Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Let us pray.
Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for loving this world enough to lower yourself to come and join us as a human being.
We thank you for this beautiful world you have provided for us and forgive our sins for not taking care of it as well as you wished we would.
Today we acknowledge your name. We thank you, we praise you. We ask in return for your love that you will open our ears so that we can hear as clearly as Mary. Your words for us give us the strength and the will and the courage to carry out what you would have us do. Oh Lord, hear the words of your Bible. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Now the physician Luke interviewed the women and he recorded Mary's song in his first chapter.
She has just been told by the angel that she will give birth to the Messiah that they have been waiting for for hundreds of years. We wait few years and get frustrated. The Israelites had waited 400 years or more and Mary said, my spirit 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 and 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. This is the word of the Lord.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: The first two chapters of Luke's Gospel read in so many ways like a musical theater script, as the third Gospel tells the story of the months before, during and after the birth of Jesus. Not only are characters introduced and we see things happen and hear them dialogue with each other, but often these characters will seem to break into song. On four separate occasions in Luke chapters one and two, the language shifts from straight prose to something more like poetry or prophecy or lyrical verse. It's the kind of language that calls to our minds song lyrics. And many biblical scholars have argued that is exactly what we have. These four stretches of poetic or prophetic verse we find in Luke 1 and 2 May in fact be fragments of ancient hymns. They may be song lyrics that were actually sung in Jewish and Christian communities in the first century. And even if these stretches of poetic verse were not once Song lyrics. The Christian church has certainly heard them as such for the past 2000 years. Musicians have read the first two chapters of Luke and concluded as I have. You know, this sounds like musical theater. And they've set the words of these four stretches of lyrical verse to music.
One of those stretches is often called the Gloria. It's sometimes called the angel song. Soon after an angel announced to those shepherds that Ashley talked about about the birth of Jesus, we read of a heavenly host joining that angel and singing or saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to those whom God favors. Those words have been put time and again to mu. We sang one version of that in Hark, the Herald angels sing. Another is Angels we have Heard on High. But in addition to that rousing angel chorus, there are three separate solo numbers that we find in the first two chapters of Luke. Mary's given the first one. Darlene read the words to that solo this morning. A song often called the Magnificat, based on the first word Mary says in the Latin translation. The translation Magnificat, or magnified, is my soul by the Lord. Two weeks ago, we looked at that moment soon after Mary's song, when Zechariah, that who will be the father of John the Baptist, soon after he welcomes John into the world. Soon after John is named Zechariah, seems to burst into song. His words are often called the Benedictus when he sings of all God will do through this child, and especially through the child for whom his son John the Baptist would prepare the way. And then later in Luke chapter two, after Jesus has been born and he's brought by Mary and Joseph to Jerusalem, another character is introduced, someone, we learn, in whom the Holy Spirit had been working, someone who was righteous, Simeon. And Simeon, we read later in Luke, takes the child Jesus in his arms, and then he says or seems to sing a song that's often called the Nunc Dimittis, or Now dismiss your servant in peace, O master, my God, for my eyes have seen your salvation. A fourth song in the first two chapters of Luke, songs like these, interspersed with dialogue and storytelling. That, friends, is not just storytelling. That's not simply dramatic. That's musical theater. And I don't know about you, but I love stories that mix prose and poetry, spoken dialogue and song. Pull all that together and it can bring a story to life in ways that the spoken word alone just can't. This is one of the reasons that Luke's gospel is so beloved around this time of year. Christmas is a story that cries out to be not just told and not just acted, but but sung. And Luke's gospel gives us words with which to sing it. Words like the angel song, Mary's song, Zechariah's song, Simeon's song, Mary. She gets the opening solo in Luke's gospel. And if you've studied musical theater, you know the power an opening solo can have. An opening song can shape the whole story that follows. It can alert an audience who they should root for, who they should sympathize with, who will be the star or stars of the show, and what the central drama of the story will be. So much can be telegraphed as to what's coming in that opening song.
I remember learning the power of a solo in musical theater back in my middle school days. My school put on a production of Oklahoma. Oklahoma is a show about cowhands and farmers and their families in the day just before days just before Oklahoma became a state. Curly is the male lead, and he gets to sing not only a solo, he gets to sing the opening number of the whole show. His opening goes like this. Oh, what a beautiful morning oh, what a beautiful day I've got a beautiful feeling Everything's going my way.
That's the kind of song the great theater director Bob Foss would call an I am song. Bob Foss famously wrote, there are only three kinds of songs in musical theater. There are I am songs, there are I want songs, and then there's every other kind of song.
Curling gets an I am song. As his opener, he declares, I am optimistic, confident, charming, maybe a bit arrogant, but winsome, too. Delighting in the world around me, the world that will be called Oklahoma. It's a song where Curly essentially announces, this will be a show about this place and about me.
