troubled and doubting she was at the mere suggestion that the Lord was with her. I was reminded of how far we’ve fallen from Luke’s actual history by a historian named Paul Maier. In a book called In the Fullness of Time he says that back in 1854 the Roman Catholic Church decreed that Mary was both sinless and immaculately conceived. These are ideas that – no pun intended – Mary never would have conceived of. Not in a million years. But you know what the truth is? This rewriting of history probably says just as much about us as a human race as it does about Roman Catholicism.

We all want to believe that we’re better than we actually are and we don’t want to believe that being a Mary means owning up to our personal nightmare. We’d much rather watch Christmas movies and rewrite doctrines than do that. So we don’t have to admit what Luke’s actually saying. So we don’t have to notice that even the Lord’s own mother when first confronted with the idea of the Lord’s presence didn’t say, “Yeah, ok. Sounds good!” or confidently muse, “It’s about time he showed up. He’s left me hanging for a little too long.” So we don’t have to see that she panicked probably thinking that God’s holiness would incinerate her not-so-holy-self or melt her sinfulness into oblivion. So we don’t have to look in on her inner anguished dialogue – that’s what Luke meant with the word that’s here translated, “wondering.” (v. 29) She was probably saying to herself, “If he’s with me, he’ll see my thoughts and he’ll know the real me, and I’ll be in big trouble.” So we don’t have to come to grips with that fact that this wasn’t just a teenager with a low self-esteem or a beggarly orphan acting out her socio-economic status. So we don’t have to see ourselves the way Mary viewed herself.

It’s almost amazing how clairvoyant and forward looking Luke is on this point, isn’t it? It’s almost like he knew us. Like he knew we might try to dodge this spiritual bullet. Like he knew we’d try to make it all about trying make Santa’s good list. Like we’d fail to see that everybody made God’s list, but not the good one. Like we’d fail to see our spiritual connection to a Mary whose scared and agitated reactions were not the reactions of some witless teen, but were the clear headed and instant reactions of an orthodox and sincere Christian believer. Do you see what Luke’s up to? Luke wants us to get past the Christmas veneer. To get past the Christmas egg nog and the nice holiday work parties and the Christmas greetings. To find out that the Lord is on his way and just for a moment to say, “Uh oh. That may not end well for me.” Do you see that? Luke wants us to doubt our personal holiness and with deep repentance realize our guilt.

Then and, I might add, only then will we understand the true Christmas miracle. “Do not fear, Mary; you have found favor (or grace!) with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.” (v. 32) Do you see what the angel is really up to here? Do not fear, Mary. You have found grace. You will conceive. You are to call him Jesus. Do you see it? This is all for her. To boost her up. To give her confidence. To help her understand. And so he gets personal. He uses her name and then it’s you, you, and you. But that’s actually not the most personal part of the whole deal. Really it isn’t. It gets a whole lot more personal than that… although I’m sort of wondering if I should really call the invasion of her womb something personal. I’m not sure what that is, but I think it’s something more than personal. Which, by the way, if we understand that explains her reaction to this invasion. Having the promise of a fetal, embryonic, kingly Jesus of unknown origins suddenly invade your womb isn’t exactly the type of information that will at first calm the nerves or relieve the doubts. So she understandably asks, “How will this be since I’m a virgin?” (v. 34) And the answer comes, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” (v. 35)

And I think that probably did it for Mary. I think that did it. Because Mary recognized that kind of talk as creation talk. Creation was the time before when the “the Spirit hovered.” (Genesis 1:2) Creation was the time before when there was a great darkness that needed piercing with the Spirit’s perfect potentiality and the pure creativity. You can bet your bottom dollar that Mary knew that and that Gabriel’s announcement let her know that this time it was going to happen in her womb. Here the Spirit was going to leverage all his creative power to deal with human darkness through Mary’s conception. Here the Spirit would hover and come down and intervene to conceive the ultimate new man, God Most High. Here the Spirit would cause eternal God to take up Mary’s genetic structures and DNA strands to live in the place of all us unholy ones. He would be the second Adam. The second Mary. The second me and the second you. He would be the me I’m not and the you you aren’t either. He would be holy. He would be righteous. He would be the perfect person who would glow with Christmas spirit more than just a few weeks per year. He would be a true Christmas miracle. He would be the incarnation of God.

And that is a great Christmas miracle – one worth pondering our entire lives. And John 1 is in our Bible’s and it’s there for that reason. But that’s actually not Luke 1’s greatest miracle. True, it’s here, but it’s not Luke 1’s greatest miracle. There’s another miracle here that Luke wants us thinking about – arguably the greatest Christmas miracle of all. It’s what the angel was driving into Mary’s heart this whole encounter. “You are highly favored. The Lord is with you. Do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor. You will conceive. The Holy Spirit will come on you. Your relative will have a miraculous child too.” Do you see it? At the intersection of the person who considers themselves personally guilty and the incarnation happens the greatest Christmas miracle of all. Faith that that incarnation was aimed especially at you. And that is the greatest miracle of all. Really it is. Half the time we’re sort of sociologically blind to our sin and then when we wake up to it even just a bit it can scare us so badly that we have just a terrible time believe that grace is for us. And to at the same time know both? To be a Mary? To be a person who simultaneously understands he should be incinerated and melt in the presence of God, but also believe that that same God sent his Spirit to hover with pure creative power over a young mother named Mary to conceive the second me – a me who would give me the holiness I could not get myself? This is the true Christmas miracle: to believe in both personal sin and personal grace.

