Sermon preached by Dr. John A. Huffman, Jr.
December 7, 2008
Copyright © 2008, John A. Huffman, Jr.
All rights reserved.

"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. . . ." (Luke 1:46-48)

There's one statement I can make upon which none of us will disagree.

It is this: We live in uncertain circumstances.

The primary headline of yesterday's Los Angeles Times reads, "3-month job toll: 1.25 million--Losses threaten to create a self-sustaining downward cycle."

Our economy has, all through our lifetimes, had its ups and downs. However, never, in my memory, have so many so close to me lost their jobs.

I know of one covenant group in our church of sharp, upwardly mobile couples in which three of the primary breadwinners have just lost their jobs.

Late Tuesday morning, both the Support and Program Staffs of St. Andrew's met. We were seated at round tables, and Jim Birchfield invited us to share our needs for praying together in these small groups. I was astounded to see how many at the table where I was sitting were concerned for family or friends who had just lost their jobs. After our prayer time, I did a survey of the entire group of over 40 people, asking, "How many of you have close family or friends who have, in recent weeks, lost their jobs?" The majority raised their hands.

It has come close to home for Anne and me. A year ago, our daughter Janet was, for four months, unemployed, being laid off by a major homebuilder for which she had worked for a number of years. Fortunately, she was later reemployed. But Monday of this week, her husband Ryan, a mortgage loan officer with Washington Mutual, was one of the 9,500 casualties of that company's job cuts.

When is it going to end? We don't know, do we? We watch venerable New York financial institutions collapse while others are bailed by an infusion of government funds, in a way that only increases our gargantuan deficit spending. We observe the Big 3 automotive CEOs begging for help to avoid corporate bankruptcies. We see whole communities populated by people, who bought their homes at top market price with little or no down payment, seeing their homes worth 25 to 40 percent less than what they paid for them. And they're tempted to walk away, cutting their losses now, but some of them have nowhere to go. On top of all this, we observe another random terrorist attack in Mumbai and wonder where will the next one be.

These are uncertain circumstances, are they not!

Today's Advent message finds its setting in the uncertain circumstances of first- century Palestine. It's the story of Mary, a peasant girl from Nazareth. You see her now as she sits there in that nativity scene. She is all that womanhood would ever hope to be in personal and spiritual sensitivity. In fact, as she rocks that little baby Jesus back and forth, cradling Him in her arms, we see the ethereal beginnings of a halo forming over her head. It's so easy to make a myth of her, isn't it? We've almost deified Mary.

Take another look at her. Jim Birchfield helped us do it last Sunday. Observe her as she steps off that 2008 Christmas card manger scene into the real world of that first-century Jewish girl from Nazareth. There she is, nine months before that cataclysmic birthday in Bethlehem. Picture her as a young engaged girl who has taken her sexuality seriously, saving herself for Joseph on their wedding day. Suddenly, she is confronted by an angel. What a startling event. Even in the first century, the average person didn't run into too many angels.

The Angel Gabriel treated the teenager Mary with the utmost respect, telling her that she had found favor with God, that in spite of the fact she was a virgin, she would conceive a child by the Holy Spirit. Puzzled as she was by it, she responded with the first of our Christmas prayers, "'Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word'" (Luke 1:38).

Awestruck, this young woman opens herself to God. She announced her willingness to be used by God, even though she didn't fully understand it.

Needing to share this awesome, yet frightening news with someone, she went to visit relatives Zechariah and Elizabeth, who lived in the town Judea, south of Nazareth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child, John the Baptist, leaped in her womb, and Luke records:

And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, "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" (Luke 1:41-44).

Then, this young woman, Mary, as human as she was, facing the gargantuan uncertainties of her own future, sets an example for you and me as someone who is of our circumstances, as someone who trusted the Lord and cried out these words that we refer to as "The Magnificat," a prayer of trust, our second prayer of this Christmas season. Her prayer begins with these words (Luke 1:46-48):

"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."

