The Sound of Joy
For this third week of our Advent Series, “Preparing for Christmas,” we welcome ABCUSA President, Rev. Nikita McCalister, to share with us about “The Sound of Joy from Luke 1:46b-55. In addition, Rev. McCalister serves as the Transitional Ministries consultant for the American Baptist Churches of Michigan and Transition Pastor of Westhaven Baptist Church in Port Huron, Mich.
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The Sound of Joy
First, I want to thank your Pastor and my dear friend, who served with distinction as Chaplain for ABCUSA during my presidency. Best decision I ever made. I am so eternally grateful for his leadership in our denomination. Special thanks to his life partner and fellow servant leader, first lady, Jill.
And to you, Brewster Baptist, for the many ways you serve your community, nation, and world. Your generous offerings, especially to United Mission, help support ABCUSA and advance the Kingdom of God, along with the other ways you support our ABC family.
Second, I extend greetings to you, nationally and internationally, in the role as the President of the American Baptist Churches USA, and its nearly 5,000 churches, 3.1 million members, throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.
Finally, I bring you greetings from the Covenant Baptist Church in West Bloomfield, MI, where my wonderful husband, Pastor Jabulani McCalister, serves as the senior Pastor, and our two children, Jaden and Azriel.
Psalm 51:8,
“You will let me hear gladness and joy; the bones you have crushed will rejoice.”
Luke 1:46-55,
“And Mary said: ‘My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is from age to age to those who fear him. He has shown might with his arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart. He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped Israel his servant, remembering his mercy, according to his promise to our fathers, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.’”
How often do we consider our hearing health? Hearing is one of our five basic senses that we probably don’t think too much about. “Hearing — or auditory processing — refers to the awareness of sounds and placing meaning to those sounds.
It involves a complex series of steps in which several parts of your ear and auditory nervous system work together harmoniously (i.e. outer ear, middle ear, inner ear, and the Auditory nervous system). Your hearing system has many working parts. Your outer ear directs sound waves to your eardrum and causes it to vibrate.
These vibrations move through your middle ear and into your inner ear. Finally, these signals travel to your brain, which translates them into what you hear. Successful hearing requires all of these parts to function properly, in order for us to make meaning of sound.
When was the last time you checked your hearing by having an audiogram – hearing test? During this test, the Otologist plays sounds through headphones, and you press a button when you hear a sound.
The results measure your ability to hear in decibels, which is the unit of measurement for sound. I suspect that we often take hearing for granted and do not take steps to protect our hearing.
The Hearing Health Foundation suggests that hearing loss from too much noise is the only fully preventable cause of hearing loss. Thus, they recommend daily quiet breaks.
According to the Cleveland clinic, “Many people have hearing difficulties. In fact, more than 37 million adults in the US have some degree of hearing loss. Many conditions, illnesses and diseases can affect your hearing, including aging, ear trauma, medications, sound exposure and earwax.
Today, there are many treatments and devices that can improve your hearing and ability to communicate, such as hearing aids, cochlear implants and bone anchored implants.”
You might be thinking to yourself, “Why is the preacher inquiring about my private affairs and personal health?” Well, I’m glad you asked.
I make this inquiry because I recognize the importance of communication, defined as the interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information, by speech or sound. Sound is produced when an object vibrates enough to create additional waves of vibration (energy or sound waves). Our ability to hear, and make meaning of sound, connects us to one another and the world.
In the Gospels, Jesus was often quoted as saying, “He that has ears to hear, let them hear.” Jesus referred to “all who have been given His words — no matter their age, ethnicity, language, or status.”
Thus, Jesus offers the Word as an opportunity to join the family of God, bear fruit to the glory of God, be transformed into the people of God – and to hear the sound of joy. However, it is up to the hearer to decide whether to take the Word seriously and pursue understanding and eternal life. We have a decision to make. Will we seek, search, find, and hear the sound of joy?
JOY
Moreover, to fully understand the breadth of this sermon, we must also define joy. Technically, joy is defined as the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying, keen pleasure, and elation. Words like delight, happiness, satisfaction, pleasure, and elation all somehow describe joy. Perhaps that is why scripture teaches us to
“Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass” (Psalm 37:4-5).
The real question is, can you hear joy? Or has your hearing been diminished or snuffed out? If so, do you think you can gain your joy – unspeakable joy – back? Or do you need to be “made” to hear joy and gladness?
Now, the dictionary definition of unspeakable joy refers to something that exceeds the power of speech, unutterable, inexpressible, or indescribable. It’s unspeakable because it is hard to put into words.
You know:
- The kind of joy that tickles and titillates the soul…
- The kind of joy that makes you want to scream, dance, and shout…
- The kind of joy that causes your words to slur, stutter, and stammer about…
- That joy that causes your atoms and molecules to trigger the individual protons, neutrons, and electrons in your body to bring about spontaneous praise…
- The kind of joy that comes when you think about what God has done for you.
I wonder what would happen if more people accepted Joy as the “one word that will change your life” challenge, as depicted by authors Jon Gordon, Dan Britton, and Jimmy Page. They suggest that by centering your life for a season around one word, it will change your life and make the “difference between failure and new found success” as you prepare your heart – looking in; discover your word – looking up; and live your word – looking out (page 21).
One of the mothers of the church put it this way, “When I think about the goodness of the Lord, I begin to thank God.” Let me say that again. “When I think about the goodness of the Lord, I begin to thank God.” You see, thinking and thanking are linked. Your joy is an expression of your ability to think and thank.