And of the two, believing grace is the greater miracle. For Mary, God’s power or holiness was never in question. Mary knew it and sensed it to a powerful degree. It was never what Gabriel tried to help her grasp. What Gabriel drove at; what he preached about; and what he said was all aimed at answering a much higher question: Is this all-capable and holy God for me? Is he for the me whose economic prospects are exactly those of a housemaid from Nazareth? Is he for the me who’s marriage prospects are spectacularly tanking in the moment? Is he for the me who’s self-knowledge of guilt somehow always seems to vacillate between shallower than a kiddie pool and deeper than the Mediterranean? As Gabriel spoke; as the Spirit hovered; and then as Mary held her Son she came to believe the same gospel that’s true for us all. That the Holy One had come to be the second me. To be holy. To be right. To be just. To be me for me before God. And to whatever extent we ponder on him we will access the true Christmas spirit. Not that Miracle on 34th Street is bad or It’s a Wonderful Life isn’t worth watching. But Luke would say that Christmas happens when I – even with all my dark self-knowledge – believe that the Spirit hovered for me and the Christ was conceived for me. Luke would say that that faith is the greatest Christmas miracle of all. Amen.

Luke 2:8–10 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.

Weak with sadness a man uses a wall to hold himself up. He leans there and closes his eyes. He can’t look anymore at the life he’s created for himself. And then a voice rudely, but delicately interrupts the man’s despair only to deepen it. The voice commands him to look, but not at the life he has. It’s worse. The voice commands him to look at the life he’s missed. The scene dramatically softens as the sad, sad man looks on. He watches as music plays and a wife glows. He watches as children bound and dance around a beautiful Christmas tree. Then a husband and a father dashes into the room to a roar of joy. And that does it. Ebenezer Scrooge yells in despair to the Ghost of Christmas Past, “I cannot bear it. Haunt me no more!” That’s one of the most poignant scenes from Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol. It’s a book that has never once gone out of print in over 150 years and just a few years ago even came out as a Disney movie starring Jim Carrey.

It’s not hard to understand why the story is so relevant. Modern American Christmas expectations have a tendency to produce them. I’ve seen the pain Christmas causes when workaholic men slow down at the end of a year and begin to grasp what they’ve done to their wives and their kids. I’ve heard the sadness in the voices of widows who have told me, “I’m just going to try to get through Christmas without him. It was 45 years you know.” And apparently I’m not alone in seeing this. Early this week, I typed “Christmas causes…” into my Google search bar curious to see how searchers normally finished the phrase. And do you know what I saw? Three results. Interestingly, they seemed to descend in order of importance. The top three search results respectively were: Christmas causes depression; Christmas causes stress; and Christmas causes tree rash.

The results didn’t surprise me – except for maybe the tree rash part. They wouldn’t have surprised Luke either. He went to great lengths to show us that this is the normal even expected Christmas experience. Because Christmas starts with shepherds. And let me tell you something, nobody wants to grow up to be a shepherd. Nobody. You remember David, the one that killed Goliath, you know why he started out as a shepherd boy? You think it was because he went to the Ancient Near East’s Harvard graduating Summa Cum Laude? Not a chance. It was because he was the youngest of his brothers and when his older brothers didn’t want the shepherding gig he got stuck with it. I guarantee you it wasn’t any different for these men. I mean just listen to the way Luke writes about it. “There were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.” (v. 8) This isn’t camping by a creek on some beautiful mountain or nestling in on some sweet RV pad at a national park. This is living out in the fields. All the time. This is Ancient Near Eastern life at its worst and most difficult.

And I suppose that would be bad enough, but that hard scrabble life came with great reputational cost too. Not only did they have to deal with dumb and dirty sheep – and that from what I understand is its own special kind of punishment – but they also had to deal with the stereotyping and the prejudices of everyone they met. Every time they went out shopping they had to deal with the stares of the shop owners who thought for sure they would swipe a fig or with a deft hand movement make off with some of their wares. In fact, shepherds were considered so shifty, so unreliable, and so untrustworthy that they weren’t even allowed to offer testimony in the day’s courts. They were the most down on life, barely eeking it out, and down trodden folks you could find anywhere. And there they sat at night, which isn’t accidental. Like just coincidentally the clock just happened to be somewhere past 6 pm when this all went down. God is trying to help us understand the world that he was about to break into. It was a dark, black world not just in the sense that eyes were dark, but that hearts were too. And that’s where Christmas started. With shepherds sitting in the dark.

