Dr. David D. Young
December 17, 2006
Isaiah 52: 7-10
Luke 1: 46-55
"A Song of Salvation"

"Christmas is coming!
And there is so much to do, buy, remember only nine shopping days left, the trash collector, postman, neighbors, relatives, friends, family. Time running out, money running out, patience running out, things in the way of people - but wise men and women watch and wonder, and pause to look for the stars in people’s eyes and to listen for angel-singing in the night. O, let us busy ones wise up and watch for joy again!" So wrote theologian, Robert Raines.

Christmas is coming
    - and we can watch for joy
    - share in the joy
    - and sing for joy!

Year after year so many of us fall into the same traps. We say we’re not going to let the commercialism and crowds get to us. We say we’re not going to give in to the seasonal stresses. We say we’re not going to become preoccupied this year with everything that has to be done. We say we’re not going to miss the real meaning of Christmas. But what happens? More often than not it slips through our fingers by default.

Mim Neal of Western Springs, Illinois shares her honest feelings in a piece entitled, "Holiday Housewife."
    Christmas can be celebrated with one $2.00 candle and
    Compassion, but it never is. I won’t put tinsel on the manger
    Or take hawking merchants for angels
    Yet I will bake cookies, buy presents and cards, decorate the house and tree,
    commit the sin of self-exhaustion.
    There is nothing wrong with sentiment or tradition,
    but they are less than the Event.
    I will struggle to remember that Jesus Christ can redeem everyone and everything.
    Even Christmas.

Friends, that is good news. Christ redeems us and Christ redeems even Christmas if we will but let him.

Do you all know the expression, "Come again"? It is sometimes used when a message is not heard or completely understood. "Come again." Each year we come again to this holy season and deep within our religious life it’s as though we are saying to the Christmas message "Come again". In the words of J. Barrie Shepherd, "He does, of course, in daily bread and Bibles, Sunday pulpits, tables too, call to love and duty, most especially through this leaning forward season when winter’s white moves greening toward Bethlehem." The word is come again.

Christ comes again to redeem and to save. So whenever someone makes room for Jesus in their inner life, in their heart and whenever someone re-commits their life to Christ as we do from time to time, it doesn’t matter what day of the year it is. The Christmas message is proclaimed "unto you is born this day a savior."

God did not offer us self-help, programs to save us from ourselves and the depravity that people fall into out of free-will. No, the good news is that God gave himself as the means for our salvation. There is not much difference between the redeemed and the unredeemed, the difference is between those who realize it and those who don’t. You see, that which came into the world and keeps coming again, is either something we receive or we don’t.

Mary, blessed Mary, received it. When she spoke the passage read for us from Luke 1:46-55 she was visiting Elizabeth who was also pregnant with John the Baptist. Elizabeth gave the gift of expectation having been with child prior to Mary, and as a geriatric of grandmotherly age, Elizabeth was able to support the teen-age virgin. I am convinced it was that support, expectation and confidence provided by Elizabeth which enabled Mary to share the words she did in what we call the "Magnificat". Hear her words again as if she were singing "A Song of Salvation".

"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 revere 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."

Mary had a sense of the salvation God was to work out through her in the coming of her son. Even before Jesus was born here was Mary transmitting a message of hope and salvation. At Christmas we get kind of starry eyed and can easily picture angels singing. But you know I can just imagine Mary singing lullabies to Jesus as a baby and I’ve just got to believe they were filled with hope and salvation, love and joy.

Mary’s hope, Mary’s Song of Salvation, mirrored that of the prophet Isaiah in our Old Testament text,

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, together they sing for joy; Break forth together into singing, for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

(At this point Dr.Young broke into singing….)
Joy to the earth! The Savior reigns – let us our songs employ; while fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains….Repeat the sounding joy!

Haven’t you ever wanted to sing so much that it just came out, almost uncontrollably? It is then that a song is put into our hearts and it is the singer of all songs who is singing with us. Perhaps, it is God who strangely sings in us, who sings unto us, and through us into the world –"A Song of Salvation."

A young boy complained to his father that most of the church hymns were boring to him—too far behind the times, with tiresome tunes and meaningless words. His father put an end to the discussion by saying, ‘If you think you can write better hymns, then why don’t you?’ The boy went to his room and wrote his first hymn. The year was 1690, the teenager was Isaac Watts. "Joy to the World" is among the almost 350 hymns written by him.

Mary sang "A Song of Salvation" sensing that the world would be turned upside down: the lowly lifted up, the hungry fed, the high and mighty brought low, the rich sent empty away. Mary simply received the best Christmas present of all - Christ himself and God’s salvation – and she sang about it.

The difference is not between the redeemed and the unredeemed, but those that receive it and those who don’t. The higher one is, the harder it is to stoop and truly see into a lowly, humble stable ‘cause that’s where the hired hands go. You know, it’s precisely in a world where people won’t see and where wars still continue and the prince of peace might just as well have not come, that we need to keep on singing a song of hope and salvation.

When Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was listening to the ringing of the Christmas bells in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1863, deep feelings and memories began stirring within him. It was only six months after the Battle of Gettysburg: the nation was mourning the loss of so many loved ones during the Civil War. Longfellow’s young son, a lieutenant in the Army of the Potomac, had been seriously wounded. His thoughts turned to peace. The words from Luke, "…on earth peace, goodwill toward all!!" inspired him to write this well-beloved poem which has been set to music,

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
  And wild and sweet
  The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to all!

And thought how, as the day had come
The belfries of all Christendom
  Had rolled along
  The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to all!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
  "For hate is strong
  And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to all!"

Then peeled the bells more loud and deep,
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep.
  The Wrong shall fail,
  The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to all!"

Christmas is coming - it’s nothing new. And yet, and yet, it’s brand new for me and for you…. "A Song of Salvation!"

Amen!