What do the Westminster Standards say is the chief end of each one of us? They tell us that the highest act and attitude that any one of us can express is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. You and I are called to join Mary in magnifying the Lord. This was her commitment.

What is it to magnify God? It is to make God great!

Mary did what another Jewish woman named Hannah had done several hundred years before. She sang a prayer of praise to God, a hymn, which symbolized in verbal articulation, what was the deepest desire of her heart to bring glory to God and enjoy Him forever, even in the most uncertain circumstances that lay before her. When you and I get to the point that we magnify God, we will find that our lives are totally changed!

Have you ever seen a joyous person who is caught up in himself? Think about the people you know. Who is the most joyous person you know? I don't mean who is the most fun. I don't mean who is the most interesting. I don't mean who is the most successful. I mean who is the most joyous. Who has the healthy quality of life that makes you say, "She's got it together." Is it a person who is caught up in herself? I doubt it. I know from my own experience that my least joyous moments are when I'm caught up in myself. I know I have too little of the joy of the Lord. You and I have the privilege of magnifying God, making God great. It doesn't mean that God isn't already great. What we're saying is, we are allowing God to be God, and we are exalting Him and not ourselves. The exciting thing about it is that it can be done in solitude. It requires no money. It takes no great talent. It can be done when circumstances are good, and it can be done in the most uncertain of circumstances.

When you make God great, it will revolutionize your life. It will set things straight. Join me as we learn from this teenaged peasant girl, who wasn't perfect but was special and whose specialness is possible for you and me to share.

If you are honest, what would your heartcry be this moment? In all the uncertainties that surround you, would it be, "My soul doth grumble and complain and lament the uncertainty of our circumstances and what the fates have dealt me"? Or would your heartcry be, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. . ."?

Let's look to see what we can learn from this second Advent prayer from the Christmas story within a story of circumstances surrounding the enunciation of the angel to Mary and her ultimate heartcry, which for centuries has been called "The Magnificat."

First: When you magnify God and trust Him in uncertain circumstances, you are more open to know who you are and accept the facts of life that confront you and you can't change.

Mary was a Jew. That really wasn't the time in history to be a Jew. If you wanted to be on the center of the world's stage, Rome was where the action was. If you liked power, you weren't likely to gravitate toward the area now called Israel. If you were in that part of the world, Jerusalem was the place to be, not Nazareth.

Not only was Mary a Jew, Mary was also a woman. No one here has experienced chauvinism comparable to that of the first-century Judaism. How would you feel as a woman if you knew that your father and your fiancé in their daily prayers said, "I thank my God that I was not born a woman"? I doubt that it would build your self-esteem.

And not only was Mary a Jew and a woman, she was also poor. In the context of which she lived, she didn't have a whole lot going for her. There is no one in this sanctuary this morning as lowly as was Mary.

But you know, there is something beautiful about having very little going for you in this world. I've seen it as I've worked among the poorest of the poor in my responsibilities with World Vision. Don't get me wrong. Poverty is terrible. How horrific it is to observe the girl child who cannot attend school because it is her job to walk a couple of miles each day to a polluted stream, bringing back disease and parasite-ridden drinking water to her family. At the same time, I have seen greater joy on the faces of the poor taking pleasure in some simple blessing of life than the frenetic-driven expressions on the faces of the wealthy shoppers at Fashion Island and South Coast Plaza. Sometimes those with little can teach lessons to those of us with much. It's best expressed in the words of Dom Helder Camara who, as Archbishop of Racife in Brazil, wrote A Prayer for the Rich.

Why a prayer for the rich?
They have money. They also have power, brains and talent.
They have everything.
They don't need help, they are self-sufficient.

Lord, make the scales fall from their eyes!
Nevertheless, we need to pray for them;
They need to see that You are the only truly rich one.
Only You have life, knowledge, liberty, and full holiness.

A checkbook cannot be carried beyond death.
In the land of eternity only one coin is worth anything:
Love made real and lived.

The one who has become rich should be warned:
Families who are united become divided because of the inheritance.
The hour of dividing the inheritance is never a good one; it is, almost always, a terrible hour.

