Humbling the Proud, Lifting Up the Lowly | Rev. Adam Hamilton | Church of the Resurrection

5:00 I love that. At the very end, you hear his neighbor upstairs pounding on the floor and the dog ducking his head underneath the pillow. Well, talk about a lesson in humility, trying to sing a holy night. And I wouldn't want to do that myself. But it does set up really well where we're going in the sermon today. So in the sermon, we're going to be taking a look at the carols of Christmas found in Luke's gospel. The earliest Advent and Christmas carols are actually found in Luke, chapters 1 and 2. And he includes what are called canticles. These are small songs or little songs. He includes four canticles. This is Greek poetry, Hebrew poetry. And he includes them in his telling of the Christmas story. The early church would have put music to these songs and would have sung them. So the very earliest Christmas carols and Advent carols that we know of are actually in Luke chapter 1 and 2. We're going to talk about those just briefly today. So I want to remind you of the very, well, it's not the first one, but Luke chapter 1, verses 67 through 79.

5:52 This is John the Baptist's father, Zechariah. And John has just been born, and he utters this beautiful prophetic psalm. And you get to the very end of it. It starts with, it's called the Benedictus because it starts with the word bless. And these canticles were all, the names come from the Latin. So Benedictus means to bless. And he begins, bless the Lord, God of Israel. But when you get to the end, it's one of my favorite verses in all the Gospels, actually in all the New Testament. It says this, because of our God's deep compassion, the dawn from heaven will break upon us to give light to those who are sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide us on the path of peace. And Jesus is that dawn from heaven that will break upon us to give us the light and to lead us in the path of peace. Now, another one of those songs is the Gloria that shows up on Christmas night when the angels are speaking to or singing to the shepherds. And you remember how it goes.

6:45 Glory to God in the highest heaven and peace on earth upon all whom he favors, or peace on earth. And so once more, it was set to music. And we still sing that on Christmas Eve to this day. And then Luke chapter two, verses 29 through 32. Now this is an elderly man. This is after Jesus has been born and he's taken to the temple to, and a sacrifice made for him or on his behalf and on behalf of his parents. and then there's a man named Simeon, an elderly man and Simeon sees the Christ child and he's been waiting his whole life for the Messiah and so now he says, oh God, now you can take me. You can let me die. You can let me depart in peace and the Latin is nunc demitis. Demitis, it means let me depart in peace or let me depart and this is what he says. Now, master, let your servant go in peace according to your word because my eyes have seen your salvation. You prepared this salvation in the presence of all people. It is, and really this is Jesus, is a light for revelation to the Gentiles and a glory for your people, Israel.

7:44 And then the climactic one of these, it actually is the first one, but it's the most important to us, is Mary's canticle. It's Mary's magnificat. Magnificat, the Latin for magnify. And that's how she begins. My soul magnifies the Lord. And this takes place, so I'll just remind you, Mary, she's in the town of Nazareth. This is where she grows up. And when she finds out that she's pregnant, she makes a journey all the way down to Ein Karim. Well, that's the traditional location. It's just outside. The gospel says it's in the hill country of Jerusalem. Here's Jerusalem here. And she's here. And she meets up with her cousin Elizabeth, an older woman who shouldn't have been able to get pregnant, but she is pregnant, six months pregnant with John the Baptist. And Mary shows up having just been told by the angel that she is pregnant with the Christ child. And so when Elizabeth sees Mary and hears her voice, she says this, in essence, Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Well, she doesn't say Jesus, but blessed is the fruit of your womb. You recognize that from the Hail Mary. So Mary responds, and this is what she says, and this is the words we heard just a moment ago. Let's listen to them again. Mary says, 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. And then listen to this. 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. I don't know if you can catch this, if you heard this, but this is a revolutionary song, not unlike O Holy Night that was inspired by it, a revolutionary song. Mary's song was inspired by the songs of other women in the Hebrew Bible. So we often think that only men wrote the Bible, and that's true. But there are a handful of songs captured that were composed in Scripture that were composed by women. So let me just mention a few of those. Miriam. Now Mary's

