Faithfulness as Firm as the Heavens

Preaching Notes

Focus Texts: Luke 1:46b-55 or Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26

There is an “or” in the Psalm category for this Sunday. And we figured, why not make it an “and.” We want to lay the two texts side by side and see what sparks in that correlation. You are, of course, free to choose one or the other and still stay true to the theme for the week. If we continue to follow the tradition for this fourth Sunday of Advent, the word would be love. We chose “faithfulness” in our heading this week. In the end, however, you can see considerable overlap between love and faithfulness.

Psalm 89 is a long psalm and worth spending some time over the whole. Yes, the lectionary helps by chopping it down to size and also manages to skip over some of the more uncomfortable moments—verse 38 and following, for example, where the psalmist begins to accuse God of not living up to the covenant. God isn’t acting God-like lately—at least that is how it seems to the writer. Maybe it is better that we leave that one alone, except we have been there. Any of us, all of us, have been wanting to accuse God of not holding up the divine end of the bargain, at least as we understand it. So here, we have permission for even those emotions to be heard in worship. We are allowed, according to the psalm, to feel abandoned, left out, short-changed.

In the context of the whole psalm, however, there is scope for climbing out of that pit of despair and abandonment. The psalm begins by acknowledging God’s steadfast love and faithfulness and ends with a call to bless the God who loves and is faithful؅—even when it follows an expression of lack of faithfulness or the experience of a lack of love. How is such a thing possible?

Returning to the assigned section, it is obvious why it was chosen for this fourth Sunday of Advent. There is a promise here, of David as a chosen one and one who lives in the blessing, in the steadfast love and faithfulness of God. And not just David, but David’s line as well. And so to our Christian eyes, we see a promise fulfilled in a way that even the psalmist couldn’t have imagined without divine inspiration. We see the son of David and the Son of God, standing in the gap, living out the covenant in transformative ways, embodying steadfast love and faithfulness in word and deed, in living and in dying and in being raised.

Yet even we who claim this Jesus, son of David, as Lord, can sometimes feel abandoned. We can sometimes feel cut off from the steadfast love of God and the faithfulness of the covenant that promises an eternal relationship and a constant presence. We feel as though God is hiding from us. That is the blessing of the life of Christ. He walked where we walk; he lived as we live. He knows the distance we experience and the despair we sometimes feel. His very presence in the world is a sign of the constant presence and steadfast love of God. His birth, the Incarnation, blessed this life we live.

This invites us to turn to the second “psalm” of this Sunday: the Magnificat, we call it. It is named by the beginning of the song, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” To really grasp the depth of this restoration song, we must ask a question we don’t usually ask of biblical texts: “How did this song that Mary sang to Elizabeth and all of us really sound?” Did it come bubbling out of her, like a mountain stream rushing down from the heights? Did it burst forth in a sudden explosion of passion and power and presence? Maybe. It surely could have. It might have built with every quickening step from her house to Elizabeth’s. And when Elizabeth greeted her, or rather when Elizabeth and her baby greeted Mary, because Luke says there was a leap, an internal leap when Mary said hello, Elizabeth was staggered by the enthusiasm of the child quickening inside of her and spoke to Mary with breathless wonder and surprise. Maybe that unleashed Mary’s own sense of amazement and excitement, and her song rings from the rafters of the parsonage there in the hill country. “My soul magnifies the Lord!” It starts with the high notes. It starts with the proclamation. “My spirit rejoices in God my savior.” Bam!

Somehow, though, it feels different to me. It feels ... slower ... gentler ... more reflective. It is almost as if Mary is surprising herself with all that is coming to life within her: the baby surely, but something else too; something that will stay within her even when the child emerges. Something that will sustain her when that child grows and claims a ministry that takes him away from her. Something that will define her even when this miracle, this quickening inside suffers and dies in a particularly horrible way. And that something is hope.

Hope. Real hope. Hope born of the steadfast love and faithfulness of God, not the shallow and fleeting hope that we espouse all too often: “I hope it doesn’t rain!” “I hope they get here soon.” “I hope I get my wish for Christmas.” There are hopes, and there is Hope. These hopes aren’t bad, but they aren’t sustaining; they aren’t transforming. Hope, on the other hand, makes us see differently and hear differently. Mary sings a song that is not real but is True. She is blessed to be a part, she says, of God’s turning the world right side up. The grand reversal has already happened. Look at the tenses - He has scattered the proud…he has brought down the powerful, and he has lifted up the lowly. Has he? The powerful still seem enthroned. The proud still seem to be in the center. And the lowly? Well, they’re scattered, pushed down, pushed out, refugees and the feared and hated. The world still seems unfinished, still seems upside down.

Yet, Mary chooses to rejoice—not as a Pollyanna, rose-colored-glasses kind of approach that ignores the harsh realities. But she chooses instead to believe that we don’t have to accept the upside-down world as it is. We don’t have to listen to the rich and powerful who tell us how to think, whom to fear, whom to exclude. We don’t have to imagine a prideful world of celebrity and privilege, of entitlement, of rights that bring destruction to relationships and communities. We can choose to see differently. We can choose to lift up the lowly because they are being lifted up already—the lowly love of neighbor and welcome of the stranger; the lowly service to the outcast and the value of listening instead of making pronouncements. We choose how we feel. We can live in anger, as our society seems determined to do. Or we can rejoice in our spirits because we get to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, something healing, something loving, something that will last into eternity. We can be a part of the quickening of the kingdom.

Maybe it doesn’t really work as an imperative. Maybe we can get the world to sing with us, to rejoice with us in spirit and in truth, when we start with testimony. “My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices with God my savior.” Tell how you feel, and others might come feel with you. Of course, we’ve got to feel something first. Rejoice. Let it come to life within you this Christmas season. Let it come to life, born of the steadfast love of the Lord and the faithfulness that is as firm as the heavens. That’s the gift we celebrate this season. That’s the hope by which we live. We wrap ourselves in hope, in peace, in joy, and in love, in Advent and the rest of the year as well.

Rev. Dr. Derek Weber, Director of Preaching Ministries, served churches in Indiana, Arkansas, and the British Methodist Church. His PhD in preaching and media is from the University of Edinburgh. He has taught preaching in seminary and conference settings for more than twenty years.

1. Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
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