- Sermon - Mickey Anders

Text: Luke 1:39-55

In 1964, Marshal McLuhan published his monumental work, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Because of the influence of this book and his ideas, McLuhan is often considered to be the first father and leading prophet of the electronic age. He worked his entire life to try to understand the effects of technology as it related to popular culture. Many people study his many works because he was a very serious scholar. But he will forever be remembered primarily as the person who coined two enduring phrases. The first was "global village." And the second was, "The medium is the message." (1)

Today I want to take off on his phrase, "The medium is the message" and suggest to you that at Christmas "the mess is the message." Perhaps some of you have pot holders or plaques to hang on the wall that say, "God bless this mess." I think our text for today tells us that God does bless us amid the mess of life. God blessed Mary in a messy time of her life, and yet she might well have called it "this magnificent mess."

We can all identify with the idea of the mess, can't we? And Christmas is in many ways the messiest time of the year. Many of us have had several families over to our homes for a Christmas meal. Everybody's conflicting schedules create a mess of activities for the two weeks before Christmas. The preparation is an exhausting mess, but then there is the mess to clean up.

One exhausted lady who stepped on a busy elevator said, "I'd like to shoot the man who invented Christmas." The man next to her replied, "I think they already crucified him."

Christmas is naturally the most hectic, harried, and haphazard time of the year. Sometimes we find it hard to believe that God can bless this chaotic and congested time. But it was in just such a time as this that Jesus came in the first place. And we can learn from Mary how to make the mess magnificent.

Elizabeth was the first one in our text to redeem the mess. She had wanted a child all her life, but felt left out and lonely because God had not blessed her with children. But now in her old age she has become pregnant. And just as she has this life-changing experience, her husband has become suddenly mute. What a mess! Apparently, she was a bit embarrassed by a pregnancy at her age because the Bible indicates that she had been in seclusion for five months when Mary arrived (Luke 1:24).

We can only imagine the thoughts of Elizabeth. We can hardly imagine her feelings of both joy and anxiety. At last she would have a child to care for. But how could she adequately care for this child in her old age? What would become of this child if something happened to her? Motherhood is an exhausting, never-ending task. Young women struggle to keep up with the demands of parenting. Could she do it at her age? How would she manage? Was she up to it? Her anxiety must have been running high with the mess she was in.

If Elizabeth was in a mess, imagine the mess that Mary was in. Her mental state must have been even more jumbled. She, too, was unexpectantly pregnant. Mary had to cope with those strange visits from angels, and the stunning news about the identity of this baby. Joseph was understandably confused, conflicted and upset with Mary. None of this had gone according to plan or even according to reasonable expectations. Mary had been looking forward to marriage and the chance to set up a household with Joseph, and then maybe look forward to a baby. But now, everything was happening at once. It was an outrageous time in her life. Events and emotions were swirling around her in a cloud of confusion. It was a mess!

Yet in the midst of the mess of life for both women, they each responded with incredible faith. They opened themselves to the unexpected divine presence in the middle of all the mess. The result is a poetic outpouring of praise to God. Mary's song of praise has become one of the most enduring poems of all time.

Our text picks up the story where Mary has set out on a journey to visit Elizabeth in the hill country. Everything about this meeting is unusual. It was unusual for such a young woman to make an un-chaperoned visit to her kin Elizabeth. The Bible indicates that they were kin, but it does not state the exact degree of that relationship.

Mary speaks to Elizabeth first, though the Bible does not record what her greeting was. Elizabeth is immediately filled with the Holy Spirit and the child within her leaped.

Elizabeth says, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."

In a culture where women seldom played public roles, it is unusual that we find such heavy theological statements coming from a woman. And Mary follows right in her footsteps with a profoundly theological song that has come to be known as "The Magnificat," from the first word in the Latin version of the song.

Mary's song begins this way:

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant." God takes a simple, humble, young woman and looks with favor on her, transforming and exalting her.

These women had found magnificent faith in the midst of the mess of life. How did they do it? What can we find as their secret to make the mess become magnificent?

Perhaps one of the secrets of the faithful lives of both these women is that amid the mess of life, they looked to God. They asked, "What is God saying to me in this mess?" And so should we.

Elizabeth heard God telling her that Mary was to be the mother of the Lord. She knew this was no ordinary visit from a relative. This was the in-breaking of the long-expected kingdom of God.

And Mary sensed the profound impact of this pregnancy of hers. She knew that God had looked with favor on her. And she knew that this child would mean that God would bring down the powerful from their thrones, and lift up the lowly. And she knew that all of this was "according to the promise (God) made to (her) ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever."

God spoke to these women in the middle of the mess. I suspect that God is speaking to us as well, but we are not listening.