It still does. At least, that’s what Google’s statistics and Charles Dickens continuing relevance suggests. That deep down we see how Christmas still starts with shepherds – with people who can be so spiritually down on life, so barely eeking it out, and so spiritually down trodden. Ironically, its the glory of Christmas that puts that truth into stark relief. Because this time of year we finally seem to know how much better we could be. We can picture how we’re supposed to kiss our wives under the mistletoe; how our kids should dance and hug with thanks for the presents; how adult sibling relationships are supposed to hum; and how nationally we should all be contentedly sipping on a similarly designed Starbuck’s cup. And then my sister comes into town guardedly wondering if I’m still that twelve-year-old brother in the backyard who sent her to mom crying. And my wife is giving me the evil eye for forgetting to take out the garbage last night while the kids are remarking that I messed up and got the wrong Lego set. And nationally? We’re pounding cup designs down each other’s throats, more politically polarized than ever before, and shooting each other up. And that’s where Christmas starts. Christmas starts with the realization that we’re shepherds sitting in the spiritual dark.  

And then the Lord breaks into our lives, but probably not in the way you might first expect. Luke’s not preaching a sermon here about angelic glory – how this angel of the Lord actually wasn’t some huggable, kissable little cherub holding grapes and a miniature harp. Luke’s not even really emphasizing the harsh, revealing glory of the Lord that left the shepherds feeling so terrifyingly revealed that they saw their lives practically passing before their eyes. Luke’s doesn’t even at first highlight the Christ of the angel’s message. Not at first. Did you catch what Luke emphasized as of first and premiere importance? “I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all people.” (v. 10) No mention of the Christ. Not yet. No mention of the Christ’s saving work either. That would come. What he first tells them is εὐαγγελίζομαι. It’s actually just one word in Greek. It means, “I’m going to gospel you,” or, “I’m going to good news you,” or, “I’m going to bring you a happy message.” And so emphatic is this angel and, for that matter Luke, that they even put the word, “behold,” before εὐαγγελίζομαι. The NIV didn’t translate it, but it’s there. The angel literally said, “Behold, I bring you good news.”

And, honestly, when I was studying this passage I pictured my college English professor saying to Luke frustratedly, “Don’t tell them what you’re going to say, just say it. Why all this emphasis on the bringing or the proclamation or the messaging of the good news? Why don’t you just get to it?” And maybe I can help you get at why Luke does this by sharing with you another one of the thoughts I had about this passage. I wondered to myself how much that, “I,” in, “I bring you good news,” meant to that angel. Truthfully, that’s what I thought about. You know why I thought about that? Because angels almost never get to message humans about Jesus. Almost never. And that made me wonder a bit why we ever started calling angels messengers because they hardly ever are. I’ve never once had an angel message me about anything not even on Twitter.

And that’s the point. On the night of Jesus’ birth, this supernatural, angelic activity was totally justified. How else do you let the world know that the King is personally breaking into history as a human especially when he’s being born in backwater Bethlehem probably off in some dank cave? How else do you put an exclamation point on that kind of exclamation point? I think you might do something totally abnormal and completely out of the ordinary like, for example, let an angel bear the tidings. But Jesus was only born once. And I hate to disappoint you, but we missed this angelic preacher by – oh – about two thousands years or so. Now are you seeing it? Are you seeing why Luke is emphasizing the preaching in this account? Are you getting why the first and premiere thing the angel has to say is the one thing that wouldn’t go away once that night ended? Are you seeing why Luke doesn’t so much want us to think about how our pupils might have constricted because of glory in that moment, but really about how our hearts can still pulse with joy even today?

Because now that angel is back at whatever spiritual post he’s got. And now the glory of the Lord that cut a worm hole right into this spiritual dimension has receded back into the throne room of God. And now we can’t even go see our Savior wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. I actually went to Bethlehem and tried. I’m telling you the baby’s not there anymore. And yet. And yet, God still breaks in on us spiritual shepherds. The angel, the baby in the manger, and the glory of the Lord may be missing, but God still breaks into the night of modern shepherds with gospel preaching. That’s why the angel said, “I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.” (v. 10) Luke is saying that when people get gospeled or good newsed or evangelized or whatever you want call it universal – for all – joy erupts. That’s how it always is. Let me talk about that, first, in sort of an academic way. I want to quote one of the most respected Greek lexicons available called the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament – TDNT for short – on the word εὐαγγελίζομαι. Here’s what it says, “Being proclamation of the good news of God, it carries with it both the offer and the power of salvation.” What that is saying is that through gospel preaching God not only offers salvation, but also works faith in it.

