1. Something to Sing About?
a. Sheer joy
There is great joy in victory. The Spaniards were ecstatic when they won the World Cup for the first time in 2010. America and their ally countries celebrated the end of World War II in jubilant delight. Some of us students would be extremely happy on receiving a high distinction, or a pass if we had only been studying the night before the examination. Still others would feel great joy when the girl of their dreams said 'yes' to going out, or to marriage. There is great thankfulness involved in all the above scenarios.
b. Christians
Christians are a people of thankfulness. In Colossians 3:16, we read of how Christians are to 'let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God'.
c. No... nothing!
But there was a time in history when the people of God had nothing to sing about!
"By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there we hung up our lyres.
For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
How shall we sing the LORD's song in a foreign land?" (Psalm 137:1-4)
How do we get from Psalm 137 when there was no singing, to Colossians 3 when the people of God have so much to sing about?
2. Angel's Words Fulfilled
In Luke 1:39-80, we read of 2 songs. The first is the song of Mary, widely known as the Magnificat, meaning "magnify", the word coming from the first line of her song in verse 46. The second song is the song of Zechariah, also known as the Benedictus, meaning "I bless", the idea coming from the first word of his song in verse 68.
a. Mary
The joy of a person depends on the context. What is the person happy about?
The immediate context for joy is the fulfilment of the words of the angel.
v39 - Mary rushes to see her relative Elizabeth to see if the angel's words were so, and indeed they were!
v41 to 44 - The baby leaps in Elizabeth's womb at the greeting of Mary. Though it could have been coincidental, the leap of the baby in Elizabeth's womb is interpreted as a leap for joy by Elizabeth.
v43 signals the shift of focus from John to Mary's child. Mary's child is noted to be the Lord! It is clear from the context that the emphasis is not on Mary as the Lord's mother, but rather on the baby in Mary's womb! Sadly, there has been a misplaced emphasis on Mary as the Lord's mother throughout church history.
b. Zechariah
For Zechariah, the immediate context for joy is also the fulfilment of the words of the angel!
v57 - a boy is born, fulfilling the angel's promise! In those days there was no ultrasound, so it was impossible to have known the gender of the baby before birth.
v59 - In those days, they would have called the child after Zechariah; fathers and sons would be given the same name.
v60 to 64 - As Zechariah pens down his son's name (in accordance with the instructions of the angel in v13), insisting that his son be called John, his tongue is loosed and he is able to speak. Imagine not being able to speak for 9 months! He would definitely be ecstatic.
c. God of promise
But beyond the immediate context for joy, there was also a bigger context. These were once in a lifetime events: as seen in the previous weeks' talks, many Jews were waiting for a savior. Of all Jews, only Zechariah and Elizabeth were chosen, only Mary was chosen. They were chosen to be part of the fulfilment of God's promise to the whole of Israel, and to the whole world. God was fulfilling His promise through them!
The above is in line with what Mary and Zechariah were singing about.
The song of Mary (v46-55) has 3 main ideas:
1) I magnify the Lord
2) because He has done great things for her, a nobody
3) He helps the nobodies of Israel as He fulfills His age old promise to Abraham
The song of Zechariah (v68-79) has 2 main ideas:
1) God is fulfilling His age old promise
2) My child is going to go before the Lord to tell of His salvation
What is this salvation Zechariah is talking about? In discussing salvation, it is always important to ask the following 4 things: What or who is Israel needing saving from? What is Israel being saved for? What or who is Israel being saved by? And why is Israel needing saving?
3. "Salvation"
Israel is:
a. Saved from
v52 - being nobodies
v71, 74 - their enemies
v68 - slavery and bondage (especially to Babylon. When Israel was conquered by Babylon, their best and richest people were taken to exile and scattered all over Babylon. The king of Israel had his sons executed in his presence, following which his eyes were plucked out so that the last thing he ever saw was his dynasty ending before his very eyes, with no one to hand the throne down to. At this point of history, Israel was under Roman rule).
Why had they become enslaved to foreign rule?
v77 - sin. They had sinned against God. They needed saving first and foremost from their sin.
Sin leads to darkness and the shadow of death (v79)
b. Saved for
v74 - serving God, living for Him, away from enemies
v79 - peace or 'Shalom' - goodwill, security and safety. Peace is what God promises His people.
c. Saved by
v46 - "God my Savior". This verse speaks against Mary being divine or perfect, since she acknowledges that she herself needs saving.
What kind of savior is He? He
v49, 52 - is mighty
v51 - has a strong arm. In the Old Testament, God is known to save by His strong arm.
v69 - He is like David the King. The horn of salvation is a symbol of strength, like the horns on a bull.
v71 - He is a great warrior king, not a cute cuddly Jesus
v76 - is the Most High. John the Baptist will go before Him and announce God's salvation
d. Saved because
v72, 78 - God is merciful.
Many of us find it hard to understand the idea of mercy because we were brought up in a meritocratic society. We are rewarded based on merit. However, if we were to be rewarded based on God's view on us, we are doomed! We are sinful, we are His enemies. By praying give us what we deserve, we are in real trouble.
God is merciful because even though we deserve His judgment, He saves us instead. Mercy cannot be demanded - if it could it would be called merit. In fact, His people didn't even take the initiative to request for mercy (v54-55). His mercy had been promised before to His people (v72-73).
