Sermon, Sunday: 3 Advent 'Rejoice'

In our worship this morning, we welcomed Nairn Murray Drife
into God's family through the sacrament of baptism...

And we reflected on joy, seen in Mary's great song of joy, 'the Magnificat'

READINGS Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; 1 Thess 5:16-24; Luke 1:47-55

SERMON
Let’s pray:
May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of all our hearts
be acceptable in your sight O Lord, our strength and our redeemer, Amen.

It is a time of danger.
Fear is growing throughout the land.
A tyrant from long ago is regaining strength and power.
The darkness... is growing.
9 friends – new and old – have set out on a perilous quest.
It is a strange company:
while there are battle-hardened warriors,
there are several small and rather unlikely companions.
It is with one of these little ones, that the great burden of the quest lies most heavily.
He is the chosen one:
on him, the quest either succeeds... or fails.
They have travelled many miles,
braved many dangers,
lost a beloved member of their group.
Finding sanctuary in an ancient wood, they meet with others –
allies who help them.

Unable to sleep one evening,
the small one who has been chosen walks through the wood,
following the queen of that land, until they find a glade.
He wonders if he is up to the task –
he’s only one small person caught up in a great series of events beyond his understanding.
He’s afraid.
The great queen bends down, and with kindness says:
‘Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.’

And just as a matter of interest:
does anyone know what story I’m referring to, and which characters??

‘Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.’
In the Lord of the Rings, the powers that be tend not to notice folk like Frodo – Hobbits.
They are a little people, who tend not to get caught up in the great affairs of the world.
They live in what some might think of as a quiet backwater, just getting on with their lives,
while all around them, the big important people get on with doing
whatever it is that big important people do.
But, in this particular story, the ability not to be particularly noticed
is the very thing that saves the day:
from a humble people comes one who will indeed change the world
and overcome the evil that threatens to destroy it.

‘Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.’
Galadriel’s words to Frodo, could almost be the song of joy that Mary sings.
We don’t know much about Mary:
she’s young,
female...
already in that time and place that’s two strikes against her:
she’s also from Nazareth, in Galilee –
a backwater of no real significance.
She might as well be invisible:
a woman of no importance.
Except, she ends up being extremely important.
She is given a great task –
one that will potentially change the course of the future.
She is chosen –
not to bear a ring of power and save the world, like Frodo –
but chosen to bear the longed-for Messiah who will save her people...
and who will save the world.
The great Creator of the heavens and the earth has noticed this humble,
relatively invisible, young woman.
Her reaction:
joy.
The God who sees all has seen even Mary –
just as in the desert so many centuries before, God saw Hagar when no-one else did.
Mary rejoices,
and as she does, she calls to mind what her God has done down through the centuries,
calls to mind what kind of God she worships:
she sings a great song of joyful praise –
a song that becomes a great hymn of liberation,
a song describing the values of God’s kingdom.
This is a God who not only sees the ones nobody else does,
this is a God who raises them up
and calls them his own;
this is a God whose kingdom is built upon mercy, justice, love:
where the ones who are hungry are filled with good things,
and where the old, corrupt regimes based on
greed, division, derision, despair and darkness
are thrown down.
Mary’s song is a manifesto for serious change –
and if we really pay attention to it, and subscribe to it,
what changes might we, with God’s help,
bring about in our communities,
and in our world?

‘Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.’
Frodo did in The Lord of the Rings;
Mary did, by agreeing to God’s plan;
one small baby did, who was born in a stable 2 000 years ago...
even we can change the course of the future, in our small corner of the world.
Advent is the waiting, watching, and preparing time:
preparing to remember once more the birth of Jesus,
the son of Mary,
Mary, who wove a song of liberation around him
as she rejoiced in God’s vision for how the world could be.
Let’s join the liberation, and work towards God’s kingdom:
where even the smallest person –
even as small as wee Nairn –
is noticed, loved, and valued...
and let’s sing the songs of God’s freedom to the world, this day, and every day. Amen.