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Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
What we see in the coming of Jesus is that we don't just need an intervention from time to time. We need to enter into the world as God has made it and rehuman ourselves in the fashion of Jesus. So while we begin Advent through our generous Advent campaign this week, we also begin our Advent series called Advent the Musical. We'll be traveling the road to Christmas with a song in our hearts, four songs in fact, the Magnificat, the Benedictus, the Gloria, and the Nunc de Midas. All Latin words for the musical numbers in the Christmas story.
Speaker 1:But let me ask you, on a scale of one to 10, how important is music to you? And I'd add you're shouting it out. Just maybe you can do that inside. But I am also gonna add, I do that a lot. I ask you a question and then you're like, okay, I'm ready to answer.
Speaker 1:But I wanna add for our context, how important is music to you for your faith? Like, one is you don't think about music at all. Silence is like next to godliness for you. And 10 is music is like salvation for you. And it's that time of year when we get Spotify wrapped and Apple replay holding up this mirror to your year in music streaming.
Speaker 1:I actually really like this time of year. I like seeing my year through this recap. So in 2025, I had one of my most embodied experiences of the year, dancing with my husband in a Cabinet in Caroline to Florence and the Machine, and then I just played that album on repeat for months. Anyone else just a repeater of music? Just could not stop listening to it.
Speaker 1:In 2025, I listened to so much Jason Isbell after seeing him perform at the stampede that I swear the characters of his songs exist like real people in my own brain. In 2025, I rushed to listen to the new Rosalia album after a commons friend told me I'd love the religious themes, and then I joined her. I could not stop telling people about Rosalia's album Luxe. Get into it if you haven't listened yet. When the right music meets us in the right moment, it is like we are in our own musical.
Speaker 1:We insist that music be a part of our weddings, funerals, worship services, our films, festivals, and dining experiences. Music can ground you, make you feel less alone, and shift your perspective. It has immense power in our lives. And this is why I'm actually so excited about our Advent series. If music can be there for you in the most important moments of your life, don't you think you'll find Christ there too?
Speaker 1:So today we will along to Mary's song, the Magnificat in Luke one. But first, let us pray. Loving God, as we settle into the first Sunday of Advent, we are mindful of the rhythm of life all around us. The pounding of our own hearts, the flow of breath through our bodies, maybe some of the clatter in our minds. And as we notice the noises around us, we welcome the buzz of life in all its forms.
Speaker 1:Jesus, son of Mary, might we sense your invitation to this embodied existence at Advent. As we begin the journey to Christmas, may we name and clarify for ourselves what it is we are waiting for, keeping watch over, and wishing might be true. As we breathe in and out, We open our hearts to how you are speaking to us through the music of the gospel and through the advent rituals that remind us that you always always draw near. Amen. Okay.
Speaker 1:25, sleeps till Christmas. Let's get into Advent. In our Advent series, the musical, the first song we look at is the Magnificat. Magnificat is Latin for the first big word in a Mary song in Luke one forty six. She sings, my soul magnifies the Lord.
Speaker 1:So today, we will talk about songs we sing to each other, an oldie, the Magnificat, and keeping time. So to start, let's back up to consider the audience of the Magnificat. The infant story opens the gospel of Luke is not actually sweet baby Jesus, but baby John the Baptist. An angel announces to a priestly couple, Zechariah and Elizabeth, that they are going to have a child in their old age. Bless.
Speaker 1:Then an inverse story is initiated through Mary. We are meant to compare these infant narratives Where Elizabeth is old, Mary is a teenager. Where Elizabeth is established in marriage, Mary is newly betrothed. Where Zechariah will be John's daddy, the miracle of Jesus is that God is the father. Where the angel visits Zechariah in the gorgeous temple in Jerusalem seen from miles away, Mary receives the heavenly messenger in her one room poor village home, a place no one sees.
Speaker 1:The old gives way to the new. Marital status doesn't define motherhood and God's spirit hovers over Mary like the spirit in the Exodus tabernacle. Divine presence is taking up residence right there in a human body. In the Christmas story, try and keep your head on a swivel. God is notably on the move.