Lord, help all those who have become rich even though it may have been by their own hard work.
Convince them that the best inheritance for their children is to be a living example
of justice, generous, free of the slavery to money.
Lord, help those whose riches are added up.

They are poor rich people if they do not achieve that simplicity which knows that is has
everything, if they do not form that family relationship which
never forgets that all people are invited to participate in Thy divine riches. . .

All Mary had was a promise, a promise that accepted her as she was and all those facts of her life that she couldn't change--being a Jew, being a woman, being poor. The promise of God to her in all the uncertainties of her life was that someday the Messiah would come, and all inequities would be leveled out. She believed this. She trusted God. She magnified the Lord. No she didn't do it just when she discovered that the Messiah would come through her. She had already learned to accept the facts of life that she couldn't change. She had already learned how to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

Second: When you magnify God and trust Him in uncertain circumstances, you are prepared to face the fact that yours will be a life of surprises and a life that has a certain hope.

Mary knew the Scriptures. She wasn't any literary expert. Some have tried to make of her a poetess because of this magnificent prayer, which she so clearly articulated. Actually, part of it she quoted from Hannah, the mother of Samuel. Listen to it in its entirety (Luke 1:46-55):

"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.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.

His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever."

It is so easy to be caught up in ourselves and miss what God is doing in our lives. The November 24, 2008 issue of The New Yorker captures our human egocentric predicament with this cartoon.

Here he is, void of hope and expectancy, all caught up in himself as he leans over the bar and declares to the bartender, "I'm nothing, and yet I'm all I can think about."

How that captures the downward spiral of egocentrism.

Mary was able to see beyond herself and her lowly condition. She realized that her God was a God of surprises. She knew the Scriptures. She understood how He guided His people in ways strange to them and in ways strange to others. He is the God who gave the rainbow as a promise of His love. He is the God who told Abraham that he would multiply and be as the sands of the sea and the stars of the sky. He is the God who took a barren woman named Sarah, 90 years old, and helped her become pregnant. He is the God who parted the Red Sea and the Jordan River. He is the God who knocked down the walls of Jericho. He is the God who drove out the Philistines. He is the God who, even in the darkest days of the exile in Babylon, kept in contact with His people. He is the God who brought them home again, even when the land was no longer theirs.

He is the God who had promised that a virgin would conceive and bear a son, and His name would be called "Emmanuel," meaning "God with us."

This God of surprises had given a certain hope. He made promises. If you know His Word, you know His promises.

This is true today, just as true as it was back then. But you need to have a knowledge of God and His Word to know His promises. Then you may just be surprised by the serendipity in the little and in the big. God is in both. Yes, this God guides His people in strange ways to them and strange to others. But you are not so afraid of the present and the future, because you know you are in the hands of the Sovereign God. When the angel came, surprised as she was, Mary knew what he was talking about. She knew that hundreds of years before the promise had been given. This was her hope. It was a certain hope that the Messiah would come. He would be born of the virgin. Little did she expect to be that one. Was she ever surprised! But she did know how to take God at His word.

Know that the Christ who came once will come again. Believe it. Trust it. Hold it as your certain hope. And then, let Him surprise you. Yes, let Him surprise you.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, that great London preacher, writing in the late 1800s, at a time when there was a preoccupation with biblical prophecy, warned against trying to figure out the exact timing of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Spurgeon urged his people not be idle or ". . . rush into half insane theories of prophecy in order to excuse your unbelief and idleness." Claim God's sovereignty in timing. Put your hope in Him. And then be surprised at those infinitely personal ways in which He works in your life, in the now!

Third: When you magnify God and trust Him in uncertain circumstances, you are prepared for the fact that Jesus will bring problems into your life.

Yes, you heard me right. Jesus will bring problems into your life.

Are you aware that there is a "paradox of blessedness"?

Is there a woman in this sanctuary who would not, in some way, yearn to change places with Mary and be the very mother of the Christ child?