But don’t take my word for it or TDNT’s either. Take the angel’s. That’s exactly what he said. He said, “I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all people.” (v. 10) Do you see the significance of that? When I evangelize you and tell you that you have a Savior and that he’s been born, I’m not telling you about some theoretical Jesus who likes you ok and will free up time in his schedule for you if you’ll only be his friend. I’m telling you about a real God-man who was born that night to be far more than your friend. I’m telling you about your Savior who is using the opportunity provided by these words to cut his cosmic throne right into the center of your heart. When I tell you that Christmas is all about a baby King with a majestic plan to take dirty, down and out shepherds and shepherdesses and turn them all into his heirs, his princes and princesses, do you realize it’s already way too late for you to do anything about that? It’s already been done. You’re already starting to feel the great joy the angel promised would come to us, his future hearers. And when on that basis I preach to you that your sins are forgiven, I’m not saying that forgiveness is conveniently available to you or that it’s merely being offered. I’m telling you it’s yours. 

And that angel who talked about good news that will cause great joy? He was thinking about this future. And so was his King. It’s not too much to say that Peace was the King’s plan. You know why I know that? Because today happened. Just appreciate for a minute God’s intricacies, God’s premeditation, God’s planned cosmic twists and turns that all happened so that right here in this moment God could send his Spirit to douse us all with his gospel? How did I meet a guy at a certain gym at a particular time who had been praying for this church? How did I bump into another guy at an Aiken Young Professionals event who looked like an awful lot like all the Wisconsin deer hunters I had just left behind only with a sweet Carolina accent? How did it happen that my new insurance agent needed a church or the Spirit had a Rotary Club member by the shirt collar or a Christian looking for a church home asked me to have breakfast with him the minute I got into town? How did it happen that some skinny Wisconsin pastor who knew absolutely nothing about church planting was moved to leave behind his nice office and flourishing pastor job? How do any of us who have been here during any part of the past year think that Peace is anything less than God’s own work?

The truth is that God wanted this future. And why? Because his gospel isn’t some dead, orthodox teaching. It’s a dynamite dogma that takes shepherd-like people and makes them kings. It’s a truth that takes dark, sad human souls and sets inside of them a fire of faith so powerful that no sin, no guilt, not death itself can extinguish it. And the truth is that the same Jesus Christ who ordered all of world history so that he would be born in that manger ordered that same history to give birth to this church. Peace is that big a deal. It’s nothing less than Christ for you. Understand that. The God of heaven, the Lord of glory, spotted you, a sad shepherd, sitting in the dark and that reality bugged him so much that he sprang off his throne, laid himself down in a manger and then climbed onto a cross. And once he had risen, he used his might to reach right back into history and create this church not so that Peace could make you the offer of his salvation, but so that Peace could give you the gift itself: faith in Jesus. So that you might have a joy that would carry you not only through a potential Christmas doldrum, but right into an eternity of joy with him. And one year of that? Now that’s worth celebrating. Amen.

Luke 2:8–10 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.

Weak with sadness a man uses a wall to hold himself up. He leans there and closes his eyes. He can’t look anymore at the life he’s created for himself. And then a voice rudely, but delicately interrupts the man’s despair only to deepen it. The voice commands him to look, but not at the life he has. It’s worse. The voice commands him to look at the life he’s missed. The scene dramatically softens as the sad, sad man looks on. He watches as music plays and a wife glows. He watches as children bound and dance around a beautiful Christmas tree. Then a husband and a father dashes into the room to a roar of joy. And that does it. Ebenezer Scrooge yells in despair to the Ghost of Christmas Past, “I cannot bear it. Haunt me no more!” That’s one of the most poignant scenes from Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol. It’s a book that has never once gone out of print in over 150 years and just a few years ago even came out as a Disney movie starring Jim Carrey.

It’s not hard to understand why the story is so relevant. Modern American Christmas expectations have a tendency to produce them. I’ve seen the pain Christmas causes when workaholic men slow down at the end of a year and begin to grasp what they’ve done to their wives and their kids. I’ve heard the sadness in the voices of widows who have told me, “I’m just going to try to get through Christmas without him. It was 45 years you know.” And apparently I’m not alone in seeing this. Early this week, I typed “Christmas causes…” into my Google search bar curious to see how searchers normally finished the phrase. And do you know what I saw? Three results. Interestingly, they seemed to descend in order of importance. The top three search results respectively were: Christmas causes depression; Christmas causes stress; and Christmas causes tree rash.

The results didn’t surprise me – except for maybe the tree rash part. They wouldn’t have surprised Luke either. He went to great lengths to show us that this is the normal even expected Christmas experience. Because Christmas starts with shepherds. And let me tell you something, nobody wants to grow up to be a shepherd. Nobody. You remember David, the one that killed Goliath, you know why he started out as a shepherd boy? You think it was because he went to the Ancient Near East’s Harvard graduating Summa Cum Laude? Not a chance. It was because he was the youngest of his brothers and when his older brothers didn’t want the shepherding gig he got stuck with it. I guarantee you it wasn’t any different for these men. I mean just listen to the way Luke writes about it. “There were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.” (v. 8) This isn’t camping by a creek on some beautiful mountain or nestling in on some sweet RV pad at a national park. This is living out in the fields. All the time. This is Ancient Near Eastern life at its worst and most difficult.