Speaker 1:Where we pick up today, Mary has hurried off to a Judean town in the hill country and as far as we know she travels alone. And the verbs, they pile up to give Mary this real main character energy here. And I imagine when she gets there, she flings open the door to her relative Elizabeth's home and greets her like, Auntie Elizabeth, it's me. And as soon as Elizabeth hears Mary's greeting, the child within her in utero, John the Baptist leaps in her womb. Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaims with a loud cry, blessed are you among women and blessed is the child you will bear.
Speaker 1:But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leapt for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord will fulfill his promises to her. Now, it's not just that Elizabeth, like, can control her outside voice when Mary bursts into her house. What the text is telling us is that her loud cry is like the loud cry of the prophets.
Speaker 1:It's this mouthpiece for God. She says, oh Mary, you are the mother of the Lord. And we are used to hearing the title Lord for God but dropped here and referring to this baby the word is doing some heavy lifting. Luke likes to use the title Lord like it is a part of Jesus's name, especially after the resurrection. We see this all over his second volume, acts one twenty one two thirty four to 36, four twenty six, and so on.
Speaker 1:To the readers of the gospel, make no mistake. This baby is God. And here's a subtle thing I want you to notice about Elizabeth and Mary, the prophets. Unlike other pairs of pregnant women in their own sacred history, Sarah and her servant Hagar, the sisters Leah and Rachel, the two wives Paninna and Hannah. Elizabeth and Mary are not competing for anything here.
Speaker 1:There is this gift in knowing, like, what story you are in. Your own. The way truth comes to you might not actually be the way the truth comes to me. How well do we welcome that kind of trust in our most intimate relationships, in our political differences, in our dissimilar circumstances? So Elizabeth and Zechariah, they give their intimacy the old college try and what do you know, a baby is on the way.
Speaker 1:And Mary says yes to an angel And God becomes the kind of father we are still trying to fathom. Her story is not the other story and the other way around. We could use a dose of humanity as seen through these two women because before they were elevated mothers, they are model disciples. They don't try to go it alone even while they are committed to their own path. They have zero envy or jealousy, only curiosity and awe.
Speaker 1:They match their intuition with the movement of the spirit in a way that leaves us with this legacy. Yes, Trust yourself. Trust also in God. This is the benefit of faith that we aren't inventing a wise way to live. We carry old models with us even while God insists on doing something new.
Speaker 1:Now, we are going to take a look at the song that came before Mary's Magnificat in a moment, but first, how many of you have ever had this experience? Out of nowhere, an old song you used to love finds its way like an earworm back into your consciousness. Now my husband and I both spent chunks of our youth in popular Christian culture, and sometimes we'll start singing a hit from that subculture like saddle up your horses. We gotta trail the blaze. Oh oh oh oh.
Speaker 1:Then we'll rush to Wikipedia and see if that Christian artist had a fall from grace like so many Christian artists did in the nineties and the early odds. In fact, they are still falling. I'm pretty sure though, Stephen Curtis Chapman kept it together, at least I think he did. All that to say, sometimes it can be kinda cringe to remember what you used to love and sing along to. Other times though, it can be so surprisingly reassuring.
Speaker 1:Like, I stand by the enter the worship circle song from 1999 that goes, you have redeemed my soul from the pit of emptiness. You have redeemed my soul from death. That song still finds me when I need it. In the story, when Mary rocks up to Elizabeth's house and Elizabeth greets her with this prophetic clarity, Mary starts singing a song that honestly, she didn't make up on the spot. She pulled the song from her religious memory.
Speaker 1:Mary borrows the song of Hannah from the scroll of Samuel or what we call first Samuel two one to 10. And in first Samuel, Hannah presents herself to the Lord hoping and praying that she can outrun the bullying she experiences at the hand of her husband's more fertile partner, Paninnah. Here is how Hannah pleads with God for a son. My heart rejoices in the Lord. In the Lord, my strength is lifted high.
Speaker 1:Those who are full hire themselves out for food, but those who are hungry are hungry no more. She who was barren has born seven children. Seven meaning she has this complete family. But she who has many sons pines away. It's a dis on Panina.
