First Presbyterian Church
December 17, 2023, Advent 3B
Isaiah 64:1-4, 8-11; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; Luke 1:39-56
Joy!
While modern folk are accustomed to being deluged with song during the Christmas season – the sacred songs and carols we know very well, but also songs about everything from roasting chestnuts to snowmen to reindeer with incandescent noses - in many congregations (as I am reminded by many of my colleagues in ministry), there is exactly one “song of the season” for Advent that is at all familiar: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Even those congregations that consider it a familiar song of Advent haven’t always been terribly familiar with the whole hymn. It came as a shock for many, in starting with the new Glory to God hymnal, to find this hymn stretched out to seven stanzas, in contrast to the three that had been included in the previous collection simply called The Presbyterian Hymnal. (We'll be singing this next week.)
Perhaps the more curious among Presbyterian congregations noticed the short informational note at the bottom of the page, informing us that this hymn has its roots in a quite ancient practice of the church, dating back at least to the era of the great European emperor Charlemagne and probably farther back than that. Rooted in a practice of daily worship, these stanzas (or “antiphons”) were assigned to the seven-day period before the Vigil of Christmas (or Christmas Eve to us) as evocations of Old Testament passages evoking the longing of the people for a Messiah. These verses draw on not just the book of Isaiah (a popular source of Advent readings) but four other different sources from Hebrew scripture, each one read as looking forward to a promised Messiah and evoking some aspect or characteristic of that Promised One.
That lofty origin sets these ancient stanzas, and the more modern hymn we sing that was adapted from them in the 19th century, in a rather different social status than one of the other texts that is frequently sung during the season of Advent, which Lisa just sang. While the one evokes the words of kings and prophets and priests, the Magnificat is drawn from the words sung in Luke by an unwed woman, pregnant under what her community and maybe even her husband considered to be suspicious circumstances (go read Matthew's version of the story for that). Maybe you remember how in our own past such a young woman might have been sent away to stay with distant relatives to deflect the scandal of such pregnancy? I wonder sometimes if that’s what was being done to Mary here, sending her off to escape the prying eyes and wagging tongues of Nazareth. In this case the distant relatives were Zacharias and Elizabeth, themselves looking forward to a new arrival after decades of barrenness. Maybe that’s what was happening here; let’s keep those embarrassing pregnant women off in the hills away from prying eyes and gossip.
It’s all the more remarkable a scene, though, as these two women, off in the hills, prophesy to one another. Elizabeth names the One in Mary’s womb as no less than, in her words, “my Lord,” and in response Mary sings out the brief but powerful words we know as the Magnificat, from the first word of its Latin translation Magnificat anima mea, which translates roughly “my soul magnifies.”
This prophetic utterance operates differently than the "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" verses. Where those stanzas sing about attributes of God – “O wisdom,” “O Immanuel” (or God-with-us), and so forth, Mary’s song is all about deeds; what God is doing, or more what God has done. God has looked with favor on lowly Mary; God has done great things for her; God has shown mercy from generation to generation. Then Mary’s song stops preaching and goes to meddling; God hasn’t just shown strength, but God has “scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts”; God has toppled the powerful (an emperor like Charlemagne, perhaps?) and elevated the lowly; God has fed the hungry ones and sent away the rich with nothing. And all of it is sung with great joy.
It sounds a lot like parts of today's reading from Isaiah, and it (like the Isaiah reading) is a challenging text if you pay too much attention to it. And for years certain corners of the church did their best not to pay attention to it. Instead of singing the Magnificat, brash and even a little subversive as it is, hymnals were filled with such carols as “The Angel Gabriel from Heaven Came,” where the focus is on Gabriel’s announcement from earlier in Luke 1, with Mary’s role limited to verse three, a not-very-Magnificat-sounding little stanza that tells us:
Then gentle Mary meekly bowed her head,
“To me be as it pleases God,” she said.
“My soul shall laud and magnify God’s holy name.”
Most highly favored lady, Gloria!
You notice just the hint of the Magnificat, but not enough to be dangerous. And not nearly so joyful.
I have no interest in forcing a choice between the only two Advent songs most people know. What must be said, though, is this: if we tune out the powerfully disruptive song of Mary, we are pretty likely to fall prey to the solemnized, imperially sanctioned tones that would point us to attributes of a high and distant God to keep us from looking for a God who breaks into humanity and upsets the order of things. Both belong; both are needed.
But at the same time, when we find it hard to see God doing anything in the world, Mary's words can ring hollow. Again, the epistle reading helps put things into perspective. For today, the key words are the very first two in verse 16: “Rejoice always.” I mean, the rest of the passage is good too, but here this simple reminder from Paul to his beloved Thessalonians, reminds us that our joy is not contingent. When our rejoicing is in God, rather than in some particular thing we think about God or some particular thing God has done or we expect God to do, that joy is sustained even in times when joy might not seem the most obvious reaction.
Nadia Bolz-Weber is a popular author and minister who works in women's prison ministry in Colorado. In a regular essay series she writes, the most recent essay addresses this thing exactly and reminds us of things we might easily forget:
For the rest of us, a gentle reminder that Christ will be born on Christmas with or without us "feeling" Christmas-y. Because this pattern of time, this story, these rituals and practices and songs have gone on long before us and will continue long after us. Sometimes we are floating in that river of faith, just swimming in it and feeling the transcendent warmth of the season. And other times we seem to be standing in just a half inch of the stuff; not even enough to cover our feet. But the power of the river, its source and its destination changes not at all. And both things: submerged in and barely having our feet in are the same. There’s no ranking system at work here. One is not "better" than the other. One does not "count more". That's just not how this thing works. Thank God.
Joy in God is not contingent, and Christmas happens whether we feel like it or not.
Advent is not a passive season. It looks both backward and forward; it sees the degradation and sorrow of the world and still insists on hope; and it most definitely does not submissively endorse the way things are. When we have learned that, when we have understood what it means to wait in hope and expectation and to rejoice always anyway, we may finally have grasped the whole point of Advent. And when we’ve grasped that, we might be ready for Christmas.
For the God on High who comes and acts among us, Thanks be to God. Amen.
Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #104, O Lord, How Shall I Meet You; #92, While We Are Waiting, Come; #93, Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates
No comments:
Post a Comment