Luke 1:39-55
What fills our daily agenda? We live just one day at a time and each day we fill the agenda of that day with many things. But as we look at the agenda for each day we have lived, we ask ourselves how much joy have we derived from what we had on our agenda. In the “people’s business” that I have been in since 1964 when I got my local preachers’ license, I have seen too few people that had joy in the agenda of their lives. I have observed that most people have been filling their lives with the garbage that robs their lives of joy. We can put different labels on the garbage. It begins very early when we push to have control of the agenda. People think: “when I reach a certain age, I will do what I want to do. When I am sixteen and can drive, I will go where I want to go. When I finish school, I am going to do something that I can make a lot of money and I will then be happy. If I can earn a college degree, then I will be secure and happy.” Years fly by and you reach old age and you start to look back on your life and realize it has been filled up with fears, anxiety, and failures to reach the goals you had hoped to achieve. Your agenda is filled with regrets and lost opportunities because you forgot to spend time with God. He gave each of us a purpose for our lives, but we replaced God’s agenda for us with our own agenda. When our agenda does not include God’s agenda, we see little joy in our lives.
With His life, ministry, death on the cross and resurrection Jesus Christ gave us an agenda to live for and serve him. When we lose this, we lose the true source of joy. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German pastor, theologian, martyr, and spy was asked in 1943 how it was possible for the church to sit back and let Hitler seize absolute power, his firm answer was, “It was the teaching of cheap grace. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipline, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.”
Cheap grace robs us of the joy that God’s grace wants to give us. We are living in a time when cheap grace is alive and well in the life of people. We see this cheap grace that the church has proclaimed, has produced a people that see nothing wrong with lying, stealing, lust, and using power like Hitler did to take total control of every aspect of life. When we live with cheap grace, we discover we have no joy in life.
When our agendas are filled with God’s grace we experience true joy for we are living out God’s purpose for our lives. In our scripture, we meet Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Elizabeth, the mother of John, and see how they responded in the joy of living out God’s purpose for their lives in His grace. Elizabeth, in her old age, was given a son. She and Zachariah named him John. This son’s purpose was to prepare the people for the coming of the Lord. “He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and he will cause those who are rebellious to accept the wisdom of the godly.”
In Mary’s encounter with the angel Gabriel, we see May accepting God’s purpose to live under God’s grace and be the mother of Jesus Christ. Mary became the mother of God that came in human form to bring grace to us that accept His purpose for our lives. In living out God’s purpose we know and experience the joy of being alive.
Luke shares Mary’s joy in her song of praise. Luke names her song “The Magnificat.”
“Oh, how my soul praises the Lord. How my spirit rejoices in God, my savior! For he took notice of a lowly servant girl, and from now on all generations will call me blessed. For the mighty one is holy and he has done great things for me. He sows mercy from generation to generation to all who fear him. His mighty arm has done tremendous things. He has scattered the proud and haughty one. He has brought down princes from the thrones and exalted the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands. He has helped his servant Israel and remembered to be merciful. For he made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever.”
In accepting God’s purpose for her life, Mary would live her life in the joy of God’s grace. Yes, she would know the pain and suffering of seeing her son die on the cross, but even that would not rob her of the joy that God gives in His grace. His grace will take us through the dark hours of our lives. This is not cheap grace but it is the price God paid for us to have the saving grace.
Charles Schulz, in one of his comic scripts, captures for us the difference between cheap grace and God’s grace. Linus is telling Sally about the three wise men that followed God’s star to find their Savior. “’There were three wise men,’ says Linus, ‘They came from the East and were looking for Bethlehem.’ Then Linus said, ‘You know how they found it? They followed a star.’” Sally said, ‘Yes, but who was the star?’”
We see people with their agenda saying, “I am the star. Follow me.” But when we follow some human’s agenda, we soon discover the suffering and pain of cheap grace. The world that God created and made, including us, for himself offers to each believer a saving grace that brings joy to the life we are living now.
When God’s grace fills the agenda of our lives, we can sing this hymn with joy: “Hark! The herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the newborn King; peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinner reconciled! Joyful, all ye nations rise, join the triumph of the skies, with the angelic host proclaim, Christ is born in Bethlehem. Hark! The Herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the newborn King!’”
His grace can bring true joy in this life. Seek it and accept this wondrous gift of saving grace.