And I suppose that would be bad enough, but that hard scrabble life came with great reputational cost too. Not only did they have to deal with dumb and dirty sheep – and that from what I understand is its own special kind of punishment – but they also had to deal with the stereotyping and the prejudices of everyone they met. Every time they went out shopping they had to deal with the stares of the shop owners who thought for sure they would swipe a fig or with a deft hand movement make off with some of their wares. In fact, shepherds were considered so shifty, so unreliable, and so untrustworthy that they weren’t even allowed to offer testimony in the day’s courts. They were the most down on life, barely eeking it out, and down trodden folks you could find anywhere. And there they sat at night, which isn’t accidental. Like just coincidentally the clock just happened to be somewhere past 6 pm when this all went down. God is trying to help us understand the world that he was about to break into. It was a dark, black world not just in the sense that eyes were dark, but that hearts were too. And that’s where Christmas started. With shepherds sitting in the dark.

It still does. At least, that’s what Google’s statistics and Charles Dickens continuing relevance suggests. That deep down we see how Christmas still starts with shepherds – with people who can be so spiritually down on life, so barely eeking it out, and so spiritually down trodden. Ironically, its the glory of Christmas that puts that truth into stark relief. Because this time of year we finally seem to know how much better we could be. We can picture how we’re supposed to kiss our wives under the mistletoe; how our kids should dance and hug with thanks for the presents; how adult sibling relationships are supposed to hum; and how nationally we should all be contentedly sipping on a similarly designed Starbuck’s cup. And then my sister comes into town guardedly wondering if I’m still that twelve-year-old brother in the backyard who sent her to mom crying. And my wife is giving me the evil eye for forgetting to take out the garbage last night while the kids are remarking that I messed up and got the wrong Lego set. And nationally? We’re pounding cup designs down each other’s throats, more politically polarized than ever before, and shooting each other up. And that’s where Christmas starts. Christmas starts with the realization that we’re shepherds sitting in the spiritual dark.  

And then the Lord breaks into our lives, but probably not in the way you might first expect. Luke’s not preaching a sermon here about angelic glory – how this angel of the Lord actually wasn’t some huggable, kissable little cherub holding grapes and a miniature harp. Luke’s not even really emphasizing the harsh, revealing glory of the Lord that left the shepherds feeling so terrifyingly revealed that they saw their lives practically passing before their eyes. Luke’s doesn’t even at first highlight the Christ of the angel’s message. Not at first. Did you catch what Luke emphasized as of first and premiere importance? “I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all people.” (v. 10) No mention of the Christ. Not yet. No mention of the Christ’s saving work either. That would come. What he first tells them is εὐαγγελίζομαι. It’s actually just one word in Greek. It means, “I’m going to gospel you,” or, “I’m going to good news you,” or, “I’m going to bring you a happy message.” And so emphatic is this angel and, for that matter Luke, that they even put the word, “behold,” before εὐαγγελίζομαι. The NIV didn’t translate it, but it’s there. The angel literally said, “Behold, I bring you good news.”

And, honestly, when I was studying this passage I pictured my college English professor saying to Luke frustratedly, “Don’t tell them what you’re going to say, just say it. Why all this emphasis on the bringing or the proclamation or the messaging of the good news? Why don’t you just get to it?” And maybe I can help you get at why Luke does this by sharing with you another one of the thoughts I had about this passage. I wondered to myself how much that, “I,” in, “I bring you good news,” meant to that angel. Truthfully, that’s what I thought about. You know why I thought about that? Because angels almost never get to message humans about Jesus. Almost never. And that made me wonder a bit why we ever started calling angels messengers because they hardly ever are. I’ve never once had an angel message me about anything not even on Twitter.

And that’s the point. On the night of Jesus’ birth, this supernatural, angelic activity was totally justified. How else do you let the world know that the King is personally breaking into history as a human especially when he’s being born in backwater Bethlehem probably off in some dank cave? How else do you put an exclamation point on that kind of exclamation point? I think you might do something totally abnormal and completely out of the ordinary like, for example, let an angel bear the tidings. But Jesus was only born once. And I hate to disappoint you, but we missed this angelic preacher by – oh – about two thousands years or so. Now are you seeing it? Are you seeing why Luke is emphasizing the preaching in this account? Are you getting why the first and premiere thing the angel has to say is the one thing that wouldn’t go away once that night ended? Are you seeing why Luke doesn’t so much want us to think about how our pupils might have constricted because of glory in that moment, but really about how our hearts can still pulse with joy even today?

