A sermon based upon Luke 1: 46-55
By Rev. Charles J. Tomlin, BA, MDiv, DMin.
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership,
September 8th, 2019
“…he has toppled the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly
(Lk. 1:52 CSB17).”
Did you know that God is prejudiced? Did you know that God has a slant toward a certain group of people? Did you know that God is NOT politically correct?
Today, we begin a series of messages from Luke’s gospel. We will look at 6 action stories that are unique to Luke and no other gospel. We will also look at 6 parables that are unique to Luke, and no other gospel. Let be begin with a brief introduction to understanding what the gospels are and how the gospels are written.
Many people mistakenly think all the gospels are exactly the same. They are not. Although each of the gospels; Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, share same basic message about Jesus being Israel’s Messiah and God’s son, who died a cross to ‘save his people from their sins’ (Matt. 1:21), they all preach a message of ‘good news’ about Jesus with some very unique twists and important different points to make.
In preparation for this series, I’ve gone through a gospel parallel comparison and found the stories that are unique to Luke, and to Luke alone. I’m planning, if God wills, to do this also with Matthew, Mark, and John. It is easier to find unique stories to Luke, Matthew and John, than with Mark, which was the first gospel written and the other gospels draw from him before putting their own unique touches.
AND MARY SAID… (1:46)
Some people don’t like to find or focus upon the ‘differences’ between the gospels, but they tend to want to ‘harmonize’ them. The problem with this approach is that it overlooks the unique angle on the truth about Jesus that was being told by each gospel writer for their own audience.
When you consider each gospel independently and study them carefully, you will clearly see these differences. Matthew was primarily writing for Jewish believers to show how Jesus was the true Jewish Messiah. Mark was written to Roman, Gentile Christians, making clear that Jesus is ‘the Son of God’ (Mark 1:1), not the Roman rulers who were also called ‘sons of God’. John was written last, to a more universal, philosophical audience, making clear that Jesus is the “Word that was with God’ and ‘was God in the beginning’ (John 1:1). John’s gospel presented Jesus as the ‘eternal logos’, which was way Greek thinking people expressed philosophical source of all life and thought. While that might sound very ‘high and mighty’, but the amazing truth is that God’s wisdom is not told in the abstract, but God’s truth is both relational and personal, so that in John’s gospel the truth about Jesus is expressed the most personal stories of all the Bible. It is also the gospel that show us how ‘the word became flesh and dwelt among us’ (Jn. 1: 14), and John gave us the greatest. Most universal words of all: “For God so loved the world….” (Jn. 3:16). I can’t wait to get to John, but we are going to begin with Luke.
What is so unique about Luke’s gospel? Well, it all begins right here in our text today. Luke’s gospel is the gospel that gave us Christmas. John doesn’t even mention Jesus’ birth, nor does Mark. In both those gospels, Jesus just shows up to be baptized and to start his ministry. Matthew does tell about Jesus’ birth, but still explaining it only from a man’s point of view. It tells how Joseph was about to divorce his finance Mary for being pregnant with a child that wasn’t his. But then, we are told how an angel appeared to explain how this baby was ‘conceived…from the Holy Spirit’ (1:20) and the baby should be named ‘Jesus’ (meaning God saves, 1:20), because this child is “Immanuel, God with us!” (Matt. 1:23). Matthew is making the same point about how ‘power’ is reacting to Jesus’ birth, but it gives much less details. Matthew skips the ‘birth’ event to tell how 2 years later, wise men came, informing King Herod about Jesus’ birth, so that Herod trys to the ‘child’ so that Joseph had to flee into Egypt (Matthew 2: 1-15).
Luke’s gospel is the only gospel that is intended to look at the gospel event as ‘a great reversal’ of how things are, and how God works. In Luke’s Christmas story the emphasis is on the humble and the lowly, throughout, starting with the work of the Holy Spirit in Elizabeth, not Zechariah, and through Mary, not Joseph, including the humble manger, on the humble Shepherds, and concludes with the testimony of an elderly man and a young preacher woman, named Anna. You can’t get much of a better picture of Luke’s very unique agenda focused upon legitimizing the lower and the lesser in the story of Jesus’ birth.
