Looking for
Blessedness
Luke 1:26-38;
39-56
December 15,
2013[1]
I love
music, but I have not been a huge fan of country music. So it was quite a surprise to Carol and our
daughter Liz when they heard me playing a song that Martina McBride recorded in
2001 called “Blessed.” In this song,
Martina talks about her blessings:
I
get kissed by the sun each morning
Put
my feet on the hardwood floor
I
get to hear my children laughing
Down
the hall through the bedroom door
Sometimes
I sit on my front porch swing
Just
soaking up the day
I
think to myself
This
world is a beautiful place.
I
have been blessed
And
I feel like I’ve found my way
I
thank God for all I’ve been given
At
the end of every day….
When
I’m singing for my kids to sleep
When
I feel you holding me
I
know, I’ve been blessed…
I
have been blessed
With
so much more than I deserve
To
be here with the ones that love me
To
love them so much it hurts
I have been blessed…[2]
It struck me that
Martina’s song was reminiscent of a Gospel Song published in 1897 that we don’t
hear so much any more:
When upon life’s billows you are
tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is
lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one
by one.
And it will surprise
you what the Lord has done.[3]
This morning we read Mary’s
Song, a song that the church has known through the centuries as the “Magnificat,” based on the opening words,
“My soul magnifies the Lord…” At one
level, Mary’s song could be viewed as a time in which Mary was doing exactly
what Martina McBride and the Gospel Song writer were doing: counting their blessings. Giving thanks to God for the ways in which
God has blessed her life.
·
The Mighty One
has done great things for me (v. 49)
·
His mercy extends
to those who fear Him (v. 50)
·
He has performed
mighty deeds with His arm; (v. 51).
·
He has scattered
those who are proud …(v. 51)
·
He has brought
down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble (v. 52)..
·
He has filled the
hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty (v. 53).
·
He has helped His
servant Israel (v. 54)
If you look closely at
Mary’s song, you will notice that her list of blessings is not a list of things
that God has given to her personally; she remembers the things God has done for
her people. Her list in some ways seems to
defy the realities of the world around her.
It looks forward rather than backward.
The people of Israel (or at least some of them) longed for a great
liberator who would free them from the power of Rome and restore them to their
former days of independence. Mary’s song
expresses the longing of a people to be set free, to see a reversal of roles in
which the humble and the meek would inherit the earth. It is a song of faith and trust in the things
that God will do. Her song foreshadows
the ministry of the One she was carrying, the One who would launch His own
ministry by quoting from the Prophet Isaiah, “The spirit of the Lord is upon
me, because He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the
captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to
proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke
4:18-19).
So Mary’s song is
different from Martina McBride’s. She
doesn’t celebrate personal gifts or personal accomplishments. In fact, Mary barely seems to mention the
baby she is carrying—at most, she mentions the baby indirectly: “”he has looked with favor on the lowliness
of his servant…” (v. 48).
I wonder if Mary had any
idea of the pain that the Child she was carrying would bring to her? I suspect that she anticipated the questions
she would face from Joseph and her family, and the scorn she would face from
friends and neighbors. But did she have
any idea of what else lay before her:
·
Did she know that
when she presented her newborn infant in the Temple, that an old prophet named
Simeon would warn her that her son was “destined for the falling and the rising
of many in Israel” and that a “sword [would] pierce [her] heart”? (Luke 2:34, 35).
·
Did she know that
while the baby boy was still very young, the family would be forced to flee to
Egypt to avoid the wrath of King Herod?
(Matthew 2:13, 14).
·
Did she know that
when she and Joseph would take the boy to the Temple, the boy would leave them
to remain in what He called His “Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49).
·
Did she know that
in later years, when Jesus would be told that His mother and His brothers were
looking for Him, Jesus would dismiss them with a question: “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” (Matthew 12:38).
·
Did she have any
idea of the cross that lay in His future—a cross that would not only take His
life, but a part of hers, as well. A
cross from which, as he hung dying, he would entrust her into the care of the
disciple that He loved? (John 19:26-27).
I don’t know if Mary
could foresee the heart-breaking moments that lay before her any more that we
can see the tears that our own children and grand children will bring to us
during their times of growing, struggling, claiming their own independence,
suffering their own times of pain.
Whatever was going
through Mary’s mind, she does not let it delay her response. When the Angel Gabriel announces to Mary that
she will give birth to the “Son of the Most High” (Luke 1:32), Mary immediately responds with the simple words, “Here
am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).
Mary then proclaims that
“all generations will call me blessed” (Luke
1:48b). The key to Mary’s blessedness is not to be
found in the gifts she would receive or the favors that God would bestow upon
her. At her tender young age, her
blessedness cannot be found in the things that she has accomplished in her
short life. They key to Mary’s
blessedness is to be found in her complete submission to the will of God.
We often tend to think of
being blessed in the sense of receiving gifts from God. At one level, this is certainly true; but
Mary gives us an example to look at our blessedness in a different way. Our blessedness as the people of God must be
derived in the same way as Mary. It must
flow out of our complete submission to the will of God.
Our blessedness cannot be
found in material blessings. God causes “his sun rise on the evil and on
the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45). Jesus warns us against storing up “treasures
on earth where moth and rust consume and thieves break in and steal” (Matthew 6:19).
Our blessedness cannot be
measured in gifts of life or health.
Death is part of the cycle of life.
“To everything there is a season—a time to be born and a time to die” (Ecclesiastes 3:2).
Our blessedness is found
in doing the will of God. Jesus said
that “whoever does
the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother" (Matthew 12:50).
Do
we want to be a blessed people? Our key
to blessedness is to seek and do God’s will.
Do
we want to be a blessed church? Our key
to blessedness is to seek and do God’s will for the people of Fluvanna and
around the world.
Our
key to blessedness is to work to bring forth the Kingdom of God. We don’t end our spiritual journey by
declaring our faith in Jesus Christ—that is only the beginning. We are called to work for the Kingdom. It is not a Kingdom which we can bring about
on our own; yet Christ enlists us in his work of
·
helping the helpless;
·
caring for the poor;
·
feeding the
hungry;
·
providing shelter
to the homeless;
·
loving the
unlovable, hugging the untouchable;
·
saying “no” to a
culture that mistakes physical intimacy for love;
·
saying “no” to a
culture that mistakes violence for entertainment;
·
saying “no” to a
world that still encourages an “eye for an eye.”
Jesus himself said that
He came “down from
heaven, not to do [His] own will, but the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38). We can do no less.
If we want to become the
blessed people of God, the key is this:
to “seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness…” (Matthew
6:33). Mary said, “here am I, the
servant of the Lord. Let it be with me
according to your word.” May we offer
the same response as God speaks to us this day.
May
it be so!
Copyright
© 2013 by Thomas E. Frost. All rights
reserved.
[1] Preached at Cunningham
United Methodist Church in Palmyra, Virginia on the Third Sunday in Advent.
[2] Brett James, Troy Verges and
Hillary Lindsey, “Blessed.” Published by Lyrics © Chrysalis One Music, Sony/ATV
Music Publishing LLC, BMG Rights Management US, LLC, Universal Music Publishing
Group. Viewed on the internet on
December 14, 2013 at http://www.metrolyrics.com/blessed-lyrics-martina-mcbride.html.
[3] Johnson Oatman, Jr.,
“Count Your Blessings,” viewed on the internet on December 15, 2013 at http://library.timelesstruths.org/music/Count_Your_Blessings/. Public domain.
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