Because now that angel is back at whatever spiritual post he’s got. And now the glory of the Lord that cut a worm hole right into this spiritual dimension has receded back into the throne room of God. And now we can’t even go see our Savior wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. I actually went to Bethlehem and tried. I’m telling you the baby’s not there anymore. And yet. And yet, God still breaks in on us spiritual shepherds. The angel, the baby in the manger, and the glory of the Lord may be missing, but God still breaks into the night of modern shepherds with gospel preaching. That’s why the angel said, “I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.” (v. 10) Luke is saying that when people get gospeled or good newsed or evangelized or whatever you want call it universal – for all – joy erupts. That’s how it always is. Let me talk about that, first, in sort of an academic way. I want to quote one of the most respected Greek lexicons available called the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament – TDNT for short – on the word εὐαγγελίζομαι. Here’s what it says, “Being proclamation of the good news of God, it carries with it both the offer and the power of salvation.” What that is saying is that through gospel preaching God not only offers salvation, but also works faith in it.

But don’t take my word for it or TDNT’s either. Take the angel’s. That’s exactly what he said. He said, “I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all people.” (v. 10) Do you see the significance of that? When I evangelize you and tell you that you have a Savior and that he’s been born, I’m not telling you about some theoretical Jesus who likes you ok and will free up time in his schedule for you if you’ll only be his friend. I’m telling you about a real God-man who was born that night to be far more than your friend. I’m telling you about your Savior who is using the opportunity provided by these words to cut his cosmic throne right into the center of your heart. When I tell you that Christmas is all about a baby King with a majestic plan to take dirty, down and out shepherds and shepherdesses and turn them all into his heirs, his princes and princesses, do you realize it’s already way too late for you to do anything about that? It’s already been done. You’re already starting to feel the great joy the angel promised would come to us, his future hearers. And when on that basis I preach to you that your sins are forgiven, I’m not saying that forgiveness is conveniently available to you or that it’s merely being offered. I’m telling you it’s yours. 

And that angel who talked about good news that will cause great joy? He was thinking about this future. And so was his King. It’s not too much to say that Peace was the King’s plan. You know why I know that? Because today happened. Just appreciate for a minute God’s intricacies, God’s premeditation, God’s planned cosmic twists and turns that all happened so that right here in this moment God could send his Spirit to douse us all with his gospel? How did I meet a guy at a certain gym at a particular time who had been praying for this church? How did I bump into another guy at an Aiken Young Professionals event who looked like an awful lot like all the Wisconsin deer hunters I had just left behind only with a sweet Carolina accent? How did it happen that my new insurance agent needed a church or the Spirit had a Rotary Club member by the shirt collar or a Christian looking for a church home asked me to have breakfast with him the minute I got into town? How did it happen that some skinny Wisconsin pastor who knew absolutely nothing about church planting was moved to leave behind his nice office and flourishing pastor job? How do any of us who have been here during any part of the past year think that Peace is anything less than God’s own work?

The truth is that God wanted this future. And why? Because his gospel isn’t some dead, orthodox teaching. It’s a dynamite dogma that takes shepherd-like people and makes them kings. It’s a truth that takes dark, sad human souls and sets inside of them a fire of faith so powerful that no sin, no guilt, not death itself can extinguish it. And the truth is that the same Jesus Christ who ordered all of world history so that he would be born in that manger ordered that same history to give birth to this church. Peace is that big a deal. It’s nothing less than Christ for you. Understand that. The God of heaven, the Lord of glory, spotted you, a sad shepherd, sitting in the dark and that reality bugged him so much that he sprang off his throne, laid himself down in a manger and then climbed onto a cross. And once he had risen, he used his might to reach right back into history and create this church not so that Peace could make you the offer of his salvation, but so that Peace could give you the gift itself: faith in Jesus. So that you might have a joy that would carry you not only through a potential Christmas doldrum, but right into an eternity of joy with him. And one year of that? Now that’s worth celebrating. Amen.

Luke 3:1-6 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene—2 during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. 5 Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. 6 And all people will see God’s salvation.’”

For the complete written sermon, contact today's guest pastor at [email protected].

Luke 3:1-6 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene—2 during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. 5 Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. 6 And all people will see God’s salvation.’”

For the complete written sermon, contact today's guest pastor at [email protected].

Daniel 7:2–7, 13–14 Daniel said: “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me were the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea. 3 Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea. 4 “The first was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted from the ground so that it stood on two feet like a human being, and the mind of a human was given to it. 5 “And there before me was a second beast, which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. It was told, ‘Get up and eat your fill of flesh!’ 6 “After that, I looked, and there before me was another beast, one that looked like a leopard. And on its back it had four wings like those of a bird. This beast had four heads, and it was given authority to rule. 7 “After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast—terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns. 13 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed. 15 “I, Daniel, was troubled in spirit, and the visions that passed through my mind disturbed me.

For a time earlier this week, it seemed like the internet was going to melt with accounts and stories and videos of Paris and its attacks. None caught my attention quite like the one I read of a young man who walked the streets of Paris hours just after the attacks. He said, “I went out into the streets. I was confused and afraid, of course. But the terrible things that had happened — I wanted to see them for myself, breathe them in, walk among them. It was a little past 11 and the streets were deserted, silent. Paris no longer existed. Paris had fallen… there was war.” After his walk he went home and when he arrived he bumped into his neighbor and after a more intense, knowing greeting than usual she exclaimed, “This is the end! Where are we going to live now?” That question caused him to go back to his apartment and write. He wanted to try to answer that question, but he couldn’t. He got to the end of his article and he was still at a loss writing, “Where are we going to live now? I still don’t know how to answer.”

