Born First in Her Heart

Luke 1:26-56

In a Peanuts comic strip, Snoopy is feeling great. He comes dancing into the first frame saying: "Sometimes I love life so much I can't express it!" He keeps dancing and says, "I feel that I want to take the first person I meet into my arms and dance merrily through the streets." Then, into the scene comes grumpy ol' Lucy. Snoopy freezes, sits and tries to be as inconspicuous as possible. And then in the last frame he's dancing again and saying, "I feel that I want to take the second person I meet into my arms and dance merrily through the streets." We know how Snoopy felt. When we think about all the possibilities that God offers to us through the Babe of Bethlehem, it can make us want to kick up our heels and dance.

But there are folks who are afraid to dance. Something in life has made them afraid: afraid to trust life; afraid to trust other people; afraid to trust God. Some people are actually afraid of joy, afraid of elation, afraid of feeling delight. Being joyful causes them to have feelings of guilt, shame or unworthiness. They nurture fears, relish resentments, cherish hurts. They seem to find being grumpy a most comfortable fit. Such folks will always struggle with Christmas because they never fully let Christ season their lives with his love. And so they can't dance. And so they can't fully know joy. But contrast such folk with Mary who learned to dance at a very young age.

Martin Luther once said, "Before Mary could conceive Him in her womb, she first had to conceive Him in her heart." I believe Luther is right because God did not force the Christ Child upon Mary but allowed her to respond to the Divine, "Yes!," that God wanted to speak to humanity with her own human, "Yes," to faith. God gave Mary the freedom to say "Yes" or "No" to the belief that Gabriel's words would become God's Word within her. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, Mary conceived; she conceived the Christ Child in her heart by saying "Yes" to faith. And in doing so, Mary embraced joy. Mary learned to dance.

Mary's song to God is known as the "Magnificat." Magnificat is a Latin word meaning "to magnify," and it comes from the first word in Latin of Mary's song of praise. At first, as we read this prayer, this song of joy, we have to wonder how Mary could sing what she sang. Surely she knew what was ahead for her: the whispers and ridicule of unthinking, uncaring, unknowing neighbors. The stares and silent treatment. The distance from those who used to be her friends. Even worse would be the rebuke and harsh words from her family. And then there would be the disappointed look on Joseph's face, the one that said, "Leave." All of those were fairly probable events. Yet that didn't deter Mary because she was no longer living her life from the outside in but from the inside out. That is, Mary wasn't living according to what outer circumstances suggested; rather Mary was living according to what God had said. God had been conceived in her heart: the rest was just details. Mary's faith led her to joy.

But faith is not the only thing we see in Mary, for we see that Mary's joy also grew from obedience. Mary's young faith was strong and would be tested over and over again, and it would be found obedient. There is nothing quite so fulfilling as knowing you have done the will of God.

A colleague told me about a Christmas program from a few years back. That year his church chose to do something different and have the children tell the Christmas story in their own words. Everyone had practiced and all of those involved thought it was delightful. But there was one little girl who kept referring to the virgin Mary as the urchin Mary. But you know, if we stop and think about it, she was probably right. Not just during her pregnancy but throughout her life: in the delivery in the stable, in having to flee Herod, in her life in the foreign land of Egypt, in observing her son's itinerant preaching and teaching, in her son's suffering and dying. Mary was an urchin: young and homeless and on the run. Yet, throughout her life Mary was there with Jesus. She is the only person in all of the gospels who was there with him at his birth, at his death, at his resurrection. Mary chose to be obedient to God and say "Yes" to faith as a living, breathing, enduring reality throughout her life regardless of the outer circumstances. Mary's obedience led her to joy.

Finally, we must also say that, ultimately, God led Mary to joy. Here's something interesting to consider: where did Luke get the words for Mary's song? None of the other gospel writers know these words, or if they know them they don't recount them in their gospels. But Luke does, why? Most likely Mary and Luke met each other at some point and became friends, good friends. Most likely Mary told Luke her version of what happened with Jesus. So Luke is hearing about this song of joy after the fact, after the untimely birth, after Herod's massacre, after the exile in Egypt, after the suffering, after the death, after everything. Think of the hardships Mary knew, yet when she sat down to tell Luke about her little boy become a man, she sang anew the song in her heart. Why? How? What power is there in the universe that can transform such a life of sorrow into such a song of joy? The angel answers this question in his words to Mary:

The Lord is with you.

You have found favor with God.

Nothing is impossible with God.

Mary tells us her secret in her own words:

His mercy is for those who fear him.

He has filled the hungry with good things.

He has remembered his promises to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children.

Mary's faith and Mary's obedience and, ultimately, Mary's God gave her a joy that could not be taken away. It is the joy of the season into which we are invited by saying "Yes" to faith and "Yes" to obedience and, ultimately, "Yes" to God.

When I lived in New Jersey there was a department store in New York City that had decorations in all five of their windows along half a city block. Imagine it: hordes of humanity flowing by these windows on cold, crowded New York streets.

The first window had a sign that said, “The Smell of Christmas is in the Kitchen,” and behind the sign was an old kitchen with black stove and food cooking on it-you could almost smell the fragrance of Christmas.

The second window said, "The Taste of Christmas is in the Dining Room," and there was a long table covered with food-enough to make your mouth water.

The third window said, "The Color of Christmas is in the Tree," and it had a big, beautiful tree decorated with hundreds and hundreds of lights.

The fourth window said, “The Sound of Christmas is in the Carols,” and it had a group of animated figures that looked to be singing Christmas carols.

Next came the store's main entrance, and into that entrance was a steady stream of people going in and coming out. If you entered the store from that entrance then you had seen your last window but not the last window because just past the main entrance was one more window with a sign and a scene. The sign in that last window proclaimed, "But the Heart and Soul of Christmas is Here!" and it had a stable with shepherds and sheep, Mary and Joseph, and, of course, the baby Jesus.

These windows remind us that a lot of people will miss the joyful news of Christmas. They will be so caught up in food and decorations and shopping for gifts that they will follow the flow of that horde of humanity, and they will fail to see the heart and soul of Christmas: the birth of the Christ Child...and Mary's "Yes" to faith that made it all possible.

But it doesn't have to be that way for us. You see, Mary's "Yes" can be our "Yes." Mary's joy can be our joy. The baby conceived first in her heart 2000 years ago can be the Savior born in our own heart today.

Say "Yes" to faith.

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