Good Shepherd Lutheran

God’s Not Done
Mary sings: “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…”
Mary gets it. Who is she to be blessed? She figures, she was just the girl who said yes. A nobody. But God blessed her. What in the world is God thinking?
“…God’s mercy is on them that 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.”
Did you catch that? God’s plan turns everything upside-down. Scattering the powerful and the proud? What in the world is He thinking? Bringing down the mighty? Lifting up the lowly? Sending the rich away but providing a feast for the hungry? Far from a Silent Night, this stuff is guaranteed to bring a Christmas that’s anything but a quiet and comfortable one.
But that’s the story. That’s the gospel. God chooses the most unlikely of characters to be blessed forever. As one author puts it: “God is reversing everything: who’s in, who’s out; who’s up, who’s down. Who the winners are; who the losers are. Mary seems to charge the world with having gotten things pretty much exactly wrong.”
The world tells us, blessed are the beautiful. Blessed are the rich. Blessed are the successful. Blessed are the secure. But Mary tells us just the opposite. So, why would anyone listen to an unimportant peasant girl?”
And then a guy named Jesus comes around and echoes Mary’s refrain, “Blessed are the poor, blessed are the hungry, blessed are the meek.” What in the world is God thinking?
But maybe that’s not the right question. Maybe we shouldn’t be asking “What in the world is God thinking” but “What in the world are we thinking?” Do we think God is done with the poor and the lowly? Do we think God now blesses the rich and the mighty? Do we think God is done caring for the Mary’s of today with their food stamps and homeless shelters and hungry mouths to feed?
If we think God is done with all that and moved on from those old ideas, then we’ve got it made. But the thing is, God’s not done with all that and Christmas is the one time we most need to remember that.
Can you see that peasant girl bearing God’s own son? Can you believe that her manger-born son goes on to show us the way to perfect peace? Can you trust that God lifts up the lowly, the poor, the oppressed? And maybe most importantly, can you live it? Because God’s not done with us yet. And I’m glad he isn’t.