Sermon, 12.20.09 -- "How Can I Keep From Singing?"

Pastor Dave Kepple

Text: Luke 1:26-38 and Luke 1:46-55

Title: "How Can We Keep From Singing?"

Date: Dec. 20, 2009 (4th Sunday in Advent)

Did you enjoy the Christmas Cantata last Sunday?
I know I did. For me, it was really the beginning of having that sometimes elusive “Christmas spirit.”
And wasn’t the Children’s Choir wonderful today? If that group doesn’t put a smile on your face, nothing will!
Music will be a big part of our Christmas Eve Candlelight Service, too – just four nights away. Worship starts at 10 p.m., and I hope you’ll be here, if possible.
What’s more -- I hope you’ll invite someone special to come with you.
Who would that “someone special” be? Here’s the answer – it’s someone who needs to know Jesus. It might be your neighbor, a co-worker, or someone you go to school with. It might even be a member of your own family.
Do you know someone who is hurting? Do you know someone who seems confused, lost, maybe searching for a ray of hope? Then why not invite them to join you here Thursday night, and find out what Christmas is really all about?
The sign board out front says “Hope in Christ is the Greatest Gift.” Wouldn’t it be awesome to help someone recognize the Lord’s love and mercy, and move toward it? You tell your friends – hope is found here!
It’s no wonder that music – and singing – is such a big part of the way we celebrate the birth of our Savior.
That’s fully in tune with the biblical record – not only of Christ’s birth, but also with other miraculous births and events recorded in scripture.
I always imagine the angels are singing the good news when they come to the shepherds abiding in the field.
You know the part I mean, where that multitude of the heavenly host praises God, saying: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” (Lk. 2:13-14)
If those words weren’t sung, then maybe they should have been – just like the Christmas hymn suggests:

Angels we have heard on high
Sweetly singing o’er the plains
And the mountains in reply
Echoing their joyous strains . . .

Echoing their joyous strains.
The Song of Mary, which Janie just read from chapter 1 of Luke, echoes to us across the centuries. It is a song of pure joy.
Earlier, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth to give this young girl the shocking news that would turn her life – and that of all the world – upside-down. This virgin – betrothed to marry Joseph – has been chosen to bear God’s Son, the Messiah who will reign in an everlasting kingdom.
We could hardly blame Mary if she had imitated that Old Testament prophet Jonah and said, “Thanks -- but no thanks,” when Gabriel gave her the news. It surely meant there would be difficult days ahead. How could she tell Joseph that she was pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit? Would he call off the marriage? Would there be public disgrace and scorn?
Frederick Buechner, the Christian writer, once considered this encounter from the perspective of God’s messenger – Gabriel. As Buechner described it, Mary struck Gabriel “as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child. But he’d been entrusted with a message to give her, and he gave it.
He told her what the child was to be named, and who he was to be, and something about the mystery that was to come upon her. ‘You mustn’t be afraid, Mary,’ he said. And as he said it, he only hoped she wouldn’t notice that beneath the great, golden wings he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of creation hung now on the answer of a girl.” (1)
But young Mary was no Jonah. Whatever doubts she may have had, she responded with true devotion and great faith to God’s call on her life, saying:
“Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:37, NKJV)

Maybe it helped knowing that one of her relatives, Elizabeth, also was going to have a child, and in her old age -- no less. Indeed, only a few months earlier Gabriel had gone to visit Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah, telling him they would have a child named John, who would be great in the sight of the Lord.
Zechariah was thunderstruck by this message, for after all, his wife had been unable to bear children, and they both were along in years. Because he doubted, Zechariah was rendered speechless until after the birth of the child, who would become known as John the Baptist. God restored Zechariah’s speech on the eighth day after John’s birth, and what do you think came out of his mouth first? It was a song – a Spirit-filled canticle of praise and thanksgiving, as recorded in Luke 1, vs. 68-79.
But Mary’s song came first, and what a song it was . . . I invite you to hear it again,
as paraphrased in The Message, and listen with ears afresh:

And Mary said,
I’m bursting with God-news;
I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.
God took one good look at me, and look what happened –
I’m the most fortunate woman on earth!
What God has done for me will never be forgotten,
the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
His mercy flows in wave after wave
on those who are in awe before him.
He bared his arm and showed his strength,
Scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
the callous rich were left out in the cold.
He embraced his chosen child, Israel;
He remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
It’s exactly what he promised,
Beginning with Abraham and right up to now.
-- Luke 1:46-55 (The Message) (2)

Mary was excited – joyful – and why shouldn’t she be?
For that matter, why shouldn’t we be? Why shouldn’t we be singing?
(You know, Saint Augustine said: “To sing is to pray twice.”)
God chose Mary, perhaps the least likely person in all of Israel; he chose this humble Nazarene girl to give birth to His Son . . . to give birth to our Lord and Savior.
And with Jesus’ birth comes hope and salvation and new life for all people – everywhere.
Jesus is the Son of God, and the fulfillment of His faithful promises to Israel.
Jesus is the Lord of life.
Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
And in the words of the old hymn –

Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth,
How can I keep from singing? (3)

How can any of us keep from singing?
When we hear the Song of Mary echoing across the ages, we recognize the Truth it contains -- for we have the same spiritual DNA as Mary did. And we, too, are called to respond to God’s call upon our lives, here and now.
Mary could rejoice because the hope of the world was alive within her.
And by the Spirit of God, that same hope is alive in us. If that doesn’t make your heart sing, nothing will.

Did you know we have “Directions for Singing” in our hymnals – directions written by John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement? They’re found in the very front of the hymnal, right before the table of contents. (p. vii) Altogether, seven of them are listed. Why, just the other night the Administrative Council and I read over them together, just before we sang and prayed!
I want to call your attention to the last one, in particular, where Wesley tells us:

“Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and reward you when he cometh in the clouds of heaven.”

Those are pretty good directions, and not just for singing – but also for living. And in a lot of ways, they describe the faith and devotion demonstrated by Jesus’ mother in response to the extraordinary circumstances in which God placed her.
For truly, Mary did aim at pleasing Him more than herself or any other creature. She gave her all to offer her heart to God continually. Is it any wonder she is venerated by believers everywhere? She is indeed a model of faith that “walks the walk.”

This passage – the Song of Mary – is a very famous part of the Gospel message. It also is known by another name – you may have heard it referred to as “The Magnificat.”

Don’t be intimated by the Latin. Magnificat simply means to magnify.
“Magnificat anima mea Dominum. . .”
or in plain English --
“My soul magnifies the Lord.”

Do you hear the power contained in those words?
Do you know that same power belongs to us as believers in Jesus Christ, the Son of God?
For we, too -- through our faith, and by the power of the Holy Spirit burning within us – we, too, can magnify the glory of God in this world, when we give our lives over to him.
We, too, can join Mary in her great song of praise, when we say unto the Most High God, “Let it be to me according to your word.”
When we know this Great Truth that is Christ. . . and when we start living with the sure knowledge that Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, I don’t see how we can keep from singing!
For as the Psalmist wrote so long ago:
“While I live I will praise the LORD: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being.” (Ps. 146:2)
May it always be so.
Glory to God in the highest! Amen.

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1. Frederick Buechner, Peculiar Treasures.
2. Eugene Peterson, The Message.
3. Robert Lowry, How Can I Keep From Singing?