4. Songs of Hope
a. Nationalistic Israel... Materialistic Gentiles
These songs are about God acting to fulfill His word, God acting to show His patient mercy. The songs of praise are not just 'praise God!' repeated a thousand times. They speak of who He is and what He has done. He is merciful.
The songs are songs of hope as well. The babies have not done anything yet. They have not yet grown up. Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary and the other Jews were still looking forward to a future time.
The Jews expect their nation to be saved politically, nationalistically, even by military force (v68-69). This is understandable since salvation in the Old Testament was physical. Even in Acts 1:6, Jesus' disciples were looking for the time when Israel would be restored as a political nation. Some people even thought that the restoration of Israel finally occurred in 1948, when Israel finally became a sovereign state. However, this is unlikely since there is still no 'shalom' or peace. There is much fighting in the Middle East today. God promised them complete rest and peace from enemies. Furthermore, Jesus Himself did not expect the restoration to occur by military strength. At his arrest, Peter one of his disciples drew his sword in an attempt to protect his master. Jesus calmly asked him to put his sword away (Matt 26:47-56)
On the other hand, Gentile Christians commonly think God will bring about physical salvation in the sense of material wealth. A book 'The Prayer of Jabez' demonstrates the idea. It is based on 1 Chronicles 4:10, where a man named Jabez prays to God, "Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain!" God granted what he asked. Just like Jabez, Gentile Christians like to say that if we had faith just like Jabez, we would also b granted prosperity and good health.
However, this view fails to acknowledge that the time Jabez was praying this prayer was in the Old Testament, when God's people had been promised a land of their own, the Promised Land. Jabez was rightly praying for the expansion of the Promised Land, in line with what God had promised earlier. In the Old Testament, that was how the Jews understood salvation - it was a physical salvation from their enemies.
However in the New Testament, salvation is not a physical salvation. The songs of Mary and Zechariah are fulfilled at a spiritual level. All the promises find their 'Yes!' and 'Amen!' in Christ Jesus (2 Cor 1:20). We are to look at Jesus, and see how all the promises are fulfilled in Jesus.
b. Spiritual Christians
God's promised salvation is thus - we don't need to do anything to be forgiven of our sins. Jesus has paid the penalty for us (Luke 24:44-47)! In Jesus, we have been saved from eternal death. We now listen to the voice of the King because we have been saved.
c. Now & not yet
Yet, we will still have enemies in this life, and we still struggle with sin. So we look forward to the day when Jesus returns, the day when we will be completely saved from our enemies, and from pain and suffering in this world.
I chanced upon your blog. Interesting thoughts. I am not a christian myself. I have visited Focus a couple of times. But I have always pondered to myself, in order to be a greater being, does that mean that you have to embrace and accept your enemies?
ReplyDeleteHi there, thanks for commenting. That's a very good question. =)
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure about being a greater being, but as Christians we certainly do have many privileges, such as being able to talk to God and relate to Him as Father.
Becoming Christian is as simple as acknowledging that we are God's creatures who have turned away from Him, not acknowledging Him and not rightfully giving Him the honour and thanks that He deserves. Since God is just and righteous, we acknowledge that we deserve His righteous punishment. Yet, instead of punishing us He punishes His own Son Jesus instead, so that we might no longer be His enemies, and we can be right with Him again. Just accepting this message and trusting God that Jesus' death pays for our penalty is all we need to become Christian, something so wonderful we do become what the Bible says 'a new creation', almost like a greater being in some sense!
But does it mean as Christians we have to embrace and accept our enemies?
God is a fair and righteous God who cannot tolerate wrongdoing and people who hate Him, and must punish all who do so. If God doesn't do so, then God is not loving - even people who say God should forgive everything and everyone everytime will still cry in their hearts for justice to be served if their loved ones were taken away by violence. Yet God is fully just (while being still fully merciful) by giving us His Son to die on the Cross, so that the punishment that has to be dished out for all man's wrongdoing is still dished out, but on His own Son! Anyone who doesn't believe in Jesus remains condemned (John 3:16-21), because the punishment that he or she deserves has not been taken away by Jesus! Jesus the Judge, rightfully so because of the Cross, will return in future to dish out the punishment on those who do not believe in Him.
As Christians we are told to 'turn the other cheek' to our enemies who slap us, not because we enter a nonchalant, dazed state and ignore what's right and wrong around us. Christians are not those who ignore justice. In fact, we are those who want to stand up for justice the most! We still judge what is right and wrong and we still know that for every wrong action, justice should rightly be served. If someone offends us, there should rightly be retribution. Yet, because:
1)we know we've been forgiven much ourselves,
2)we know that we are not perfect and to some degree it's possible we are deserving of punishment ourselves as well for offending our enemies (although Jesus' death covers that), and
3)we know that at the Cross and in the future when Jesus comes again justice is fully served,
we lay down our right to demand retribution or repatriation and leave it to Jesus the perfect Judge to deal with 'our enemies' instead. He will do so in the future when He finally returns again, if not in the near future. We should rather continue to pray and love them, preaching to them the good news of Jesus, in hope that they no longer are our enemies or God's enemies.