10:30 am, 4th Sunday of Advent, Dec 24, 2023 ~ FBCA

(Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38, 46-55) J G White

We are on the very edge of Christmas now, and we spend the morning with Mary. First, when she is told about her pregnancy by the angel Gabriel. Second, when she rejoices some weeks later, while visiting her relative, Elizabeth. What Mary said got recorded by Luke as a poem, like the lyrics of a song. It has been put to music ever since. Our old-fashioned English versions have Mary sing: “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.” Here, we read an English translation from the 1960s. Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord. Rejoice, rejoice, my spirit, in God my saviour…

From the old Latin title, Mary’s song gets called the Magnificat. What on earth could it possibly mean to ‘magnify God?’ As we read other translations, we get the feel: tell out my soul, enlarge, glorify, declare, or, as Peterson put it, I’m bursting with good news!

Mary - thanks to Luke writing it down - gives a magnificent magnification of God, as she starts her visit with elderly, and also pregnant, Elizabeth. My soul magnifies the Lord. What can this mean for us?

I brought a little tool with me today: a Magnifying Glass. I don’t actually use it much, at all, but we know what it is for. Getting a better look at things - usually words - by making them appear larger. ‘Magnifying’ them: that is the literal meaning of magnificat.

Our retelling of the Jesus story, with the beginnings, at this time of year, helps us ‘magnify’ Christ in our own lives. Some believers, somewhere back in history, picked this time of year to celebrate the birth of the Messiah, and we rehearse the stories and their meaning every single year.

This is like what Mary did, that day, early in her pregnancy. She declared what this God is like who had promised an Anointed King, who had promised to save the people. You notice she talks about herself and what’s going to happen not much at all. She gets all historic - or maybe its personal. She sings about all the kinds of things God has always been doing. Helping poor people and honouring them. Tearing down the empires of the prosperous and powerful folk. Her magnificent poem looks closely at the character of God, as she and her people understood the Lord. Her words magnify; so can ours. We communicate the details of faith, our faith. It’s quite personal.

Another tool I could have brought in today is a Telescope. In my case, I got rid of my childhood telescope years ago; now, I have Binoculars. I use these quite regularly. (Oh look! I can actually see who is here.) Six days ago I joined a few people for a couple hours of bird watching around Amherst, for the annual Christmas Bird Count. I was so happy to see seventeen white-winged crossbills up near Blair Lake.

We might think that binoculars are quite different - maybe opposite? - from a magnifying glass. But they both make things bigger, larger, magnified, in our eyes. Bins, or a scope, help things far away appear nearer.

Why was Mary so spiritually glad about her pregnancy? Well, at long last, the main human helper of the people would come from God to them. I think that’s what those ancient Jews were hoping. She almost said more than she knew and realized: their God was going to be seen a lot closer, closer than ever before. God as a person, a human, a creature within creation. The fancy Church word is incarnation. It means in the flesh, in a body. God gets physical. Not that this had never happened before. But the point was being made in a bigger way. Look. See! God is nearer than we realized. God with us: Emmanuel. Just like Isaiah of old had said. Imagine that!

So you and I magnify God when we do our part to connect with Jesus. I hope your Christmastime does that in you.

(Three point sermon.) A third magnifier I brought is a Loupe. Often used by jewellers, but also by scientists: out in the field, looking closely at the tiny details of plants and fungi and insects and rocks. It is a small little hand lens, and yes, I do use it mostly on lichens that grow on trees and rocks, and on the details of plants.

Getting into the real details of where meaning in life comes from, and where goodness in life arises, these are important. Again, this is what Mary sings in her poem, the Magnificat. God is like this. God is connecting with me in these ways. God did this, and that, and something else in the past - so we are really expecting this and better again! Things are all going where they are destined to go. Praise God!

I use a tiny magnifier in my hand to get at the wee details my eye cannot see, but I know they are there. We use the tiny details of our lives, and of the scripture story, to rejoice in the abundant life Jesus brings us. Then, with a broader vision, even seeing things far away and on the giant scale, we know the big picture. This thing that happened to us - we see it is part of a huge story that is bigger than us. That huge mess we hear of elsewhere in the world - with the eyes of Faith we discover that history and God’s purposes are even bigger than the terror and trouble at one place and time.

When the story of God is magnified, the whole picture, and the tiniest personal events, start to fit together. At the centre, connected to it all, is the Christ, this one about to be born again in a little ancient village in the hills somewhere.

Has it started to fit together? For you?

Mary had her song of praise, magnifying God. What are some of the lines of the poem your soul sings?

Keep singing it: this Christmas, and all year long. The world needs your magnificent song.