9:51 name in Hebrew was Miriam, and she's named after the sister of Moses. And after the Israelites were delivered through the Red Sea from the Egyptians and from slavery, she composed a song and she began to sing. Then there's Deborah, the judge, and Deborah sings to God after God had used Deborah to deliver the Israelites from their enemies. And then there's Hannah. Now Hannah, and it's Hannah's words that have directly inspired Mary's words. So Hannah is a woman who'd been trying to have a baby. And then God finally said, I'm gonna bless you with a child and this child's gonna be special. And she ends up giving birth to Samuel, one of the great prophets of old. And after she gives birth, she offers this prayer. This is her canticle, her song. Hannah says, my heart rejoices in the Lord. My strength rises up in the Lord. And then she concludes, there's many more verses or lines, but she concludes, don't go on talking. Don't go on and on talking so proudly, spouting arrogance from your mouth, because the Lord is the God who knows and he weighs every act.

10:49 The bows of mighty warriors are shattered, but those who are stumbling now dress themselves in power. And so there is once more this, if you heard it, she starts off rejoicing the same thing, almost the same words that Mary borrows, probably borrows from Hannah's canticle because Mary would have known that growing up. She would have learned it. She borrows the same words and then the same theme of bringing down the powerful and lifting up the lowly. So listen once more to these words from Mary's Magnificat. 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. Mary's astounded that God would choose her. She's a girl from a town that was considered insignificant, in fact, worse than that. You may remember the Nathaniel once said of Nazareth, Mary's hometown, can anything good come out of Nazareth?

11:42 It's the other side of the tracks. And God has chosen her, an insignificant girl. But God says, you, I've chosen you, Mary. And she's been chosen for the most important task in all history. She's going to give birth to the Christ child. She is going to bear in her womb divinity, united with humanity, that God is taking up residence. God the son is taking up residence in her womb. She's the greatest human on earth who's ever walked the face of this planet aside from her son, Jesus. I mean, and God has chosen her for this honor. God has chosen somebody who was lowly. And so I want to say these words once more for Mary, and I want you to join me in saying them if you would. God has brought down the powerful and lifted up the lowly. Let's say that one more time. God has brought down the powerful and lifted up the lowly. Now, the twin themes of God bringing down the proud or the powerful and lifting up the lowly are found throughout scripture.

12:34 This is the nature of God. This is what God is like. You study the other ancient Near Eastern gods, they were not like this. The Greco-Roman gods were not like this. But the God of Israel is the God who brings down the powerful and lifts up the lowly. Now, we learned a few weeks ago that Israel had 42 kings from Saul and then David and Solomon all the way to the end of the kingdom of Judah, there were 42. Most of them were scoundrels. There were only five that were even, you know, that were said to be good and even they struggled some. But if you look at what they all struggled with to the degree that we can tell, most of them struggled with the most deadly of the seven deadly sins and that's pride. So just to remind you, lust was not the most deadly of the seven deadly sins. Neither was, you know, any of the others, anger or indifference. The most deadly of the deadly sins was pride out of which almost all of the other ones grew. And so we hear this, King Uzziah, who Isaiah the prophet was writing to and ministering to, it says that he was a pretty decent king most of the time, but in 2 Chronicles 26, 15, and 16, it says, Uzziah's fame spread far and wide because he had received wonderful help until he became powerful.

13:37 But as soon as he became powerful, he grew so arrogant that he acted corruptly. I mean, this is what tends to happen to people who become powerful, is that power tends to corrupt, right, as we've heard before. and ultimate power, absolute power corrupts absolutely. That's what happens with the kings. Or Hezekiah. Hezekiah was too proud to respond appropriately to the kindness he had received and he, along with Judah and Jerusalem, experienced anger. And so this is 2 Chronicles chapter 32. So here this good king, he was one of the best kings Israel ever knew. But when pride took over in his heart, then he became angry with other people and agitated with other people, which is one of the sort of pictures or tells of pride welling up in our hearts. The writer of Proverbs says this, Pride comes before disaster and arrogance before a fall. Better to be humble with the needy than to divide plunder with the proud. And James and Peter both quote another proverb in their epistles, and this is what they say.