And he's right. He's right. It's made clear in the opening number. Well, soon after that solo, the female lead, Laurie, is introduced. She too gets to sing oh, what a beautiful morning oh, what a beautiful day I've got a beautiful feeling Everything's going my way Curly then approaches her in all his confidence. She turns to him, then turns away and says, oh, I thought you were somebody not to be dismissed that easily. Curly asks her on a date to the box social. She refuses, saying even if she had said yes, he has no suitable vehicle with which to take her to the box social. Curly then gets an I want song. He sings of wanting, desperately wanting to take Laurie to the box social in a fancy carriage with two horses, a vehicle he calls a surrey with a Fringe on top. And suddenly the whole drama of the musical is right before us in that opening song. Oh, what a Beautiful Morning. Will Curly get Laurie? Will Laurie choose Curly? Will they one day ride together in that surrey with a fringe on top as a loving couple? Or will something come between them that will be the central drama of the whole musical. And you knew it from the opening song.
Me? What part did I get to play?
I was cast as the villain.
I was the obstacle in that central relationship. I got to play Judd.
I was the guy who takes Lori to the box social instead of Curly. Though she really only did it because she wanted to make Curly jealous.
I'm the one who competed with Curly for Laurie and ultimately tries to kill Curly.
So should I, the villain, be given a solo number? Should I, the villain, be given a song where I am able to say I am or I want?
Now, many directors of Oklahoma at this particular time would say, no way. We don't want to confuse the story. This is a show about Curly and Laurie Judd, he's the obstacle in that relationship, nothing more. If you give Jud an I am song or an I want song, an audience might sympathize with Judd, even root for Judd. You don't want that. You can't have that.
But the original script of Oklahoma did have a solo in it for Judd. That song is called Lonely Room. And in it, Judd, sitting in his smokehouse, sings an I am and an I want song. He sings of being lonely, of feeling isolated. He sings of being touched by the words and gestures of Laurie. He sings of how her flowing hair and smile fill his dreams. He sings of feeling put down by Curly, who thinks he's so much better than everyone else.
Now. The song ends on a sinister tone, foreshadowing some of the violence Judd would unleash later in the play. But it does something all I am and I want songs can do. It helps an audience see a character not simply as a prop or an obstacle, but a true three dimensional figure in the drama.
So do you give Jud a solo, an I am an I want song or don't yout? Well, the director of my middle school production wrestled with this question. After casting me as Judd, he had me sing Lonely Room. And before having me sing it, he told me he wasn't sure he wanted to include it. He was worried it made Judd too sympathetic. But after I'd finished the song, I remember seeing him on this piano bench pondering. And then he says, I think I'll include it. And I got a solo I realized that day the power that can be known in a solo in musical theater.
In today's passage, Mary, the mother of Jesus, is not only given a solo, she's given the first song in the musical that is Luke's Gospel. She, like Curly, is being given the opening number. She's given the power to proclaim in song, this is what the story is going to be all about.
And I don't know about you, but I expect to hear Mary sing an I am or an I want song, or both. I expect her to sing oh, what a Beautiful Morning.
After all, she'd recently been told by the angel Gabriel that she was soon to give birth to the Messiah, the son of David. And just before bursting into song, she had greeted her cousin Elizabeth. And Elizabeth shared that upon that greeting, the child in Elizabeth's womb, the child who would be John the Baptist, had leapt for joy. Elizabeth had said to Mary, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Surely Mary was feeling elated in that moment. Why shouldn't she sing oh, what a beautiful morning oh, what a beautiful day I've got a beautiful feeling Everything's going my way Knowing she would give birth to a king, I half expect Mary to sing a song like the one Elphaba sings early on in the musical Wicked. Elphaba, the lead character in Wicked, the one who would become the Wicked Witch of the west, feels like an outcast as a result of her green skin. But she has gifts when it comes to magic, and Elphaba imagines in one of her I Am and I Want songs, what it would be like if she could just meet with the wondrous wizard of Oz. He, she imagines, would realize she was special. He would make her his partner, and what a great team we would be. Elphaba envisions ruling Oz as a team. That song Elphaba has is called the wizard and I. The wizard and I. And, you know, I expect Mary to sing a song like Jesus and I or the King and I. I guess that's already been taken.
This is musical theater, and Mary has the opening number.
But here's what Mary sings.
My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For God 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. Holy is God's name.
What is Mary doing? She's given the opening song, and instead of singing a song of the self, and I am or and I Want song, a song like Curly Sings, where it's all about me. Mary directs the audience's attention squarely and unequivocally to God. Mary sings of how her soul, her identity, her joy are rich and wondrous, but they're wrapped up in this character. She is introducing the audience to God, the mighty one, the Lord, her Savior. That character, she proclaims, will be the star of the show, not her. If there is an I am or an I want nature to this opening number, Mary sings, then the I is God.