And this emphasis upon God’s very different view of reality really got started, right here, in our text and with Mary’s song that ‘praises the greatness of the Lord’ (1:46), because in this humble, unexpected, and maybe unwanted, but not unneeded birth of Jesus, God has both ‘scattered the proud’, ‘toppled the mighty from thrones’, and has ‘exalted the lowly’; not only by ‘sending the rich away empty’, but also by ‘satisfying the hungry with good things’ (1: 51-53). You can’t get much more of a picture of where Luke is going, than with an opening that sings God’s song like this. But the question is what do we do with it? What does God’s great reversal through the humble birth of Jesus as the Christ still mean for us?
GENERATIONS WILL CALL ME BLESSED (48)
Right after Mary begins to sing ‘praises’ and ‘rejoices’ in God as her savior, because God has ‘looked with favor on the humble condition of his servant’ (48a), Mary next makes an incredible observation; ‘Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed’ (48b).
Now, as a Baptist, who isn’t a Roman Catholic, that sounds very ‘Catholic’ to me. We know that in the Roman Catholic Church, it has been part of their own religious tradition to take these words and to worship Mary as the ‘Mother of God’. This is how the Roman Catholic church very literally attempted to lift up the lowly ‘motherly’ image in a faith, like the world around them, named God as Father. It did this so that both pagan and Christian women could have a motherly role model in a man’s world. They also lifted up Mary because the ancient world already worshipped many ‘goddesses’ and lifting up Mary as special, and this helped in the church’s missionary helping many pagan people make a smoother transition into the Christian faith. I get that. I understand that. But I don’t have to do that. But I, and we still need to call Mary ‘blessed’. Why?
As a Baptist sort of Christian, I’m not Roman Catholic, in a churchy sense, but I do claim to be ‘catholic’ in another sense. The word ‘catholic’ simply means ‘universal’ and in way I’m connected to all other Christians through my faith in Jesus Christ. But I don’t have to worship Mary as a ‘co-redeemer’ because I can take these words for exactly what they mean. We too call Mary blessed, not because she was God’s mother, but because God choose to enter human flesh and Jesus’ needed, like every child needs a mother. Mary was especially blessed because she was the first to understand, not simply how Gods would use her, but how through this humble birth a great reversal of how God works in the world was taking place.
Now, through the birth of Jesus Christ, there is no more male or female favoritism, and now through Jesus Christ, the humble and the hungry are being shown God’s favoritism, because this is how God works. From now on, it will not be through the high and mighty, but it will be through the humble and lowly that God will accomplish his mercy and do his mighty deeds in the world. But what does this mean, in terms of everyday spiritual life? Well, to be honest, to call Mary ‘blessed’ is revolutionary, let me explain.
We church people can have a serious pride problem. One pastor said that some of his members were so self-righteous that they have to hold onto the pews to keep from ascending. Our problem is not that we deny our sin. We know our frailties. But deep down we believe we are so much better than most folks that God would be ashamed of Himself not to let us into heaven on good behavior. When push comes to shove, we believe that God will grade on the curve. But the Bible says that the wages of sin is death. “None is good, no not one.” Not even Mother Teresa can make it to heaven on merit. That truth ought to banish our pride and humble us a bit.
Bill Hybels, founder of the contemporary Willow Creek Church in the northern suburbs of Chicago, was on a plane one day. The man seated beside him struck up a conversation. Upon finding out that his fellow passenger was a clergyman, the man said, “Well, I believe in God but I don’t affiliate with any church. Don’t really think I need it. Sure, I make some mistakes but I live respectably and give to charities. I wouldn’t hurt a soul on purpose. I believe that God will accept me on that basis.”
Bill took out a legal pad and said, “Let’s make a grading scale for all people, from one to ten, with ten being just about perfect. Who are the best people in the world?” The man thought for a moment and said, “Mother Teresa and Billy Graham.” “Okay,” said Bill. “But we must allow them to place themselves on our chart. Each of them has said, ‘I am a sinner and have no chance of salvation unless it is a gift to me from Christ.’ So, by their own admission, they deserve to be down near the bottom of the chart. Now, my next question is, ‘Where should we put you on the chart? You don’t want to be above Mother Teresa, do you?”
The man replied, “If Mother Teresa is not good enough to get into heaven, I guess I’m in worse shape than I thought.”
Then Bill Hybel drew a cross right across the middle of the chart. Underneath that cross he wrote these words from I John 2:2: “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
Underneath that verse he drew a line and said to the man beside him, “Just sign here if you would like to be covered by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Then you can be as sure of going to heaven as Mother Teresa.” The man signed on the dotted line.