14:31 God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Will you read that one with me? Let's put it back on the screen. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And then they say, therefore, because of this truth, humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up. Now, this isn't only a biblical truth. This is a universal truth. I mean, it's just something that doesn't matter whether you believe in God or not. This is just a true statement. So I was thinking back this week, I was rereading Jim Collins' 2009 book, How the Mighty Fall. And he wrote the book called Good to Great. And he studied, you know, he's a researcher. He'd studied all kinds of American companies. And he'd found, you know, what separated the good from the merely good from the great. And then he began to look and notice that years later, many of those really great companies that he'd profiled in Good to Great had fallen and what had happened to these companies. And so he tried to understand what is it that leads to a company moving from greatness to death or insignificance. And he found there were five stages, but here was the first stage. The first stage was hubris born of success or pride born of success, right? And so it can happen to companies. It can happen to politicians. It can happen to preachers. It can happen to you. That when we give way to pride, we find just tragic things happen. I was reading again this week the story of the Challenger disaster in 1986. Some of you weren't born yet, but I was 22 years old, and all of America was watching as the Space Shuttle Challenger was launched, because for the first time there was a school teacher on the Challenger space shuttle. Kids in school, all across America, almost every classroom had this tuned in, so that children could watch a school teacher being launched into space. And 73 seconds into the flight, the rocket burst and the space shuttle was destroyed. I mean, there are tears everywhere.

16:20 It just was devastating to watch. And we saw it over and over and over again on the news. Here was the crew, the seven-person crew. And here's what it looked like 73 seconds into the launch of the space shuttle. How did this happen? Here's how it happened. This was reading again this week. As many of you remember, it was an O-ring. These rockets had multiple stages to them in multiple, you know, components. And there was a rubber O-ring. And this over, such a simple part. But the thing was, that rubber O-ring had never been tested for certain temperatures. And it happened to be really cold in Florida, far colder than it would normally be. And they'd already waited three days to launch the Challenger. And so finally, NASA said, look, we've launched 20, I don't know, 23, 24 of these space shuttles before. It's going to be fine. They went to the people who designed and built the rockets. And they said, you know, we want to go and launch. and one of the engineers said, hey, it's not been tested for under 53 degrees.

17:14 We're not sure it's gonna work. We're afraid something could happen. And NASA said, no, look, we've done this already. If you're not, and the engineer said, I'm not gonna sign off. So they went above his head and they finally found somebody who was willing to sign off on letting that space shuttle launch. And that O-ring failed and seven people died because pride, right? This is what happens. The story of the birth of Jesus is all about this theme of pride and humility. And what we find is that, you know, we're learning something about the character of God by looking at the story. And when God chooses to come in the flesh to us as a human being, right, how does he come? He comes as a baby. Where does he come? He's born in a stable because there was no room in any of the houses there. He could have been born anywhere, but he was born in Bethlehem and there was no room. So he's born among the animals, right? And his crib is a manger. It's an animal's feeding trough, right?

18:08 And who's invited to come see him for a while? the angels invited, it was the night shift shepherds. You remember the shepherds were among the lowest rungs in society at that time. And the night shift shepherds were the lowest of the low and they were the ones who were invited to come. You remember his mother was a girl from a no account town, the other side of the tracks. And his cousin, John, you know, born to parents who, I mean, the whole story, at every part of it, you find God is lifting up the lowly. And we're gonna find he's gonna be bringing down the proud. This week I was at an event for the American Public Square. I serve on the board. And it's an organization that tries to bring people together across political divides to try to build bridges. And it was their annual big event at the Nelson. And they were recognizing someone with the Founders Civility Award. And the person they recognized and chose was Susan Seidler Nerman.