Speaker 1:God raises the poor from the dust and lifts up the needy from the ash heap. In biblical interpretation, it is said that Hannesong prefigures Mary's Magnificat. What that means is that Hannah's song imagines the world the Messiah brings even before the Messiah brings it. And yes, Hannah gets her son Samuel and then dedicates him to the priest hood, a bit of a prefigured Jesus there as well. But even Hannah's song hints at something more.
Speaker 1:We know by now that barren women throughout the scriptures hold this promise, the God of ancient Israel is a God who intervenes. We just finished a series on Abraham and Sarah called Big Promises, Small Steps. And in their story, they dealt God's promise and hack a plan for Sarah's servant Hagar to supply Abraham with a son. But God insists that a barren woman would give birth to a promised son. So here in Luke one Elizabeth links the narrative to the barren women of the past but Mary does the opposite Standing here in youth and virginity, we see God's intervention with startling contrast.
Speaker 1:At Christmas, we see the shift in a sacred story that God arrives even before we beg and plead for God to show up. When the virgin Mary is chosen to offer her flesh so God can become one of us, we see how God works arriving before we even have time to notice all manner of our own barrenness. God arrives before we even recognize what we lack. God arrives knowing full well our colossal mistakes and our abject failures. God arrives blasting past our petty disagreements and our dead end dreams.
Speaker 1:You do not have to beg anymore. What we see in the coming of Jesus is that we don't just need an intervention from time to time. We need to enter into the world as God has made it and rehuman ourselves in the fashion of Jesus. Like, start small. Find him in strange places.
Speaker 1:Let his life become yours. Now you might be saying, alright, Bobby. Let's hear the Magnificat already. You weren't even saying that. But you know what?
Speaker 1:You waited so patiently. So here it is. It's the whole thing. And Mary said, my soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For God has been mindful of the humble state of God's servant.
Speaker 1:From now on, all generations will call me blessed. For the mighty one has done great things for me. Holy is God's name. God's mercy extends to those who fear God from generation to generation. God has performed mighty deeds with God's arm.
Speaker 1:God has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. God has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. God has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. God has helped God's servant Israel remembering to be merciful to Abraham and God's descendants forever just as God promised our ancestors. The Magnificat holds this perfect balance between boisterous talk about God and contemplation that comes from observation and longing.
Speaker 1:And we understand something of big talk about God. We just sang songs together to give voice to our praise. And the word for glorify here is megaluno, and you heard it right. If you heard the word mega in the Greek, it's about enlarging our voice to speak of a God who works. Not to protect the wealthy or maintain our cozy blessings or find a perfect parking spot in December as we roll down 17th Ave and our '2 thousand and nine City Jetta, which is still going strong, I might add.
Speaker 1:This is praise for a God who sides, not just with the humble state of God's servant as our NIV translation reads, but more accurately, some would argue, and I'd agree, with those who experience humiliation. Humility is something we cultivate. Humiliation, we do everything to avoid. And I think Mary herself would prefer we read it as humiliation. She was from a small village, say 400 people tops, and everyone knew her.
Speaker 1:It's way too soon in her life for her to get pregnant, and I wonder if that's why she gets out of town. She's buckling under the weight of humiliation, but everyone has it wrong. Mary's not disgraced. She's experiencing a reversal of divine proportion. Now, the Magnificat is not exactly a lullaby.
Speaker 1:It is a fierce song about not only a reversal of perception, but of real life circumstance. What the bulk of the Magnificat declares is that when power pushes down the lowly, God pushes back. God scatters the arrogant, pulls down the mighty, sends the rich away so that the lowly will be exalted, the hungry filled, and this ancient tribe so often oppressed will find its way back to blessing. Mary's fierce song, in the words of Husto Gonzales, overturns the common order of society. So get it out of your head that Mary is meek and mild.
Speaker 1:Here anyway, she is political. Her words are words of revolution. Picture her instead with a fist raised to the sky. Mary's Magnificat sings for you if you have been marginalized or your identity used as a scapegoat. If you have struggled to be free against forces a million times stronger than you, if you have known poverty of spirit or circumstance, And all of this, we know in our bodies.