Wait a second. Let's not romanticize Mary. Instead, let's identify with her. Here is a pregnant girl who had never had sex. Don't tell me that! How quaint! Can anyone believe that?

The whole thing is sort of crazy, isn't it? An angel. An angel? I once heard of a faith healer who saw a 900-foot-high vision of Jesus. Those things are sort of strange, aren't they?

Virgins don't get pregnant. At least not any virgins I've ever known.

Don't think Mary didn't have some of these thoughts: "I've got trouble. How in the world can I explain this? My mother and my father, they will never understand! And Joseph, dear Joseph, he's tried so hard to control his passion. He loves me so much. He's refused to violate his and my convictions that we should wait until we are married, even though we yearn to give our bodies to each other. Will he believe what the angel said? Or will he drop me? Joseph will never trust me again. I'll make him look like a fool. In fact, I could actually be stoned to death. That's right! I could be stoned!"

Don't romanticize Mary.

And don't romanticize the Christian life. At the front end, Mary had a lot of questions to answer to herself, to her fiancé, to her parents and to her community. There was no way she could answer them all. And at the back end, over thirty years later, she would huddle--a middle-aged woman who had lived a hard, peasant life--there at the foot of the cross and see that son whom the angel said would be great, would sit on the throne of David, of whose kingdom there would be no end. She would have her heart broken as she watched that son hang from that cross, bearing the weight of physical and spiritual anguish far beyond her understanding.

"Things go better with Jesus!" the neon light flashes. Come to Jesus for a new high. Jesus, repair my marriage. Jesus, give me back my health. Jesus, make me smarter. Jesus, don't let me lose my job. Jesus, give me that new job. Jesus, don't let my home go into foreclosure. Jesus, keep me out of bankruptcy. Jesus, make me wealthy. Jesus offers the best deal going. Better get on the bandwagon and get on it quick, because with Jesus, it's all health and prosperity!

Oh, I know that things do go better with Jesus. But they are also tougher with Jesus. Jesus will bring you problems--some new problems. Jesus will wake you up to the facts of life. He will open your eyes to the needs of others. He will show you a world you didn't even see before.

E. Stanley Jones says that The Magnificat is the "most revolutionary document in the world."

William Barclay says that The Magnificat, this great prayers of Mary, describes the three revolutions of God. One is the moral revolution--"He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts" (Luke 1:51). Two is the social revolution--"He has put down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly" (Luke 1:52). Three is the economic revolution--"He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty" (Luke 1:53).

When you magnify God and trust Him in uncertain circumstances, you literally buy into His agenda. His agenda puts a bit of sense into an otherwise senseless world. His agenda helps us go "cold turkey" into a God-given withdrawal from those self-created narcotics that so addict us, so anesthetize us to all but our own concerns.

Let's never forget that, as scary as are these uncertain circumstances, economically and in terms of international terrorism, this is nothing new for humankind throughout all history. We, in the United States, have been more protected from this than most societies. Although, we, too, have had our share of uncertainties, going back to the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the World War I, the World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, all the way up now to the war in Iraq. We've had our financial crashes, stock market collapses and depressions. But, somehow, we are inclined to think that these things should never happen to us.

The history of humanity is the history of uncertainty. That's why pagan men and women worship the sun, worship the river. One's capacity to put food on the table can be destroyed by drought or by flood. The history of the human race is charted by wars in which the armies of the world marched against each other, destroying the possessions and the lives of whatever innocent people happened to be in their way. The story of human history is that of tribalism, the gang-like conflictual existence with the horrific uncertainty that that implies. It's the story of greed, of lust, of using people and discarding them when they are no longer so useful and someone more attractive comes along.

The problems Jesus brings into our lives, as we trust Him in uncertain circumstances, are small compared to those we create for ourselves when it's everyone for one's own self!

Fourth: When you magnify God and trust Him in uncertain circumstances, you are more open to share yourself in intimacy with other godly friends.

Mary went to that older woman, Elizabeth. She wanted to share in honesty and intimacy.

Perhaps women are more able to do this than men. This is not necessarily so. Or is it?

