Josh Broward
Read Luke 1:39-56.
Today, I am going to get some help from some other pastors. I’m going to call in a pinch-hitter, if you will. Listen to what Ron Lewis and Andrew Edwards have to say about Christmas and God’s upside down Kingdom. (The video frames may be a little off, but the videos seem to be playing OK.)
So Mary’s Song is the great, global myth buster - our global, universal myth of more. All around the world, throughout every age and every culture and every generation, people are all hungry for the same thing: more.
We all want more. Everything in us cries out for more - more power, more status, more money, more pleasure, more stuff. We always want more, more, more, more. We are completely and utterly addicted to more. Our hearts are looking for satisfaction, security, and self-worth in more.
Our hearts crave more because we believe that more can satisfy us. How much do we really need? Just a little bit more, right? Whatever we have, we need just a little bit more. We need one more room, one more thing, one more car, one more project, one more Facebook friend, one more movie, one more of whatever it is that we are chasing in this minute.
The problem is that self-satisfaction is a myth. The idea that we can actually satisfy our own desires is pure fiction. More will always leave us empty. Chasing more is like putting one little coffee cup of gasoline in our cars and thinking that will be enough. More is never enough. We always go on wanting more.
We also look to more for our security. This one is especially about money and stuff. We believe that we will have a safe and reliable future if we can save enough money or if we can get a good job that will give us earning power. However, this also touches on status. If I earn enough favors or social points or achievements, then my position will be secure.
The problem is that self-security is a myth. Our world is too big, and we are too small. Natural disasters, wars, illness, and economic meltdowns can strip us of our security in the blink of an eye. More can never protect us enough.
The last one is probably the most difficult - because it is the most subtle. We look to more to establish our self-worth. Why do we really want all those clothes? Why do we really want all that success? Why do we really want our kids to do so well? Why do we really want that big promotion? Why do we really want that super-cool vacation? We are trying to justify ourselves to ourselves and others. We are trying to prove to the world that we are worth something: “I AM valuable, dang it! See my car. See my clothes. See my facebook pics in this amazing place. See my name on the door. See my diploma on the wall. See my kid at Seoul National. See my big Bible. See my very uncool clothes that show how subversively cool I am. I AM worth something, and this more proves it.”
The problem is that self-worth is a myth. At some point, all of our more will come tumbling down. At some point, all of our more will be scattered, and we will be knocked off our self-made thrones. One day, we will walk in the door with our hands full of all the reasons we are valuable people, and we will walk out with our hands empty and shaking. Getting more - no matter what the more is - can never make us good, valuable people.
Our cultures are pumping this More Myth. Every advertisement, every business, every school, even many churches are pumping more. If you have more, if you give more, if you serve more, if you save more, if you do more, if you play more, if you pray more, if you just get more, then you will find satisfaction, security, and self-worth.
Mary busts this up. Pregnant with the Son of God and full of the Holy Spirit, she cries out: “More will never be enough! God will bust up all our mores! All our thrones and trophies and degrees and photos will be scattered to the wind and burned in the fire. What will survive? Praise. Joy. Real blessing. Mercy. Humility. Hunger. God.”
This is sheer grace. This is the action of God and only the action of God. Mary didn’t do anything to deserve to house the Creator of the Universe in her womb. In absolute mercy, God strips the rich of our wealth, the powerful of our power, the satisfied of our satisfaction. In ruthless grace, God destroys our myths.
Why? Because they are myths. They are falsehoods. They lead us astray. They keep us from God. So eventually, all of us, rich or poor, must face the hollow emptiness of the More Myth. More can never satisfy us. More can never give us security. More can never prove our self-worth.
If more can’t, what can? If our global, universal, trans-cultural myth is wrong, if we are all completely screwed up inside and pointed in the wrong direction for generation after generation, then what? Is humanity a hopeless mess?
Again, Mary speaks right to our pain. “How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior! For he took notice of his lowly servant girl, and from now on all generations will call me blessed. The Mighty One ... has done great things for me. He shows mercy from generation to generation ... He has exalted the humble ... and filled the hungry with good things ... and remembered to be merciful.”
Who does God help? The humble, the lowly, the hungry, those who need mercy.
We live in a mixed up, jumbled up world. What is wrong seems right, and what is right seems wrong. What is up looks down, and what is down looks up.
We can’t fix ourselves with more. We can’t get right side up with more. The More Myth is completely upside down.
The only way up is down. The only way out is in. Healing starts with feeling the pain. Satisfaction begins with feeling the real hunger. Security comes through radical vulnerability. Self-worth is found in being a lowly servant girl.
The cure for our mixed up world is the simple Life that made Elizabeth and Mary sing. The cure for our messed up hearts is Jesus. Jesus, with the DNA of God and Mary, budding to life in Mary’s womb exploded GRACE into our world. We don’t earn it. We can’t buy it. We can’t save it up for a rainy day. GRACE is just there. GRACE strips us of our myths and leaves us naked and bare before the God who loves us completely and thoroughly exactly as we are - with all of our scars and moles, with all of our wrinkles and fat rolls. GRACE puts us empty before God Almighty so that he can fill us with Jesus.
Here is the heart of the Gospel. We have nothing. We can do nothing to make God like us or love us or forgive us. Nothing. But God has already done it for us. Through Jesus, God entered this world through the portal of a teenage womb. Through Jesus, God lived and loved and died as a human. Through Jesus, God has reclaimed humanity, saved us from our own destruction.
Through Jesus, God offeres us pure and absolute GRACE. Through Jesus, God offers us true satisfaction, true security, and true self-worth. We can’t earn it, or buy it, or achieve it. We are naked and broken, but GRACE remains freely available to us in all of our nakedness and brokenness. God wraps us up in his GRACE. God clothes us in GRACE. God heals us with GRACE. God - absolutely and without reservation -loves us with his GRACE.
This may not seem like enough to you. Your pain might be too big and too deep to believe in GRACE right now. Just remember this. GRACE grew as a tiny life inside the womb of a tiny girl in a tiny country on a tiny planet inside a great big universe. And this tiny seed of GRACE was the very life of God that turned our world upside down.
This Advent and Christmas Season, I challenge you to live with upside down grace. Do some things that just don’t seem right. Do things that are actually so right that they seem wrong in our messed up world.
Love an enemy.
Do less not more.
Compliment instead of complain.
Run to your pain not away from it.
Hold onto hope when everyone else is getting cynical.
The last upside down thing I want you do is this: Receive instead of give. Now, there will be plenty of opportunities to give - our Christmas Concert tonight, and our offering for Bangladesh on the day after Christmas. Giving is beautiful and important. But for a little while, at least when you are alone in your room, stop trying to give to God. Stop trying to say nice things to God. Stop trying to do the right things before God. Stop trying to get God to like you. Just stand there before God, like Mary: lowly, humble, hungry, and needy. And receive. Let God love you. Let God bless you. Let God’s grace wrap around you. Let God say to you, “From now on, all generations will call you blessed.”
Through Jesus, God is turning our upside down world right side up. It’s not happening all at once. God’s grace-revolution happening little by little, person by person, group by group. It ebbs and flows. But slowly, slowly, slowly, grace wins. The power of love overtakes the love of power. The power of humility shrinks the pride of power. The strength of service reveals the weakness of oppression. Slowly, slowly, slowly, grace wins. Live for grace. Live for grace - not more. Live for grace, by grace, with grace.
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