Elizabeth’s Song – Luke 1:8-17,39-45

Transcript (Auto-generated)

This transcript has been automatically generated, and therefore may not be 100% accurate.

We'll try this mic, this one still, that one. Not doing anything today, so we'll keep this one. Good morning, everyone. It's great to be with you here today. Thank you, Henry.

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Sam and I'm one of the church family here at All Saints Totley. And it's a great pleasure to be with you today to look at this part of God's word together. So before we do that, why don't I just pray? Heavenly Father, we thank you so much that you are a God who reveals yourself to a fallen and sinful people. We thank you so much that that is a big theme of Christmas, Lord, that you came down to earth in order to rescue us.

And we pray today, Lord, that as we hear from your word, that you would encourage us greatly as we think upon your promises and the great joy we can have in them. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Well, if it's your first time with us today or you're visiting, a really great big welcome from all of us here. It's great to have you with us and you join us, as Ben said, in a series where we're looking at the songs of Advent.

Chris, have we got the slides? Thank you very much. We're looking at the songs Songs of Advent. Our series is called Looking at these Stories from the Bible, these songs from the Bible that point to the great hope that we have because God became man. Well, today we're going to look at a passage that we've just had read from us, from Luke's account of Jesus' life and in particular we're going to look at Elizabeth's song.

If we can have the next slide. Chris, I have on good authority that is what Elizabeth looked like. So, yeah, Taylor Swift, eat your heart out. I tell you now, if I were to write a song, it would be a song like this. Short, not a lot of structure, not very melodic or tuneful.

In fact, as Ben said, you know, not really much of a song at all. But we're told Elizabeth exclaimed these things with a loud voice. So we'll stick with song, we'll let this one in. Well, whether it's a song or not, what we see here is the joy that Advent can bring as we wait for the coming of Jesus and as we see God's promises coming true. If we could have the next slide up, Chris.

So to get us thinking a bit about this, I just want to ask you this question. What gets in the way of your joy in Jesus? What gets in the way of your joy in Jesus? I'm sure there's many things that can come to mind quite quickly and others will come, as you think on it, a bit more. And it wouldn't surprise me if they fall into these sort of two buckets, really.

The first one is distractions. If we can have the next slide. Chris, these are things that pull us away from thinking about God's promises and finding joy in all that Jesus has done for us. Now, these things, they could be almost anything. Not bad things in themselves, but things that just take our focus away from God.

See, we're great as sinful people at taking those good things God has given and making them the ultimate thing, making them a replacement of God. Take Christmas, for example. Christmas, prime example. A whole season built around celebrating the birth of Jesus. And yet so often that can be forgotten in the busyness, the rush, the present vying, the wrapping, all the preparation.

What about other things that we've got on the slide here? Things like social media, gaming, sports, whether they're watching or playing, money, possessions, popularity. These are things. They all have the ability to take our focus from Jesus and steal our joy. Well, secondly, there's things that tempt us to doubt God's goodness and his promises.

These may be things like suffering, illness, persecution, financial struggles, bullying, the things that can make life really tough and eat away at that joy we have in Jesus and make us doubt God's promises. Well, today in our passage, we see some excitement and joy from those who were trusting God's promises and looking forward to Jesus initial coming. And my prayer today is that we can take some encouragement from that and be reminded of our joy and hope at this season of Advent. So we're going to set our song in its place, give it a bit of context. Then we're going to sing a song and have some prayers.

And then in the second part of the song, the second part of the talk, we will look more at the song itself. So here is what Luke has told us so far in his gospel. Next slide, Chris. Thank you. So Zechariah, Zechariah was Elizabeth's husband.

He's on duty in the temple. He's there, that lovely stick man. He goes on duty in the temple and he's visited by an angel who tells him that God has heard his prayer and Elizabeth will have a son and they are to call him John. Now, at this point, Zechariah is obviously completely devastated that he wasn't told to call his baby Sam. But an angel tells you to call your baby a name, you give it that name.