19:01 And Susan's a remarkable person. She's had a great impact in the civic life in Kansas City. She's also a great business leader. And, but I was struck by something that Representative, or excuse me, Ambassador Alan Katz said as he was recognizing her. So he was inviting her to come up. And he said, I had to persuade Sue to receive this award. She did not want to receive her award. She did not want any recognition. And in fact, she wouldn't even say anything. After she received the award, she went back to her seat, didn't even say anything. She did not want to receive this sort of, you know, positive accolade. It was not in her to want to receive that. And then he said this. This is what struck me. He said, there's a Jewish Talmudic saying, and I had to look it up. It goes something like this. The one who chases after fame or honor will find honor running away from them. But the one who runs away from honor or fame, as Suodun, will find honor or fame chasing after them. I mean, it's just a powerful illustration of what the scripture is teaching again and again.

20:00 And it's what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 23, verse 12. Would you read these words with me? Jesus said, those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted. All right, Jesus also said those who are truly great will be your servants or will act as a servant. So that leads me to A Holy Night. So we've learned that Placide Capot wrote this hymn, wrote this carol for Candlelight Christmas Eve 1847 in France and really all of Europe was on the verge of revolutions. There were 50 revolutions or revolts that would happen across Europe in the coming year. In less than two months, the king of France would be overthrown and would have to abdicate from the throne. He would have to flee and go into exile. His name was King Louis Philippe. And the reason for this was that the king, who actually started off pretty well, so he'd started off well when he began in 1830.

20:54 But over time, he became more enamored with wealth and with power and with all the people who shared wealth and power with him. And even some of the leaders of the church became enamored with wealth and power. And he forgot about ordinary people. And the gap widened between the rich and the poor. And the people struggled to have enough to eat. And in the middle of all of that, there were people saying, we can't tolerate having this person as our king anymore. And he was brought down from his throne. So when we think about this, I think about the hymn and O Holy Night, when it was written, again, it was originally Midnight Christians was the name of it. And we know the paraphrase of it, which is what we sing in English. But if you take the verses in a more literal French reading, here's one of them. And I want you to hear this in the light of what was happening in France. So Placide Capot wrote, The king of kings is born in a humble manger. O mighty ones of today, proud of your greatness.

21:48 Listen, O mighty ones of today. He's speaking to the king and all the upper class. O mighty ones of today, proud of your greatness. It is to your pride that God preaches. Bow your heads before the Redeemer. The Redeemer has broken every fetter. The earth is free and heaven is open. I mean, think about that. You know, it's to your pride Christ came to preach. In humility, he came to humble you, to bring you down. So bow your heads before the Redeemer, he says. This is a revolutionary message in the song that's fitting for the revolutionary message of Jesus coming, fitting for the revolutionary song of Mary in her Magnificat. So I wanna ask you this. Do you ever struggle with pride? Or how do you struggle with pride? And for some of you, maybe it's just the opposite. You really struggle with low self-esteem all the time. But for many of us, there is this gnawing away at our souls of pride.

22:41 And we would not wanna be prideful, we wanna be humble, and yet somehow it finds its way into our hearts. I was watching a news story this week about a US Congresswoman, and she was at the airport, and she was frustrated because the TSA people weren't doing what she wanted, and she begins to berate them and she begins to launch the F-bomb and finally there's one of the TSA people who's visibly distraught, visibly shaken by having her congresswoman berate her and using the F-bomb towards her. And so just this, and I'm watching this and listening to this story and I'm thinking, how did that happen? How does it happen that somebody who's elected by the people to be their representative, their servant of the people is berating the very people that she's supposed to represent. Now, I'm not picking on her. I don't even wanna, you know, I'm not meaning to say anything bad about her. This is just something that happened.