In the last few years, I have heard more and more Protestant friends speaking of something called "spiritual direction." I think it originated in the Catholic Church, but today people of all denominations are practicing it. They find someone specially trained in the field and spend time regularly with their spiritual director, who serves as a kind of mentor for their spiritual lives.

One of my friends says that his spiritual director seems to continually ask the question, "What is God saying to you in this?" Whatever he brings to the spiritual director, he seems to always get the same question directed at him.

Most of the time, we complain about the mess we are in, we strategize about how to get out of the mess, or we at least try to find techniques to cope with the mess. But the spiritual director focuses again and again on that profound question, "What is God saying to us in this mess?"

Perhaps we can ask ourselves that question just now regarding the particular mess in our lives. What is God saying to us in this mess?

Both Elizabeth and Mary heard, loud and clear, the voice of God in their messy lives. We can too if we only listen.

The next thing Mary did was to dedicate her life to God. The verse before our text for today reads this way, "Then Mary said, 'Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.'" She dedicated her life to God, and so should we.

In his book Reaching for the Invisible God, Philip Yancey tells about a surgeon friend of his who performs delicate surgery to rebuild the human hand after a severe injury. Whenever he gets a call that there has been an accident, the doctor knows that he will be staring into a microscope and doing delicate surgery for six hours. And this can happen at all hours of the day or night.

On one occasion, he was called at 3 o'clock in the morning. He was worried about being able to concentrate enough during the surgery so he hit upon a novel approach that helped him. He called his father even though he was waking him up at 3 a.m., and told his dad that he was going to dedicate this surgery to him.

Then during the six hours of surgery, he imagined that his dad was there with him encouraging him and even putting his hand on the doctor's shoulder during the surgery. The doctor reported that this technique was so successful that he decided to dedicate all his surgeries to someone. So he would call a friend or a relative and tell them that he was about to enter surgery and that this coming surgery was dedicated to them.

But finally, he hit upon the idea of dedicating the surgery to God. And he reported that it was amazing the power of such dedication. He could sense that God was with him. For this doctor, it was a specific way of living for God.

We should do the same thing. We should live our lives with the sense that we are dedicating every moment to God. Then we should sense God's presence with us and even God's hand on our shoulder.

So Mary and Elizabeth give us two techniques for making the mess magnificent. First, ask "What is God saying to me in this mess?" Second, dedicate ourselves to God.

Today, I want to suggest that we apply these techniques in church. This may come as a surprise to you, but the church is often a mess. Some people are so shocked when they find bickering, back biting, littleness and even sin in the church that they give up on it altogether. Perhaps you know someone who says, "I am spiritual, but I don't go to church."

Sometimes we can understand that because we all know that the church is a mess.

One of our members sent me a cartoon this week that showed the minister standing by the church sign as the janitor put up the words. It was supposed to say, "Morning Message" and then the title of the sermon, and then "Evening Message" and the title, but the janitor ran out of room. So he abbreviated the word "message" by writing it "mess." The sign said, "Morning Mess… Evening Mess." The minister says, "I think we should buy smaller letters so we can spell the word out."

A minister's sermon may be a mess on occasion, but we all know that the church is often a morning mess and an evening mess.

But Mary would teach us to ask, "What is God saying to me in this mess?" I think you will find that God really does speak to us in the midst of the mess which is the church. And we should respond by dedicating ourselves to God. When we do those things, we will find the mess magnificent.

While preparing this sermon, I remembered a fascinating story told me by one of the elders in my former church. This particular man had a beautiful wife that he loved very much. One Christmas he decided to give her a very expensive Seiko watch for Christmas. When I called him this week to make sure I got the story straight and get his permission to tell it, he remembered that he paid $550 for it.

They celebrated that Christmas with a house full of family and friends. Everyone had a grand time opening presents, and the wife especially loved her new watch. When all the presents were opened, the floor was covered with a mess of wrapping paper. When everyone left, the wife dutifully gathered up all the wrapping paper and took it to the trash. Then she cleaned up the kitchen and picked up around the house.

Only much later did she remember to look for her new watch. Can you imagine her anxiety as she searched the house and finally searched through all the trash, looking for her expensive watch? Tragically, it was nowhere to be found. She never did find that watch.

The story is a perfect metaphor for Christmas. Amid the mess of busy-ness and activity at Christmas, don't lose the thing of value. The church will always be a mess as long as it is made up of sinful human beings. Without sinners like me and you, there would be no church. Yes, the church is a mess. But in the midst of all this mess is Jesus, the pearl of great price.

Ask yourself, "What is God saying to me in this mess?" Then dedicate your life to God. And like Mary, you will make the mess magnificent. Don't lose the watch in the wrapping paper.

Christmas is a mess, but if we respond like Mary, it will be a magnificent mess.

Endnotes:

1) Todd Kappelman, http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/mcluhan.html. Retrieved 12/19/03.