But anyway, Zechariah is told a few key things about this baby as well.

So we're told by the angel that John will be a great joy and delight to Zechariah and Elizabeth, that many will rejoice because of his birth. He will be great in the sight of the Lord. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

See, here is a baby, not just any baby. This is a baby with some importance. The angel is telling us that John has been set apart. He's been set apart for a special job and a role that God is equipping him and getting him ready to prepare people for the coming of someone even more important for the coming of Jesus. Well, Zechariah, he didn't respond in the best way to this next slide.

Chris, thank you. So Zechariah had some doubts and he questions this and he's actually, as a result of that, he's silenced. Zechariah doesn't talk again until John is born. But thankfully for Zechariah, John was born eventually, God's word stood and Elizabeth, who's looking lovely and dashing there, she becomes pregnant. So God's word did come true.

The story then jumps six months on and moves from a pregnant Elizabeth to one of her relatives, Mary.

Now, some of you may look at that slide and think, I've got the wrong Mary there. But I would argue none of us know what Mary looks like. So we'll do away with the blue shawl and the angelic face and we'll go with umbrella and bag instead. Well, Mary, similarly to Zachariah, she receives a visit from an angel. And Mary's also told that she will have a baby.

And this is what Mary's told about her baby. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever. His kingdom will never end. So just a small everyday bit of news that Mary receives there.

And we see Mary's response there on the slide. She responds slightly differently to Zechariah. She says, I am the Lord's servant. May your word to me be fulfilled. So Mary takes God at his word and then we're told she gets ready.

She hurries off to visit her relative Elizabeth, no doubt desperate to share this news. With her full of joy and excitement at what she's just been told. So that's where we're up to when we then come to Mary visiting Elizabeth. So we're going to stop there and in the next part of the talk, we'll look more at Elizabeth's song itself. But now we're going to stand again and we're going to sing a song.

It's a song that picks up on just praising God for all the things that Jesus was promised he was going to come and do, and he did them. And this song is a song that picks up on praising him for that. So do stand, if you're able, as we sing Happy Day. Great. So back to our story.

So Mary, we've seen, just been told she's going to give birth to Jesus and she is excited about this news, she wants to share it. And so we're told in our passage that she hurries off, she gets ready and she hurries off to go and visit her relative and Elizabeth. So Mary arrives and greets Elizabeth and then a few things happen which trigger our song today. If we're all right to get the slides up, Chris?

Perfect. So, firstly, at the sound of Mary's voice, we're told Elizabeth's baby leaps in the womb. And secondly, Elizabeth, we're told she's filled with the Holy Spirit, which leads her to exclaim loudly her song. Chris, blessed are you among women and blessed is the child you will bear. But why am I so favoured that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfil his promises to her. It's a short song. We'll still go with song, but there's a lot. There's a lot happening here.

So we've already seen in our story. We've been told that John leapt in the womb when Mary arrived and greets Elizabeth, and then Elizabeth includes it in her song as well. The baby in my womb leaped for joy. Now, this is seemingly quite an odd thing to have happened. There's no obvious reason why the unborn John would be leaping in Elizabeth's womb at the sound of Mary's voice.

We know babies can move and kick in the womb. We know they can respond to voices they're familiar with. But to leap at the sound of a voice they barely knew, that's quite odd, quite unusual. That is, until we remember who John was. See, here is the baby that would Come and would be pointing everyone to Jesus.

So you remember Zechariah was told about John that he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God and he will make ready a people prepared for the Lord. See, so here is God at work. Yes, it's unusual, but it's God's work. You see, here is John.

He is in his role as a prophet already, starting even before he is born. At the arrival of Mary, who would be his Lord's mother, he leaps for joy already pointing people to the coming of Jesus and to the work God is doing to rescue his people. This is then something Elizabeth recognises too. See, she knows what's going on. Forget the next slide up, Chris, blessed are you among women and blessed is the child you will bear.

