Luke 1:39-45

Advent 4, 2021 | Luke 1:39-45 | by Evan McClanahan |

Our humanity is on the line. Thank God the Christmas season is almost here!

The signs of human beings losing interest in being a human being are all around us. But I am assuming that I know what a human being is when I say that. So let me tell you what I think a human being is. Perhaps you will agree.

Human beings are the apex of God’s creation. We are made in God’s image, and that makes us material and supernatural beings. Though we fell into sin, we know that God loves us because he became flesh in Jesus of Nazareth, lived, died, and was risen from the dead for us. We are unique; we have personalities; we know the difference between right and wrong. The ultimate calling on our life is found in God’s Law to love God and love our neighbor. And that means we are called to pursue truth and beauty and excellence in all that we do. What makes us different from animals is our aspiration towards beauty, order, design, civilization, and virtue.

But never underestimate our ability and desire to throw all of that away. We debase ourselves when we forget what makes us human and we pursue basic pleasures. Or we don’t believe anything has meaning and all attempts at beauty or meaning are seen as equally valid. Or we desire only to live longer here on earth, thinking that the high mark of our existence is 110 years right here and right now.

Christianity has something to say against all of those lies. But first, some examples. This week, teachers in South Dakota participated in a “dystopian” competition for dollars. 5,000 $1 bills were placed in the middle of an ice hockey rink and teachers – who applied for this competition through their school – competed against one another to get as many of those dollars as they could for their school. The teachers would shove the $1 bills into any pocket or opening they could.

Is this what we are reduced to? The teachers themselves seem to be pawns in this game as they apparently do need money for their classrooms. What, the property taxes are not enough? And is this entertaining? Watching fellow human beings fight for $1 bills?

More to the point, are small events like this the beginning (or the continuation) of a trend of humans doing battle with one another for mere prizes. Sure, “reality TV” has been around for a while and produced some less-than-savory moments. And there have always been athletic competitions. But are we on our way to entertaining ourselves watching those in need of money fight for $1 bills? Is there any chance that this will become more mainstream? I hope not, for it dishonors our humanity.

This week, I read a critique of a very fancy restaurant that served a disastrous meal. The 27-course meal included edible strips of paper, deep-fried rancid cheese, and drops of liquid said to have meat molecules. (I hope that wasn’t supposed to be the entrée.) The food critic whose blog about this absurd meal went viral is probably a fan of experimental food. But the absurdity was too much for her. She wondered if she had entered The Twilight Zone, saying, “I feel like I’m in a parody of what modernist cuisine is.”

How about “modernist” art in general? Or, let’s expand it to modernist (or really post-modernist) philosophy, which is often the celebration of meaningless. If you don’t believe me, the chef’s response was pretty telling. His three-page response included three pictures. One was a simple drawing of a man on a horse, saying, basically any idiot could learn how to create that drawing. The second was the famous portrait of Napoleon on a horse, saying that traditional art takes far more skill, but is boring. The third was a post-modern piece of art garbage. It was ugly. No one could tell what it was supposed to represent. But he said, like his food, it was great art, and only the truly great of this modern age could appreciate it.

According to the chef, his abstract kind of food is meant to make those who eat it “doubt everything including themselves.” Those who dine at his restaurant should ask themselves: “What is art? What [is] food? What is a chef? What is a client? What is good taste? What looks beautiful?”[1] I don’t actually care about such restaurants and most of us will never eat at one. Most of us are perfectly happy with a burger and fries or a cheese enchilada. But this pretentious quasi-artistic view of life will and already has seeped down. It will soon be cool to doubt everything, to deconstruct everything, to question everything. I say, “No.” We are in the civilization building business. Deconstruction is not our aim, even in our food.

Then there are the stories – too many to count – about efforts to live forever, but not in heaven through better medicine and technology. The goal of the Transhumanists is to transcend the traditional barriers of human life – you know, the things brought on by the Fall, death and disease – through technology. Not content to love God and neighbor here on earth, let God be God and let his death on the cross be your hope and joy, many humans are hoping for all the benefits of faith with none of the costs. In trying to be more than human, they are becoming less than human. They have made a creation – a machine, a computer, or a drug – their god, and ignored the God who created them.

Christians can and should ignore all of these trends. And they should embrace the realities of what it is to be human, with all of its joys and shortcomings and hopes and sorrows. In so many ways, this is what our faith teaches us to be. And our text today…well, one could not ask for a more humanizing story.

Here are two pregnant women, of no means, who share in the joy of motherhood together. John the Baptist leaps for joy in his mother’s womb being so close to the newly-conceived Jesus. Elizabeth is overwhelmed to be in the presence of the “mother of her Lord.” To repeat, Elizabeth calls Mary the mother of her Lord. And Elizabeth says, “And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

Now, the theological implications of what Elizabeth says are amazing: Mary is the mother of her Lord, and she uses the same word to describe the prophecy that promised the coming messiah. But this portrait of these two women encapsulates real human life. This is an aspirational image, in that, we should aspire to possess their joy and hope in the midst of changing times, new adventures, and the kinds of anxieties that come with being a new mother.

This is what it looks like to be human: thoroughly in the midst of change and fear and hope and joy and to look forward to the fulfillment of what God has promised. To be content with what God has given you. To confess that you have a God and that He has come in your midst. To see beauty not in questioning everything, not in abstractions, but in God’s concrete words and actions. And to see humanity not only in the unborn, but by extension to the sick and the old and the infirm.

To be our best selves does indeed involve some discipline. It involves a commitment to the good, the decent, the true, the beautiful, and the virtuous. And in those pursuits, we will surely fail more often than we would like. But in those pursuits, we will learn what it is to be human. Can we be content with that? Or will we want more? Will we grow bored with that pursuit? Will we grow greedy for gain? Will we delight in the pain of others? Will we question everything, including our own existence? Will we seek friendship and an afterlife in machines?

Isn’t it funny that while we think so little of being human, God has said and done so much on our behalf? So this Christmas, embrace your humanity. God became a human being for you. And this story of Mary and Elizabeth is a rare and precious window into the beginnings of that work. Don’t look past it. Embrace it. Be content with it. God was. Can we be? Amen.

[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-travel-writer-s-bad-review-of-a-michelin-starred-restaurant-went-viral-the-chef-responded-with-images-of-horses/ar-AARLeqf