How priceless are friendships, friendships that move beyond the superficiality of the cocktail party. Friendships. They are full. They are rich. They are valuable.

Do you have a friend? Do you have a real Christian friend with whom you can share anything in your life without the fear of being laughed at? Do you? Do you really? Don't put me on now. Don't talk about acquaintances. Don't tell me about those people with whom you do things socially. Do you have friends with whom you can open your heart? Are there persons who will pray for you, who will encourage you, who will lift you up when you are knocked down for the count?

Let me put it another way. Are you a friend who can listen and accept and bear confidences?

This is what the church is all about. You can't go it alone in this world and survive. This is why Jesus gave us the family of God. The word in the Greek means the gathered people. There is no joy in individualistic, solitary religion. Yes, we need our times of aloneness, quietness and contemplation. But we also need each other. You and I have the privilege of Christian fellowship. It is ours for the receiving. There are others in this world. You need them. They need you.

Mary, do you have an Elizabeth? David, do you have a Jonathan?

And are you really there for each other?

This is what the church is all about.

And this is what the family is all about.

That's why the Apostle Paul wrote those words, "And whoever does not provide for relatives, and especially for family members, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever" (1 Timothy 5:8). Trusting God in uncertain circumstances is allowing one's heart to be open to care for those of our family members who are going through crisis times. What an example we are to the world when we care for each other.

As much as I, as pastor of St. Andrew's, pray that we will end this year in the black and that we will finish off payment on the last 40 percent or so of our building program, we dare not be known primarily for our concern about finances. We should be known for our concern to care for each other in these uncertain circumstances. You and I may very well be God's specific answer to prayer for someone who is in need, as we lift ourselves outside of ourselves and allow our hearts to be broken by those things that break the heart of God.

Fifth: When you magnify God and trust Him in uncertain circumstances, you are now aware that you carry the risen Christ with you wherever you go.

To put it bluntly, you are pregnant with Jesus.

Mary carried the baby Jesus in her womb. What a thought. Could a woman ask for anything more? Even as she didn't fully understand it, could there be any greater fulfillment for a woman to know that she carried in her very womb the Messiah, the Son of God?

Wait, you've got something just a good if you're a Christian. If you have repented of sin and put your trust in Jesus Christ, you carry with you the very crucified and risen Jesus Christ, whose Holy Spirit indwells your life.

Even as Mary was the mother of the human side of Jesus, you and I are those God has chosen to make the Word, Christ Incarnate, visibly stand out in our lives.

Tell your children about this great God. Tell your friends about His promises. Let the world know that this Jesus can be reborn in them as He is in you.

It's no luxury. It's a job He has entrusted to you. Yes, you carry the risen Christ with you everywhere you go.

I've been playing around with a little bit of arithmetic this week. Let's assume that Newport Beach has a population of approximately 85,000 people. Let's assume that our church numbers some three to four thousand people. And by the time you take the various churches in this community, whether large or small, in exaggerated terms, we reach 5,000-20,000 people each week. That still leaves well over half the population of Newport Beach who need Jesus Christ and who are potentially available to become part of a community of faith. And I'm not even counting the surrounding environs of Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Irvine, Laguna Beach and other communities from which we draw our membership.

Isn't it about time that we set some measurable goals which would cause us to quit luxuriating in what Jesus Christ has done for us and to go into this world and share Jesus Christ with this community. Just think of this greater Harbor Area of some 680,000 people and how you figure the statistics. If all of our vital Christ-centered biblical churches doubled our size and outreach, we still would have at least half again the population to reach for Jesus Christ and involve in meaningful communities of believers.

When you magnify God and trust Him in uncertain circumstances, as did Mary, you become aware that you carry the very Jesus with you everywhere you go. You and I are called to be His witnesses. What a sacred privilege and responsibility.

Will you join me in this prayer?

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for you have looked with favor on the lowliness of this your servant. Help me to trust you in these uncertain circumstances and, in humility, to share your love, your grace, your care with others. In Jesus' name. Amen.