It's like Mary in her opening number is singing, this is a beautiful day and I have a beautiful feeling. But just so we're clear, me and my feelings, me and my identity, they're not the lead role in this musical. Generations will call me blessed, Mary sings, but it is for what the Lord has done in me. And let me tell you more about this God, this lead, the star of the show that is unfolding right before your eyes. God, Mary sings, is merciful not just to me, but to all generations. God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. God has brought down the powerful from their thrones those who think they are the stars of the show. And God has lifted up the lowly and placed them in God's great story of justice.
God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. God has helped not only me, but all God's people, as God promised God would do back in the days of Abraham and Sarah.
Mary, in her opening song, directs our attention squarely to what this show will be all about and who will play the lead role, who has always played the leading role. This story, Mary sings, is not primarily a story about me, though. It is a story about me. Mary sings. I, Mary, have been lifted up, but my soul magnifies the Lord.
My spirit rejoices not in just myself, but in God, my Savior. My story, wondrous as it is, is wrapped up in a bigger story still. The story of God's mercy, unleashing strength, showing proud, scattering kingdom, toppling, lowly, lifting, hungry, feeding, rich, denying promise, keeping God of Israel, the God of all creation.
People may call me blessed, Mary sings, and I have a great song to sing and a great roll to play play in this show. But there's a bigger story out there than just me. And I am joyfully, blessedly, magnificently wrapped up in the plans and purposes of a loving, merciful and justice seeking God. God is the lead character in the story of history and the story of Christmas If Luke's gospel is a musical, friends, the lead, the star and the director is God. Mary makes it clear in her grand opening number.
And true to Mary's solo, the central character of Luke's gospel will in fact be not Mary, not Zechariah, not Simeon, not the angels, and certainly not Joseph, who gets a bit parted. Best. No one wants to play Joseph in musicals or pageants. I mean, what kind of role does he have? He usually doesn't even get dialogue. At least according to Luke's Gospel, the lead role is played by God. God the Holy Spirit is the one who we read in Luke first makes Mary to be with child, and then it's the Holy Spirit that gives her a song, that gives Zechariah a song, that gives Simeon a song. God the Son will come to earth in a child born of Mary. And that child, that king, would show people precisely this God about whom Mary sings, this God to whom Mary points. In Jesus, people will see God showing mercy to the sick and the outcast. In Jesus, people will see God bringing down the powerful like temple priests or even King Herod himself from their lofty thrones. In Jesus, people would see God bringing up the humble like fishermen, tax collectors, and so many women, women even with bad reputations.
In Jesus, people will see God helping a people, Israel calling 12 apostles to be a kind of new 12 tribes of Israel where all welcome to be God's people. Jesus in his life and ministry, his words and his actions. Jesus in his death and resurrection would show people in the theater of God's glory precisely this God about whom Mary sings and God the divine parent, the creator of all things, the author and director of the whole show will raise this Jesus from the dead. And Christ will send his followers out to bring this show, the Jesus show, the gospel show to all the earth by the power of the Holy Spirit at work within them.
Luke's gospel is like musical theater, and the show is all about God. And just so we don't miss that, just so we can't miss that, Mary points us right to it in her opening solo.
Friends, so many of the stories we tell today in musical theater, in books, in television, in film, they place the self front and center. They're like Curly screaming out, this is a show about me.
They place the self as the central star of the show. And don't get me wrong, I am and I want. Songs are great. I love to hear them and I love to sing them. I loved getting a solo number as Judd. It felt great. And I love getting A solo as Matt telling my story. Who I am, what I want. I love the chance to know and be known by others. I am. And I want songs. I want to hear yours. Those we sing and those we hear help us to know and be known by others. I love those songs.
But Mary's song, the Magnificat, reminds us that if we're not careful, we can think. Those are the only kind of songs out there, the only songs one can possibly sing. And great as they are, I am and I want songs by their very nature, just smaller songs, you know, they speak of just one individual, like a Curly or a Judd or a Lori or a youth or me. And fascinating as those individuals can be, especially you and me, they we are just individuals in those songs. And there's a bigger song, there's a more magnificent drama going on, one in which Mary and Zechariah and Simeon and you and me, we all get to play a part, we all get a song to sing. And it's a story for the ages, a story of salvation. Not just yours and mine, but salvation of the whole earth. It's a story of the whole world's renewal, A story of God come to Earth, of God lifting up the poor, bringing down the high and mighty and sending good news and vessels of that good news to the very ends of the earth. Oh, to be wrapped up as a whole self, a glorious purpose, a glorious song beyond just ourselves.
That's what we get in Luke's gospel. That's what we get in the Christmas story.
So this Christmas, don't miss the message of Mary's song. Don't miss the star of the show, My show, your show, the whole world show. Don't miss the God who is merciful, just and mighty. Don't miss the God who's been at work through history and will be at work in the world in a new way in days to come. Don't miss the God who came to be with us, a child born in Bethlehem. And don't miss the God who is at work right now in you. By the power of the Holy Spirit, don't miss that marvelous song you get to sing. And it's a song that can go something like this.
My soul magnifies the Lord, My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, amen.
