Singing to the Lord
A Sermon by the Reverend Dr. Bob Prichard for the Fourth Sunday in Advent (B), December 19, 2021.
Canticle 15; Luke 1:39-45
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
If you look at any modern edition of the Bible, you will find that most verses are set as prose, but that some are set verse form, suggesting that the contemporary editors believe that they were intended to be sung or recited as poetry. In some cases the editors infer this from the grammatical construction, but in other cases there are instructions to sing and even in a few cases directions about musical accompaniment. The instruction at the beginning of Psalm 66 in the NRSV translation is this: “To the leader. A Song. A Psalm,” while Psalm 55 includes a reference “To the leader with stringed instruments.”
This is truer of the Old Testament than the New. Some whole books of the Old Testament are set in verse, such as the Psalms, Proverbs, and the Song of Solomon. The authors of the historical books identify high points in their narrative with the use of song. Moses and his sister Miriam sing in celebration of the escape of Israel at the Red Sea, and Hannah bursts into song when she brings her son Samuel to the shrine at Shiloh, where she had devoutly prayed for his birth. Large portions of the prophets are also in verse like the Suffering Servant songs in Isaiah or the song of the three young Men in Daniel. It should not be a surprise, I suppose, to learn that two Books of the Bible quoted most often in the Handel’s Messiah are Isaiah (21 verses) and the Psalms (12 verses).
The New Testament authors seem less aware of song and verse. Matthew, for example, May know a lot about Jewish custom and worship but appears to know little about Hebrew poetry. He quotes Zechariah 9:9—your king come to you: triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey—as foretelling of Jesus’ Palm Sunday entrance into Jerusalem without understand the role of repetition in Hebrew poetry. Zechariah wrote of one animal, but repeated the idea for emphasis. Matthew misunderstands and seems to have Jesus riding like a circus performer astride two beasts (Matthew 21:6).
Luke and the author of Revelation are the primary exception to the general disinterest in verse and song among New Testament authors. Luke, from whom we heard twice today—in the canticle after the Old Testament lesson and as the Gospel reading—believes that song can be the vehicle for the delivery of the Good News of Jesus Christ our Lord. Both songs relate to Mary, and both have continued to resound in the life of the Church ever since. The first is the song of Elizabeth, an older kinswoman of Mary, and the second, which was our canticle today, is Mary’s response to Elizabeth. The setting for both songs is a visit by Mary to Elizabeth in the hill country of Judea. Both women were unexpectedly pregnant—Mary as a virgin and Elizabeth in advanced age.
In Luke’s Gospel Mary has gotten the news that she is to bear the Messiah from the angel Gabriel, and she struggles to understand it. But it is when these two pregnant women come together that she really grasps that news.
One of the tip-offs in Luke’s Gospel that a song is coming is the description that a speaker is “filled with the Holy Spirit.” It occurs here in the description of Elizabeth and in chapter 2 in the description of Zachariah’s song about their son. Luke I think is hinting at his understanding of the importance and power of song. Elizabeth proclaims to Mary:
Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?
For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.
And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.
In some traditions this song has been joined to the greeting of Gabriel (Luke 1:28) and a non-biblical petition (“Pray for us sinners now and at the hour our death.”) to become the Hail Mary or the Ave Maria.
I love what follows next. When Mary hears these words from Elizabeth, she does not claim her own worthiness or come up with a first century version of Maria’s “I feel Pretty” of Westside Story. Instead she confesses her own unworthiness, thanks God for what God has done, and views her own experience as a sign of God’s compassion to the lowly and the hungry.
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 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.
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.
Rather than basking in her new found importance, Mary praises God’s goodness to the unworthy and recalls God’s goodness in the past. One of the verses Luke includes in this song is a clear reference to the escape at the Red Sea. He has shown strength with his arm. A version of that phrase shows up in ten times in the Old Testament as referring to the Exodus from Egypt. In Deuteronomy 5:15, for example, Moses says, “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.”
Marcia and I attended two winter concerts last week at local schools. You will not be surprised to learn that our grandchildren were among the instrumentalists. They performed well along the lines that we have grown accustomed to hear in the past fifty years—selections of winter music populated primarily by secular Christmas songs—Jingle Bells, White Christmas, Frosty the Snow Man, with a Dreidel or Kwanzaa song thrown in for diversity.
I enjoyed such selection but wonder how excited one can get about a snow man or a ride in a sleigh.
But every once and awhile, particularly in medleys, however we a caught a glimpse of some real joy—Come all ye faithful or God Rest ye, Merry, gentleman.
Luke knows this how song and verse can move people, and will continue to populate his gospel with them. When Jesus returns to Nazareth in Luke 4, he cites the verses of Isaiah’s song of comfort to the downtrodden. In chapter 10, Luke uses the formula “rejoiced in the Holy Spirit,” with which he introduces song for a declaration of thanksgiving by Jesus. And in Luke 23 when he describes the death on the cross, Luke along put a verse on Jesus’ lips: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” from Psalm 31:5, which many of the early readers would have known continues with “for you have redeemed me, O Lord, O God of Truth.”
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
This day we join with Elizabeth and Mary as they proclaim the greatness of the Lord and the coming of our Savior.
Amen.