“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, those who lived in darkness–on them light has shined. You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy.”

The Song of Mary and the Song of Isaiah. Mary sings of the great things God has done, the proud scattered in the thoughts of their own hearts and the powerful brought down from their thrones and the lowly lifted up and the hungry filled with good things and the rich sent away empty. Isaiah trumpets the reign of God; a child born for us, a son given to us. Wonderful Counselor, Might God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah tells of a kingdom world upheld by justice and righteousness forever. For Mary, it is the everlasting promise of God. The covenant. The faithfulness expressed to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants. God’s promise. God’s word. Forever. Isaiah concludes, “ the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this”. The passion, the jealousy, the enthusiasm, the love, the proactive reach of God, will do this.

Both Mary and Isaiah painting a world of justice, righteousness, compassion, and transformation. Both Mary and Isaiah telling of the never-ending mercy and the certain presence and the present act of God. Both Mary and Isaiah hitting notes that proclaim a world as we know it turned upside, a world overflowing with peace, a world where the lowliest find themselves joining a divine song of joy and praise. Mary and Isaiah singing a picture of the kingdom of God.

You have noticed that the movements of Pergolesi’s Magnificat are sprinkled throughout the service of worship this morning. It’s not a long piece. Even here in sabbath worship it could be done as it would have been done historically, one sequence in twelve or so minutes. But this morning Mary’s Song is woven into the liturgy, which by definition means the work of the people. In addition to the traditional spot of anthem and offertory, the choir is singing of the Mighty One who has done great things as we gather right at the beginning of worship. The choir singing of God’s mercy as we confess our sins. And the last movements by Pergolesi offered as a sending out. Gloria and Amen. Quite unlike a holiday performance, or a Messiah sing along, here this morning it is the Magnificat wrapped in and around the weekly drama of our worship, our weekly proclamation of salvation’s story, our weekly corporate act of praise and thanksgiving. The work of the people emeshed in Mary’s Song. The people of God and that singing picture of the world as God wills it to be. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

I invite you to listen in the 5 th movement after we have prayed the Lord’s Prayer together. Listen as the choir sings of that everlasting promise made to our ancestors, to Abraham and his descendants, the promise that lasts forever and forever more. And right then, you won’t be able to miss the beauty of the sound of the Gloria; how Pergolesi sets it apart, how the choir sings it, how the orchestra plays it. The splendor of glory given unto God. Gloria. The kind of gloria that warms the coldest places of your soul and lights the darkest corners of your heart. The kind of gloria that lifts you into the very presence of the heavenly host. Your lowly solitary voice of praise joined with the choirs of heaven.

Martha Moore-Keish, a professor from Columbia Seminary raises an interesting question about the Gloria In Excelsis Deo in Luke’s telling of the nativity of Jesus, that account of the shepherds and the angels and the Christ Child. She points out that the shepherds themselves were somehow moved or changed by the vision and voice of the heavenly host. They went to Bethlehem only after the heavenly light show of praise. And when they returned, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, they would have been talking not just about Mary and Joseph and the babe, but about that angel song. Because, after all, that Gloria helped them to see Jesus. Maybe we need to reverse our ordinary ordering when it comes to singing gloria, Professor Moore-Keish suggests. Instead of recognizing the birth of Jesus and then bursting into song, maybe we hear and sing “Glory to God” and are therefore enabled, empowered, blessed to “see the entrance of Jesus into our world.”

Our act of praise, the gloria that erupts as we tell the story again, the corporate worship of the people of God here in this time and in this place, in the power of the Spirit and only by God’s grace as we sing this picture and play this kingdom world, we are enabling and empowering one another and others to see not simply a baby Jesus, but to see and to experience and to live into the world that God Almighty longs for, where the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, where the hungry are filled with good things, where those who want to be great must be the servants of all. It’s not just any world.

In his short story A Child’s Christmas In Wales, Dylan Thomas remembers fondly a collection of many useless presents that arrived at Christmas. One of them was a painting book. “A painting book” he writes “in which I could make grass, the trees, the sea and the animals any color I pleased, and still the dazzling sky-blue sheep are grazing in the red field under the rainbow-billed and pea-green birds.” With his gift for words, Thomas pauses and even relishes in the absurdity of a world where sheep are blue and fields are red and all the birds are pea-green. A painting book for a child where the colors just didn’t matter.

Singing a picture. Playing a world. Not just any world you please, where the colors don’t matter. Not just any community sing along, where you show up and sing any part you like. Mary’s Song. Isaiah’s Song. The Church’s Song. It tells of God’s world. God’s kingdom. And you and I, together we shall sing of it, and pray for it, and live toward it, and work for it. Our liturgy, it takes shape in here and we live out there. So moved, even changed by our Gloria, by our act of praise in here, that we are empowered and enabled to be instruments of God’s grace out there. So transformed, we who have tasted of our salvation, that we know ourselves to be midwives of God’s kingdom here on earth. For our longing for the kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven, our longing doesn’t begin to compare to God’s longing, God’s thirst, God’s zeal that will do this.

Next month Christie’s auction house is selling the last of Edward Hicks’ paintings of The Peaceable Kingdom. In the mid 19 th century, Hicks crafted some sixty paintings inspired by the words of Isaiah. This last one is said to have been on his easel when he died. What experts are calling “his last word” on the subject. You would recognize the style and animals in the painting. This last one in the series shows a leopard right in the center stretched out like a lazy kitten staring right in the eyes of the observer. Other animals are around and interestingly, there are some people too. The people are in the lower left corner, walking away from the center, moving out of that final scene, leaning away, stepping out of the peaceable kingdom.

But the biblical witness, the picture painted by the brush strokes of the whole council of God, the tradition passed on to us, the picture of the peaceable kingdom that comes there at the last word, it is a scene of praise and thanksgiving. People not looking to leave, but moving toward the center, toward the Lamb upon the throne. It is a scene that tells of the divine choir. A choir that includes voice after voice, and all of creation. The mountains and the hills break forth into singing. All the trees clap their hands. The multitude is beyond what any one can number and they shall forever sing God’s praise. The last word on the peaceable kingdom is gloria.

Advent worship. Wrapping our lives in and around God’s hope for the world. Advent worship. Singing with all the joyful praise we can muster, helping one another and helping the other, to see some sure and certain sign of God with us, God for us. Advent worship. Longing not just for any old future where all that matters is my and the colors I choose, but longing and praying for the coming kingdom of God where beauty is defined by holiness, justice, and righteousness. Advent worship. Cherishing those timeless moments of praise where, if only for a moment, we find ourselves leaning into eternity and with heart and soul and voice; living gloria.

Advent worship. And you though you were just coming to church!

A few days ago Noel Warner and I were talking about last week’s worship service. I asked why the tenors sang the Bach cantata in English. Of course Noel had a very good answer about preparation and notes and congregation listening. But when I asked, he didn’t miss a beat. He said “Oh but we played it in German!” This morning some of it is in Latin. Some in English. Mary’s Song. Isaiah’s Song. God’s Song. It’s Advent. We’re playing God’s world. We will sing and preach and pray and live....because the zeal of the Lord of Hosts will do this!

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