The first revolution of Jesus, and the reason God blessed Mary, is not because Mary was somebody, but because Mary was nobody. God used Mary to prove that God came into the world to banish all human pride and spiritual self-sufficiency. None of us has any hope until we join in with great reversal and present ourselves before God in our own ‘humble condition’. We are blessed by God because God loves us, not because we love God, or are good before God. In other words, before God, there are no ‘high and mighty ones’, we are all sinners.
The other day, a fellow said, when he saw me, “I’d better be good, here comes the preacher.” I responded: “Well, it really doesn’t matter now does it, because we’re all already sinners anyhow. Nobody is really a Christian until we first understand they are a still sinners first. Before God, we are always sinners. The only difference that Jesus makes is that through Jesus we become are ‘saved sinners’. That’s the great reversal.
HE HAS… EXALTED THE LOWLY (52)
But again, and finally, what does this mean that God ‘has looked with favor on the humble condition of his servant’? What does this mean in our world, right now, that God is ‘scattering the proud’ or ‘toppling the mighty’? What does it mean that God’s priority not the ‘rich and famous’, but a God who ‘sends the rich away empty’ because God’s favors ‘exalting the lowly’ and ‘satisfying the hungry’? Why would Mary sing about this, and why is such a great reversal still being realized today?
What we need to understand is that all goes back Mary rejoicing ‘in God my Savior’. What Mary understands as the ‘great reversal’ is that God is on a rescue mission and that this is what God’s mercy is supposed to be about. It is in the gospel of Luke that we see ‘outsiders’ being called to be ‘insiders’. It is in the gospel of Luke that Jesus explains how he comes ‘to seek and save the lost’. It is in the gospel of Luke that we have the stories of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son, but the point of all these stories, especially the story of lost son, is how the other son, needs to get with the ‘program’. The ‘program’ is that the Elder Brother needed to learn to be happy with a Father who loves his others ‘lost son’ as much as the Father loves the son who stayed home and was never lost.
We also need to see that it is only in Luke’s gospel that a Samaritan was made into the hero of the story, and that Zacchaeus was the rich man, who didn’t go to hell because he was changed into a humble person who wanted to ‘get with God’s program’ of caring for the hurting, the humble, and the hungry. This is the great reversal in Luke, that God’s program is slanted toward the needs of the lowly, the humble, the hungry and the poor, who had been outside God’s promise, but now where being brought in as insiders, because of God’s amazing, mercy and grace.
Many years ago, Bruce Larson told a strange but beautifully true Christmas story. A week or so before Christmas, a pastor told his congregation about a needy family facing a bleak Christmas. One young father decided to do something about that. He and his son set out in the family pickup truck to cut down a fresh evergreen and deliver it to this destitute family. They ran into a rock slide and a boulder hit the truck. It was totally destroyed. The windshield was smashed and while the father was not hurt, the young boy was cut by the glass and bleeding severely.
They tried to wave down a passing motorist to help, but to no avail. Finally, after over two hundred cars had whizzed by, one stopped. The couple in the car took care of the injured boy, returned the two of them to their home, and then went on. The father and son never got the names of their two ministering angels.
In a week's time the truck was repaired and the boy's injury healed. On Christmas Eve, the pastor asked this same man if he would deliver a basket of food and toys to the needy family he had set out to bring the tree to earlier. He loaded up his truck and drove to the address he was given and rang the doorbell. Who should answer the door but the couple who had stopped to help him on the highway just weeks before?
This was a great reversal. The people who ‘high and mighty’ fell hurt, and were mysteriously helped by the lowly. Then, later those who were ‘high and mighty’ who went to help the lowly found out that it was the lowly who had helped them. Of course, life does not always work out that neatly, of course. But love works. Life works. Lifting up the lowly is how God saves. Herod and Pilate are in their graves but Mary's humiliated Son, now lives and is made LORD of all! (As told by King Duncan).
Now, let me ask you, are you ‘with’ the program? Do you see, once and for all, that the church is not about you, it’s about them? Do you see that the church is not a place to come to, but it is a people who are joining in with God’s rescue mission in the world? The great reversal may not be just what God did with Mary, but it may be what God wants to do with you. But you need not apply if you still on ‘your mighty throne’, but you need to let God’s love ‘topple’ you; not to hurt you, but to heal you, to get through to you, and show you that the best thing that will ever happen to you is let God reverse your life and rescue you too. Amen.
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