Joy to the World: one woman's story
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Joy to the world?
Joy to the world?
I feel like I need to start with a trigger warning. I am going to talk a bit about Covid. But not for too long.
In December last year, there were all kinds of reasons to expect a normal Christmas. We’d just done a whole month of lockdown, and come out of it. Here in London, we were in one of the lower tiers, and things were looking promising. I remember preaching on December 12th about hope.
On the Tuesday of that week, we decided it was wisest to cancel our outdoor carol service planned for that weekend. On the Wednesday, I was pinged to go into isolation. Some time that week our Senior Pastor came down with Covid. By the following week, it was becoming clear that Christmas wouldn’t be normal. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the pictures of the mainline stations absolutely rammed as people queued to get out of London and back to whatever shire they came from. Plans got smaller and smaller, stripped down to the bare elements before even that became illegal, and we were told we had to have Christmas just with the people we lived with.
I don’t know that any of you need me to tell you how terrible January was. We lost a dearly loved brother in our church family here. There was the constant background noise of sirens. The nightly news stopped even pretending to be objective, and instead of newsreaders relaying facts, we had sad poems read out in sombre voices over footage of the London Hospital, just up the road from us here.
It was a hard winter.
And now it feels a bit like we might be back there. Hopefully we’re not going to see the same medical situation as last year. But already we’ve had to change lots of plans, and even best case scenario we’re probably all going to end up changing more.
It has been a bit of a rollercoaster of despair, joy and then despair again.
Which is a very long way of introducing Mary’s experience as the mother of Jesus. But I think maybe these past two years can help us connect emotionally with the rollercoaster.
The story begins In the Beginning. Humanity, woven by God to be his representatives in a good world. Then rebellion. Then rescue. And a cycle begins of rebellion and rescue as God designates one people, from the thousands of peoples on the earth, to be his representatives in the fallen world. Israel is born, but the cycle continues.
When we meet Mary, Israel had lost its land, and regained it. But they were no longer an independent nation, but were at the mercy of whichever Empire happened to be dominating Palestine at the time. The Persians and Greeks have had their day, and now it is Rome. Empire of gladiators, roads, aqueducts. You’re free to worship any god, as long as you don’t go on too much about there being just one God.
Expectations are high - Israel’s prophets spoke 400 years before of this time of Empire, and of One who God would send, to set the people free. There was an even older story, that one born of a woman would rise up to crush the head of the old serpent, breaking sin’s curse.
Israel have a king, Herod, but he’s not even really one of them. The people long for freedom, they look back to the high point of their nation under King David. They pray, they read their scriptures. Some just get on with life, but some are waiting, hoping for the One called Messiah.
Into this moment, in an insignificant little corner, an Angel.
The angel appears to this young girl, as we heard earlier. Telling her that she will bear a child and He will be the restoration of David’s kingdom. It’s finally here.
More angels appear, this time to Shepherds out in the fields.
8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.
The shepherds are terrified. The usual reaction to angels.
The shepherds tell Mary the angels said ‘great joy to all the people’
And so her Son, the One, He grows up,. She seems him growing in wisdom, and stature. He impresses people with his understanding. At some point in his early thirties, Mary is at a wedding, and Jesus turns water that is used for religious rites into wine for celebration. Things are going well. There’s a gathering following. The centuries of waiting have come to this.
And then, the cross.
25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” 27 and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
Mary was there. Watching as they killed her Son, the One. The One who was to sit on the throne of His Father David, hung on a cross with criminals, executed by the Empire.
There is a song that some sing at Christmas - Mary did you know. Did she know? When she saw him die on the cross, did she know?
We don’t know what she knew, but we do know that those who had followed Jesus despaired. Not all of them abandoned him, some of them bravely tried to look after his dead body, burying it in their family tomb, preparing to embalm him in a final act of love. But mainly they were afraid, and deeply, deeply sad.
Back to Mary. At that moment, watching him die, did she think back to the song of the angels? Did she wonder how she was favoured? Did she wonder how His birth meant joy to all the people?
Christians live in the now and not yet. We live in Christmas and Easter. We celebrate the birth of Jesus. We celebrate that his death for us was followed by his resurrection. And then as the nights grow darker again we celebrate advent. It’s a time when we think about what it was like before His first coming, to focus our minds on his second coming.
The word Gospel comes from a word meaning proclamation of a king. It was used when a new king or caesar was born or appointed. Riders would go out with the good news. And then in the weeks and months that followed, the people would find out whether it really was good news.
Jesus is good news now - we have heard just one story of that from Elin this evening, and if you come back to our church some time, you can hear more stories of how Jesus is good news in the lives of lots of different peoples, from different backgrounds.
But we also live in the reality that evil is still here. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it, but the darkness is still here, for now. Jesus is good news to come.
Advent is a time when we remember the first coming of Jesus, and we look forward to His second coming.
We don’t know what is ahead of us in the next few weeks. We don’t really know for certain where we will be on Christmas Day. There is still sickness, and death, in this world.
But Joy has been proclaimed, joy is unrolling through the centuries and across the nations. Mary had hope, Mary saw death, and then she joined the church that formed around the risen Jesus.
If you’re feeling scared about what the next few months will hold.
If you’re feeling like you can’t take any more uncertainty, any more lockdowns, any more jabs.
If you’re grieving, carrying disappointment because life promised you so much, and now you see those dreams hanging on a cross.
Then this next Song is for you. O Come, O Come Emmnauel.
Emmanual means God with us. Every advent we look around and we say ‘Come and be with us, God’.
Followers of Jesus can sing it confidently, knowing that He promises to always be with us.
So I will ask our choir to come back, and we will sing this together now.
O Come, O Come Emmanuel.