23:33 I'm saying, when I watched that news story, I wasn't judging her. I was asking, how have I ever acted that way? In what ways have I ever berated somebody or been irritated with somebody or frustrated with somebody because of my own pride? Like for that congresswoman, she was a big deal. Do you not know I'm a congresswoman, she says? right somehow you know that begins to take over in our own hearts and I hope I've never berated somebody or belittled somebody but maybe I have I don't know but here's what I here's what I know is that inside of us it's a possibility that lingers there and if I haven't said the words I've at least thought them like I'm one of those people I hate to be told no I don't want to be told no when I'm trying to you know get something I want I want I want what I want and what I've learned over time is you know what you want doesn't really matter very much but there are times when this happens and you find yourself irritated or frustrated or agitated. I was thinking, you know, when I see this happening, sometimes I see it happening, I hear it happening from school teachers who have told me, you know, the worst part of my job is having parent-teacher conferences and parents of students berating me. I mean, this is just, you know, just frustrating. Or, you know, I remember standing in line at a Avis rental car and there was a woman who was right before me. And she was just berating the person who was behind the counter. It wasn't even the woman's fault. Whatever the issue was, it was not her fault. But she's berating her there. And I, you know, when I finally got up there, I'm like, I'm so sorry you had to, you know, had to deal with this. But, you know, or sometimes it's a clerk and somebody's trying to return something or trying to get their way at a store. And, you know, they're often told, you know, the customer's always right, or at least the customer thinks that and says that sometimes. But there are times that, you know, the berating and the, you know, the hurtfulness of that. And I guess I just ask, have you ever done that?

25:16 Have you ever been that person? Or, you know, being at a Chiefs game and they talk about that fan, you know, and that fan is cussing and that fan is saying, you know, cruel things to other people or that fan is bossing their way around all the time. Well, you know, how you become that fan is you've already got pride in your heart and you add a little alcohol to it and you find yourself being that fan. I don't want to be that fan. I don't want to be that person. I don't want to be that pastor.

25:39 And I hope you aren't either. Like that's part of what this message is telling us. And let me just remind you, Advent is a season of self-examination where we're meant to look inside and see what needs to change, right? We're preparing ourselves to rightly celebrate the birth of our king who came and was born in a stable. And so part of that rightly celebrating and we're aiming to rightly prepare ourselves for his return, his second coming, either at our death or his glorious return. And the question I'd ask you is, are you prepared when it comes to the status of your heart, when it comes to pride and humility? and maybe this Advent is a time for us on Joy Sunday, but when we also look at Mary's Magnificat to humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord so that he might lift us up.

26:26 All right, I wanna end by noting, and by the way, I gotta say, what I see in resurrection members, so I'm really proud of you, proud in a good way, not the sort of negative pride, but I look around and I see a whole lot of people who get this. So many of you who just at all of our locations, and I'm looking in the camera thinking about every one of our locations, but also those of you online and on TV and how often I see in members of our congregation people who strive for humility, who strive to be servants, who strive to come alongside other people and not to act like they're better than anybody else. You get that. But even for those who get it, sometimes this can sneak back in. All right, so I wanna end by noting on this Joy Sunday that there's a lot more joy in being humble and being a servant for other people than there is in exalting yourself and being concerned about your image management and what other people think about you. Just a lot more joy in not caring what other people think and instead coming alongside and seeking to bless people.

27:21 Taking the lower seat instead of the better seat at a table or whatever it might be. When you act with humility, you find there's just a lot more joy. And I think about this in my own life. There were years when I was younger, I was worried, what would people think about me when I'm playing golf? When I'm playing golf, man, I used to hate, I'm a terrible golfer and I used to hate it when I'd have to play in the church golf tournament, and there'd be people watching to see, you know, what's going to happen when our foursome would tee off, and my ball would inevitably go off to the right or the left, or, you know, maybe not make it past the women's tee, and it was just humiliating. It's like, and then there came a point, I'm like, I don't care. I mean, I probably still do care, but I, it's okay to humble yourself before other people. It's okay to have people laugh a little bit at you. That's all right. Or I thought about one of the things in my life was dancing. LaVon always wanted to dance, And you know what? I wouldn't dance for years. I would slow dance maybe, but I would certainly not fast dance on the dance floor because I thought, I don't want to look stupid.