See, John leaping for joy in her womb points Elizabeth to the fact that Mary's baby is not just any baby. This is Jesus, her Lord and saviour. And Elizabeth responds, but why am I so favoured that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Mary's baby would be her Lord and saviour. And Elizabeth, she's humbled to be a part of it all, joyful to witness God's work and his promises coming true.

And then Elizabeth finishes by praising Mary for her faith. The next slide, Chris. Thank you. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfil his promises to her. In the verses just before our passage, when the angel visits Mary, the angel tells Mary, for no word from God will ever fail.

No word from God will ever fail. And Mary realised the truth of these words. And it's Mary's faith, her trust in those words, in God's promises to her, that Elizabeth praises her for in this song. See, in contrast to Zechariah, Mary did take God at his word. She was excited, she was thrilled at the news, she wanted to go and share it.

And she gets ready and rushes off to see Elizabeth. God's promises became her focus. See, God had promised that a saviour was coming and no word of his will fail. And Mary and Elizabeth, the unborn John, we see them all rejoicing in that truth. So here we have a song, Elizabeth's song.

It's grown out of a deep joy in witnessing God's work, his promises coming true. And a song praising faith in those promises. So what does this mean for us today in Totley? The next slide. Thanks, Chris.

How can adventure help us find our joy again? Is it relevant? Does it do anything. How can it help? Well, there's two things that I just wanted to highlight from Elizabeth's song and those two things are faith and focus.

If we have the next slide up, Chris, see, our situation is a bit different to that of Mary and Elizabeth's. For one, despite my belly sometimes looking like that, I'm not a pregnant lady. But mainly the difference is Jesus has come. There's a busy slide. This one might take a bit of deciphering, but Elizabeth and Mary, see, they looked forward to the coming of Jesus.

They were trusting God's promise of a Saviour being born. We can look back knowing that they did so. That's us on the right hand side over there. We can look back on those things. Jesus was born.

God did become man. He lived, he died and he rose again. So we have immeasurable more reasons to take God at His word and trust in his promises for us. We can find joy in this season as we see how God has been at work throughout history, as we see how he continues to work today to change us, to make us more like him and how he brings others into his family. This year at All Saints Totley, we've celebrated our centenary year.

We can look back and see how God has been at work in Totley over 100 years and more. We can trust God to work and have faith that his promises will come true. Even when things aren't as we want. We can still respond in faith, even when the full reality of what will be is not yet visible. If we have the next slide up, Chris.

But while our situation is different to that of Elizabeth and Mary, there are also similarities as well. So again, another busy slide. And what this one is telling us is that Mary and Elizabeth, they were looking forward to the promise of Jesus being born. But we have been told that Jesus will come back. God has promised that Jesus will return and will gather his people to himself.

And so, just as Mary and Elizabeth lived in hope of Jesus first coming, we live in light of Jesus second coming, the hope of eternal life with Him. Like Mary, we too can make that promise, our focus. We can let it bring excitement and joy. We can let it shape our actions and what we do with our time and our money, our possessions. We can act in light of it, knowing the hope that we have because it is God who has promised it.

See, we can use this season to help pull each other away from those distractions we looked at at the start and focus instead on God's work of salvation and his promises coming true. See God will do what he has promised. His word will never fail so we can let those promises of forgiveness, of salvation and restoration be our focus. And in this season of Advent my prayer is that we really remind one another to keep trusting God to look to those promises. Remind one another of the work God has done and the promises he has made for us in Jesus and there is where we will find our joy.

Let me finish with a prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are the source of all goodness. You are the source of all light and joy and wonder. We pray in this season as we think of what it means that Jesus was born, that we would be astounded at what took place on that first Christmas that it would really shape our focus, that it would enable us to have great joy and faith knowing that your word never fails and your promises of salvation will come true. And we pray this in Jesus name Amen.