Daniel didn’t either. Really. He didn’t. And, yeah, this is the same Daniel that by faith made kittens out of hungry lions in an event that was immortalized as Daniel and the Lion’s Den even before Veggie Tales got a hold of it. This is that Daniel. The Daniel that had been swept away from his homeland in an international resettlement campaign. The Daniel that had lived through the turmoil of seeing his friends get tossed into a fiery furnace, and the Daniel that had almost been offed when Nebuchadnezzar went cra cra on the people he wanted to interpret his dreams. This is that Daniel. We’re talking about one of the best educated and most faith-filled men in history. Bar none. We’re talking about a guy who had seen and experienced regime change and was emotionally mature in the best of ways. We’re talking about a wise and powerful statesman, who was probably in his mid-sixties. That’s why you get the definite impression that the way Daniel was feeling after this vision was totally out of character for him. Listen to how he self-reports his experience here. “I, Daniel, was troubled in spirit, and the visions that passed through my mind disturbed me.” (v. 15)

Even the experienced, brilliant statesman. Even the faith-filled and mature man. Even Daniel was troubled. And he doesn’t spare you the details about his emotional and spiritual state here. He’s actually very comprehensive about it. He said he was troubled in spirit and his mind disturbed him. He was saying, “I’ve not only got a horrible feeling deep down in my gut about this vision of world history, but also my mind is spinning all over the place because of it.” Emotionally he was out of whack. Rationally he was struggling. And as the chapter progresses it gets no better for Daniel. By the end of the chapter the poor guy’s inner anxiety even causes physiological symptoms. His face greys and he emotionally shuts down. He simply says, “This is the end of the matter… I kept the matter to myself.” (v. 28) In other words, “I can’t deal with this. I need to shut down. Daniel out!” It’s enough to make you want to say, “Poor Daniel. Will someone help his troubled soul out?”

And do you know when the Spirit shows us this downer Daniel in this book? Just as we’re fresh off the joy and the victory of the lion’s den experience. Literally the last lines of chapter six read, “He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions. So Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.” (6:27–28) And after you read that you’re thinking, “Sweet! Tell me more. Regimes will change. Kingdoms will rise and fall and everything will be ok for the people of faith.” And fresh off that victory. Fresh off that real confidence giving story comes a vision that inspires fears of the worst kind. Beasts rise and they’re beasts for a reason. The beasts represent predatory nations and powers. Lion-like, bear-like, and leopard-like nations rise, but the last preditorial nation? It’s the worst. It seems Daniel is so overwhelmed by its power and its devastating behavior that he doesn’t even seem able to give it an animal type, a species.  Every other kind of beast has an animal type and temperament in the vision. Except the last one. It’s so powerful and venomous and destructive that it has no animal type. It seems to be its own kind of special evil.

Now I suppose I could rattle off for you the nation states Daniel is seeing here. I suppose we could step back and do world history 101 and I could point out what an accurate prophecy Daniel give us here. I suppose I could lecture to you about Babylonian magnificence, Persian opulence, Alexander the Great’s military conquests, and then go on and on about destructive Roman power – exactly the nations and powers Daniel sees here. I suppose I could do that, but I think probably what’s more important for our purposes today and closer to what the Spirit’s after is not a dry and academic understanding of the twists and turns of ruling nations in history. What the Spirit wants us to know in a very real and very personal way is that until the end of time predatory governments and leaders will even hurt God’s people. Like when a Russian airliner gets downed on a flight from an Egyptian resort. Like when Paris reels. Like when presidential debates turn on a dime and good candidates rise only to fall. Like when policy makers don’t know whether to help weary Syrian refugees or risk taking in Syrian terrorists. Like when Fox News rages or MSNBC spins over the latest and the greatest political moment. Like when never again never seems to actually be now.

That’s the kind of stuff that makes our heads spin and our stomachs knot up. Just like it did for Daniel. Because we understand that nation state history is never something that only happens around us. It’s always something that happens to us. We all get that at a deep level. There’s a reason why what happened in Paris didn’t stay in Paris. There’s a reason why it seemed like that event hacked all our Facebook feeds and lit up all our Twitter accounts. There’s a reason why we have our cable TV news stations droning on in our living rooms and talk radio filling the cabins of our cars. There’s a reason why we even had people at our Aiken County Council meeting saying, “Given our close proximity to the Savannah River Site… we’re a prime target for terrorists looking to do us harm.” We’re afraid. We’re afraid that as history happens to us that it will harm us and our land and the ones we love. That if we don’t manage to get the right president or have the right policy response or employ the correct military strategy that some governmental or systemic predator will attack us in unthinkable and horrible ways.