28:16 I don't want people to look at me and see how stupid I look out there when I'm dancing, fast dancing with my wife. And so I wouldn't do it. And we took lessons finally. I thought maybe that'd make it easier, but I still felt like I look stupid. And then the day came where I thought, you know what? I don't really care if I look stupid. I want to have fun with my wife. And so we go out and we dance. When we're at dances, we go out and we dance. We have a lot of fun. whether I look stupid or not is immaterial. I learned over time to care less about what other people thought of me. Now, it's still in there, but trying to think, you know, I don't really want to live my life being concerned about what other people think. And I think, you know, I've got to be okay with myself. I'm a 61-year-old, slightly overweight, balding, you know, middle-aged man, and I'm okay with that. By the way, this weekend at Resurrection at all of our locations is Festive Sweater Weekend, where we're wearing the goofiest sweaters or the funniest sweaters or just your favorite festive sweater.

29:14 And we're giving prizes to everybody at all of our locations for this. And I thought, you know, for years I wouldn't wear one of those sweaters because I thought, that just looks so goofy. And then, actually, I think it was Scott Crostick who finally got me to do it. But I started thinking, why do I care what anybody thinks? I'm just gonna have some fun. And can I tell you, There is a lot more joy in life when you care less about what other people think and image management.

29:47 And you just learn that you can enjoy life by being you or by being silly or by not really caring about whether other people think you're, you know, really something. Which is, I think, how Fraser's dad ultimately was willing, and now we don't know, we don't get to see whether he sang in the church or not, but I think ultimately he was willing to say, yes, he would sing O Holy Night, even though he knew he couldn't sing it, because it didn't matter so much what other people thought. The only opinion that really mattered was the one to whom he was singing. Take a look. Your problem's all psychological. No, no, no, no. I think you've convinced yourself you can't hit this note. Yeah, I convinced the guy upstairs too. No, no, I think Niles may be right, Dad. You just need some positive reinforcement. but let's try it again. And this time, I try to eliminate any negative thoughts.

30:42 All right, let's go. All right. Fall on your knees. Let's try it. Fall on your knees. Fall on your knees. You've got it, Dad. Oh, here's the angel voices. I hear one angel. Oh, night divine. Some things divine. Oh, night when Christ was born. A star is born. Oh, no. Bring it home now. Divine!

31:16 Oh, shut up! Now, I'm not encouraging you to say, oh, shut up to people. But sometimes what you need to be able to say is, I don't really care what those voices have to say. You can think whatever you want. I'm trying to serve Jesus. I'm trying to be the best person I can be. And I'm going to have some fun in life. and that's where joy comes from. Okay, the big picture of this sermon is really summarized in Mary's words. So I wanna say them once more. 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.

31:58 And I wanna just have one last little insight that hit me about this years ago. So most of us are powerful compared with the rest of the world. We are people of influence. Americans are. We as individuals, some of us, have great influence and authority and power and our positions or, you know, our status. And most of us are rich compared to the rest of the world. I think about our candlelight Christmas Eve offering and how a major portion of it is going to support projects in Malawi where people make $4.66 a day. and I think so for us at the last day at the judgment how do we avoid being brought down right or how do we avoid being sent away empty when we're rich in this life and you know the answer to that is we say God use my power my authority and help me to lift up the lowly and take whatever wealth I have and please help me to send the poor away filled and when we do that, when we live our lives that way as servants, what we find is joy.

33:08 Would you pray with me? God, you know the pride that lives in our hearts at times and the ways that we can, we'd never say it, but somehow in our hearts, we might think we're better than someone else. We deserve something else. Lord, for the times we get irritated out of pride, the times that we can berate or belittle people out of pride or even the thoughts that go on in our hearts, we pray for your forgiveness.

33:33 Oh God, help us humble ourselves in your sight. And we pray, oh Lord, that to the degree that we have power, influence, or popularity, or whatever it might be, that we have financial resources, help us to remember that you use us to lift up the lowly and to send the hungry away fed. Use us to that end, we pray. In Jesus' name.