Speaker 1:At Christmas, our theological concern is the incarnation. What does it mean that God takes up flesh, not striding toward us as a full grown barrel chested warrior, but arriving in the womb of a poor, invisible, oppressed woman from Nazareth? This advent, I'm meditating on a simple definition of the incarnation, that God is born of a woman. That God is born of a woman. And the work of Amy Peeler has been so helpful for me here.
Speaker 1:She asks this question. Ever wonder why Jesus never calls God mother? And honestly, the answer sounds like the punchline to a joke. Jesus never calls God mother because he already has one. And while that sounds kind of funny, I actually think it's time that we take it more seriously.
Speaker 1:There is this pile of evidence in the scripture that Jesus took Mary seriously because if you're really listening you'll realize that he actually sounds a lot like her. You can't read the beatitudes in Luke six and not hear the Magnificat. Blessed are you who hunger now for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now for you will laugh. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry.
Speaker 1:Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Think about how much Jesus sounds like Mary. It's like he learned this view of power from her as she nurtured him, picked him up after he fell down, and sung her song into his perfect little ear every night at bedtime for years. Don't hear it yet? How about this one?
Speaker 1:Luke 14 Jesus said, for all who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted. That's not to mention the stories and the parables, preferences, and challenges that repeat themselves with divine reversal at every stage of Jesus' ministry. We follow magnificat reversals all the way to his death, where resurrection is magnificat par excellence that a life snuffed out will go on forever magnifying the Lord. Now these reversals, they can be hard to get our heads around. Kingdoms falling, the arrogant face planting, every hungry child filled with the freshest food.
Speaker 1:So we end today with a pause. A retreat to contemplate the mystery. An opportunity in a busy season to slow right down. After the song, Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home. These three months must have been so precious.
Speaker 1:Just because Mary believes in grand reversals, signs about them, they never really change her circumstances. She will dodge danger with Jesus and Joseph in Egypt, ponder the mystery of her son's ministry through all the ups and downs, and a sword of grief will pierce her heart. Mary doesn't get a pass on any of life's sorrow. But before Jesus is born, she steps inside to, I imagine, prepare privately for the way the world is in fact changing. When you are at an intersection of change, maybe something great is happening to you.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's awful and terrifying. Maybe it's a little bit of both. Try to remember our model disciples here, Mary and Elizabeth. They chose each other as companions and just closed the door on us because the work of preparation is often so private and it requires patience. In my 47 years, I learned to trust the pattern of Magnificat reversal.
Speaker 1:That is even the strangest, hardest, weirdest, most unconventional, most unexpected occurrences in a life can be the very places God feels most near. The incarnation means God will reach into every part of creation. The flowers, the snowfalls, the friendships, the families, the heartbreaks, the hardships, the feasts, the famines, the sickness, the artwork, the light, the dark, the womb, a living room. God reaches through all of it to birth something unexpected and new, a melody we can sing along to. Let us pray.
Speaker 1:Advent God, there are so many things in our lives that we want to change. And then there are so many changes we want to stop. And in all of it, might we hear your approach. Jesus, son of Mary, help us to sing the song of the universe where every evil will find its end and a holy surprising goodness will pursue every part of creation. So open our hearts to hope as we sing along to the Magnificat this week and look for divine reversal everywhere.
Speaker 1:Spirit of the living God present with us now, enter the places of our longing and our waiting and our watching, and heal us of all that harms us. Amen.
Speaker 2:Hey. Jeremy here, and thanks for listening to our podcast. If you're intrigued by the work that we're doing here at Commons, you can head to our website commons.church for more information. You can find us on all of the socials commonschurch. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel, where we are posting content regularly for the community.
Speaker 2:You can also join our Discord server. Head to commons.churchdiscord for the invite, and there you will find the community having all kinds of conversations about how we can encourage each other to follow the way of Jesus. We would love to hear from you. Anyway, thanks for tuning in. Have a great week.
Speaker 2:We'll talk to you soon.