And that’s why immediately after God describes the predators, he gives the prophetic promise. It’s a prophetic promise that’s nothing short of one of Scripture’s greatest and most memorable so much so that it forms the backbone of much of what the New Testament has to say about God’s ruling activity among us. And it’s not hard to understand why. It’s a prophesy that says that a certain figure will come not only to check predatory and beastly powers, but to defang and destroy them. That figure? Shockingly? That figure is one, “like a son of man.” (v. 13) Which, honestly, on its face sounds totally unexceptional and completely boring. It’s just a person who looks like a normal guy. Like a plumber or a mechanic or someone who pushes paper in some office. Just a person who looks like a normal guy. We only find out that this figure is someone special when we see his ride. That’s when it gets interesting because we find out that this guy is, “coming with the clouds of heaven.” (v. 13) Not on a jet. Not in Benz or an Aston Martin. The clouds of heaven. Do you see what that means? That means he’s not only self-propelled, he’s also self-levitating. And since he’s that, he might as well prove to us that manipulating the weather systems and messing with the cloud patterns is child’s play for him so he rides them right into the presence of the Ancient Days, God himself.

And then as if this cloud riding doesn’t make it clear who and what this figure is Daniel specifies it even further. And he does so with so much force that this can’t be mere academics. “He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” (v. 14) Do you see how that amounts to academic and teaching overkill? It could’ve simply and very academically read, “This one like a son of man will rule everything forever.” But it doesn’t say that. There’s massive teaching overkill here. There isn’t just authority talked about. There’s authority and glory and power. And it doesn’t just say that this figure will have authority, glory, and power over everything. It says he has authority, power and glory over all nations and people of every language. We’re talking about one universal kingdom! That kind of talk is supposed to push our trust in this figure right on past an academic or intellectual level. That kind of talk is supposed to descend right down into the emotional and faith centers of our being. Daniel gives us this forceful description of the son of man so that we fully rely on him as our King.

And this ruling activity that this prophetic promise is encouraging us to trust? We’re not only given massive amounts of overkill about its universality – its size – but also its historical extent. Did you catch that? The prophesy doesn’t just say that it’s an everlasting dominion. It goes on to hammer home to us that this everlasting dominion will not pass away. And just in case that strikes us impersonally or academically or in a merely informational way Daniel goes on yet from there to say that his kingdom will never be destroyed. It’s universal. It’s unending. And we are to internalize that in far more than an academic or intellectual way. Especially since here and now we sit. Especially since here and now we sit in the time after Alexander the Great croaked and Rome rose. Especially since here and now we sit in the time when the vast majority of this prophecy isn’t prophecy anymore. It’s almost entirely a fulfillment.

So says Jesus. One day there he sat. He sat on trial before the High Priest and when he was asked if he was the Christ he verbatim quoted this passage about himself. With just one little twist. He dropped the, “like.” Because no longer in history was he merely like a son of man. He was the Son of Man. In fact, do you know what Jesus’ favorite name for himself was? Yup. You guessed it. The Son of Man. Daniel’s prophetic promise fulfilled: Jesus is the ruling Son of Man. And right there and right then from history’s oddest looking throne, a cross, he began his rule. Not gaining order with an extensive and divine nuclear arsenal, but ruling sin with his sacrifice. Not getting a border transcending justice with a massive military campaign, but giving the gift of his divine life. Not bashing people over the head with his authority, but drawing subjects to himself with his kingly and royal grace: the forgiveness of our sins. And for now – for now – that’s what he’s up to. Until he’s not anymore. Until it’s time for the last little bit of Daniel’s prophecy to come true. Until it’s time for Jesus to ride the clouds to the universal and everlasting rule where he’s going to put down for good every beastly power forever.

I’m not saying that Fox News shouldn’t ever send a dart of fear through us again. I’m not suggesting that Paris shouldn’t impact federal policy or we shouldn’t care about the presidential debates. For now, beast-like nations and powers are real. What I am saying is that Daniel is giving you a vision of a ruler so powerful and so life-giving that it is to become for us something far more than informational. It’s to make its way down deeply into us. It’s to become our faith and fill us with trust so profound that it seems to hack our Facebook feeds and light up our Twitter accounts, drown out cable TV’s droning, and hijack our golf cart conversations. That it becomes what we know and we share and our one true hope – a ruler so universal and so eternal that it transcends every border, every jihadist ambition, and every political push. A ruler so complete and so saving that no matter what history happens to us; what nation threatens; or what terror strikes; we run to it. We run to the ruler who as firmly as he propels the clouds will propel us into his universal and eternal kingdom.

Honestly? I’m no better or smarter than that young man who walked the streets of Paris that Friday night. If you asked me where I can live in this world and always be completely safe, I couldn’t tell you. You know what I can tell you? I can tell you with whom you can live so that you’re completely safe. That much I know and now you do too: Christ, the Son of Man, our King. Amen.