This Sunday at Hope/Magnolia Church we began our Advent Series entitled: A Vintage Christmas Playlist. We’ll be looking at four songs in the birth narratives of Jesus. This Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent, our text was Mary’s Song found in Luke 1:46-56. It is a beautiful prophecy by Mary praising God for God’s faithfulness. Even though it was a short week of preparation because of Thanksgiving, I was excited to start the series and to preach on the text.

And I blew it. At least I felt like it!

In between our two services I made some adjustments with the message because it didn’t flow quite like I thought it would. It was improved. But shortly after the 2nd service ended, as I was outside working on a project it hit me: A better way to have preached the text.

While the text speaks of Mary’s hopefulness that God will fulfill God’s promises to bring about redemption (which is the approach I took- whether anyone received that is another story!!), after worship I was struck by this realization: Mary’s world was turned upside down by the announcement of her impending pregnancy. And she still praised God and believed God to be faithful.

There is an challenge for us today that even when our lives are turned upside down that we praise God and trust that God is faithful. The world we live in is dark, but we praise God and trust that the light is winning.