How very appropriate that today Dorothy graced us with her dance of this text this day, proclaiming in beautiful movement the very words that Mary sings in Luke’s Gospel. For in the Hebrew understanding of things, you see, there were not separate words for soul and body. There was just one word that expressed both together: nephesh. When Mary sang, “my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior,” this young, pregnant woman was also singing: my body magnifies the Lord and my spirit and body rejoice in God my savior. Our whole being is transfigured by joy at the news that God will send a Savior unto us.

I think dancers and children stay closest to this reality. Last week, as our Children’s Choirs swayed as they sang the Advent candle song, someone in the choir loft looked out and saw that all the other children seated in the pews were swaying with them, too. Our whole being rejoices in the Advent of our God.

Many of you have said that you are growing to like the new Advent blue of this season, this deep, black, midnight blue, this luminescent blue, pregnant with light, bursting with possibility, this blue heralding the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

We have already lit two blue candles in our Advent wreath, but today, on the third Sunday of Advent, we light the one pink candle in our wreath. Why pink? Well, I’ll confess to you that a lot of churches don’t do pink any more. I’m an old-fashioned conservative traditionalist on this one, for the record. Pink on the third Sunday of Advent. Why? There are two reasons: pink for joy and pink for Mary.

Let’s look a minute at both. By this third Sunday, we’re halfway through this four week Advent season. In the early church, when Advent was truly a time of fasting and long hours of prayer, with an emphasis on repentance, everyone was ready for a hearty dose of joy by week three. And so, we hear from the Epistles, the theme of “joy to the world.” We hear it today from Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord, always. Again I say, rejoice.... the Lord is near.”

We also hear this joy in the first line of Mary’s song: “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior…” In abundant and overflowing joy, our spirits prepare to greet the birth of our Savior.

In joy, we light the pink candle of rejoicing to start week three of this season of anticipation and expectation. Pink, in an admittedly stereotypical way, is also a visual reminder that on this day, we focus on Jesus’ mother, Mary, pregnant, rejoicing in God. For as we read in Galatians, Mary rejoiced in God and God rejoiced in Mary, for the “fullness of time had come” in the willingness of this young woman of faith to enable God to become one of us through the birth of Jesus.

There is perhaps no joy like the birth of baby. It’s so much fun to have so many babies among us these days. We’ll baptize yet another next Sunday, and several more are on the way. A few of you have shared the miraculous early ultra sound pictures—feet, arm, head of the new one growing and preparing to be born. And you grandparents with all those baby pictures! The joy on your face, in your voice—it is the joy of Mary, heart and mind, soul and body, rejoicing in the awesome love and reality of the presence of God in our lives.

“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.” For me, Mary sings. Me—young, poor, peasant girl, her land occupied by the Roman armies, betrothed to the carpenter, Joseph, a servant of low estate, for whom and through whom God is doing great things.

Mary. We don’t know her lineage, her real parents. We don’t know her credentials, her qualifications, or even her readiness to be a mom. Except for this: she trusted God. She was ready to believe that indeed the fullness of time had come and that God would keep the promise to send a Messiah. Her people had been waiting a long, long time for deliverance. In this time, as Luke tells us, in the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod the ruler of Galilee, hope for the coming Messiah was running strong. It was in the air, in every conversation, that God would come to deliver the people Israel. No one knew just when, but their waiting was not in resignation, but in vibrant expectancy.

And so it is that Mary was able to hear and receive the promise of the angel Gabriel, to believe that God had chosen her to be the channel through whom the Messiah will come to earth. Mary is the epitome of the people of God, waiting for the redemption of the Messiah, believing the promises of God and thus able to celebrate the Messiah’s advent. Mary, lowly handmaiden, the servant of her Lord, is visited by an angel and trusts that she is worthy and with God, will be able to do what God asks her to do.

She is so filled with the spirit that she sings out this song, maybe even did a little dance, too, though Luke doesn’t mention it. “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.” We know it as “The Magnificat,” from the Latin: magnificat anima mea dominum. If you attended one of our stupendous choir concerts last weekend—and I hope you didn’t miss it—you heard it sung so powerfully. My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for God has looked with favor on the lowliness of this servant, for the Mighty One has done great things for me.

Have you ever felt inadequate to do what you thought God might be asking you to do? I sure have. Have you ever thought to yourself: Gee, God, I’d like to do great things for you, but…(fill in the blank here with your own reservations…). I don’t know enough, am not brave enough, don’t want to risk that much, am afraid of what people may think, am afraid of looking stupid, am afraid that I might not succeed…I’d like to say “Yes,” God, but…

Hear the Good News this day, my friends, as we hear it in this story. God chooses Mary, a very ordinary person, one of us, and raises her up. Perhaps another kind of God would have done things differently, would have had the savior to be born in a royal household or in the capital city or at least to a mother known and admired and respected. Ah! The Good News is that our God turns inside out our assessment of who is important and what we are each capable of doing. If Mary can be that important, so can we. Our God can overcome any limitations we set to our taking our part with God and doing whatever it is our God has for us to do.

As a woman of deep faith, Mary knew that what God would do for her, God would also do for all the people. Mary’s song reveals that she has put the whole picture together. Mary believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord, that she would bear a son and that the child would be the Messiah. She believed that God was fulfilling the centuries old promise to the people that the Messiah would come to bring liberation from sin of every kind—from selfishness and injustice, from misery and ignorance, from fear and broken hearts.

Mary is so certain of this that she sings in the past tense, as if it’s already happened. Did you catch that the first time? God has shown strength with his arm; 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 empty away. He has helped his servant, Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and Sarah and their descendants forever.

Mary’s song makes an easy transition from the remarkable acts of God in and through her, to the remarkable acts of God by which all the oppressed, poor and hungry of the world will be blessed. Mary is so confident that God’s justice and grace shall prevail that she sings as though what shall be is already true.

That’s the Good News, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, light of the world. That’s the Good News that can grasp hold of us and give us strength to do whatever we’re called to do. That’s the Good News that promises each of us that we have some unique and special service to render to our God. It’s the Good News that God’s salvation is already within us, in our hearts, waiting to be given birth.

In these days of final preparation for the birth, let us rejoice. Let us, with Mary, say “Yes” to the presence and power of God-with-us, Emmanuel. Let us sing loud praises to the God who comes to heal every brokenness and restore all creation to the fullness of its potential.

Christ is born of Mary, and gathered all above; while mortals sleep the angels keep their watch of wondering love. O morning stars together, proclaim the holy birth, and praises sing to God the King, and peace to all on earth!