I believe that, in order to flourish and have success, we must have and/or recover our joy. Joy can no longer be something outside of ourselves. It cannot be attached to a person, place, or thing.
We need to be reminded that Joy is part of our DNA. God created us to be people of Joy. It is not just something that you do or feel. Joy became part of your human composition from the beginning. Genesis 2:7,
“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
This is why we can say, “When I think about the Goodness of the Lord and what He’s done for me, I begin to thank God.” He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.
Your breath is cause for celebration. Your ability to breathe in love and breathe out peace. The simple exercise of inhaling and exhaling is cause for rejoicing. Psalm 150:6,
“Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.”
Is anybody still breathing in here? Then I suspect you ought to praise the Lord.
ADVENT
Especially during this season of Advent, a season for reflection, celebration, and expectation, as we await the birth and Second Coming of our Savior,
- we reflect on the past and the future.
- we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ!
- and we anticipate the Second Coming.
Hebrews 10:24 instructs us
“to provoke one another to love and good deeds.”
In particular, today we seek to hear the sound of joy through the scripture in the following ways.
BACKGROUND
First, in Psalm 51, we discover that, after David is confronted by the prophet Nathan about his abuse of power, violence against Bathsheba, and the murder of her husband, he felt convicted, guilty, and ashamed of his conduct, his sin and rebellion against God.
Ironically, usually this text is preached during the Lenten season, as the fifty-first Psalm of David is a poem and prayer for forgiveness. It is a prayer for help – a lament and petition. This is a Psalm all about penitence. It is considered the most famous of the seven penitential Psalms – the others are Psalm 6, 32, 38, 102, 130, and 143.
But when you boil it all down, which we will do, this is a story of sin and forgiveness. But what I love about this text is it acknowledges our own sinfulness. The text doesn’t let even a monarch, aristocrat, or celebrity get away with his own crimes. David is called on the carpet. Rather, David himself lays himself on the carpet in repentance.
In this page turner of the life of David, we are privy to a text that shows us what a relationship with God is like. It reveals both God’s character and human sin. Forgiveness and salvation. It once again depicts God’s steadfast love. Hear ye the Word of God:
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions” (Psalm 51:1).
Nonetheless, I have lifted this text to suggest that we hold together the tension of both our lament and joy. For the sound of joy can be an expression of forgiveness –
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
In Christ we are forgiven. The sound of joy can be the acceptance of restoration –
“Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me” (Psalm 51:12).
The thing about repentance is, it is not only about the wrong doings, but also about our dependency on God. We are not God.
A contrite spirit is the path to cleanliness, holiness, forgiveness, freedom, and restoration, and dare I, the sound of Joy.
The second text, in the Gospel of Luke 1:39-45, is spoken by Mary upon the occasion of her visitation to her cousin Elizabeth. This passage is one of the longest speeches of women. And thus, I intentionally selected it for our time together today.
This narrative, in verses 46-55, focused on Mary, the Mother of Jesus. The composition of the text emphasizes both the personal and the communal. Mary gives us permission to sing to the Lord with all our hearts. She talks, personally, about what God has done in, through, and for her. In verse 48, she reminds us that
“Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed.”
It is her bold proclamation of joy that has inspired this message.
In fact, this section of scripture is called the Magnificat, because that is the first word in the Latin translation of the text. This text is also known as the Song of Mary, and, in the Byzantine tradition, the Ode of the Theotokos, which means the God bearer (Greek: Ἡ ᾨδὴ τῆς Θεοτόκου).
When we, like Mary, allow our souls to magnify the Lord, we are intentionally and directly acknowledging our blessedness. Mary calls attention to the fact that God has blessed her in a special way. We serve a God that interacts with us in a very real and personal way. Just like God blessed Mary, God has blessed you, too. God has blessed each of us in a special way, too.
To be clear, we have not been tasked with birthing the Savior of the world. That has already been done. But, as we await Christ’s return, we are asked to bear witness to the Savior of the World. Mary’s blessing literally affects the entire world. I believe that when we respond in faith, like Mary, and learn to appreciate the ways that God has set us apart for God’s purposes, our actions also affect the wider community.
I have no doubt that you are blessed. The question is, how often do you take note of your blessings? Ask yourself, how often do I take the time to count my many blessings and name them one by one?
This is especially true during times of darkness… in a year in which we have experienced so much grief and loss. For some of us, it was a loss of loved ones and friends. For others, it was a loss of employment, housing, transportation, or food security. Yet, for others, it was a loss of peace, stability, comfort, and certainty. But, for all of us, it was a loss of our old way of living, gathering, and our previous sense of community.
Even in the Advent hymn, it suggests that there will be hard times, “Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death’s dark shadows put to flight.” However, the stanza is followed by the refrain: “Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel, shall come to thee, O Israel.”
Mary’s song highlights for us our need hear the sound of joy. She invites us to SING. There can be no excuse. You have “voluntarily” been asked to enlist in heaven’s choir. There will be no auditions, no paid soloist, no autotuning or pre-recordings accepted. For Mary, the sound of Joy can be heard through music.
MUSIC
One of the best ways I have found to render praise is through music. It amazes me how music transcends time. How one line, lyric, measure, or vamp is borrowed and reused in each subsequent generation. Music is universal, communal, and powerful. It has the potential to remind us of someone special. the moment when something significant happened, or simply to evoke God’s presence – O Come, O Come Emmanuel.
In the book of Luke, chapter one, we encounter another hymn of praise. A song of liberation. A song of Joy, thanksgiving, and victory. “My soul doth magnify the Lord.” Oh how that tune rings in the ear of the listener. Listen to the way it plucks at the heartstrings and stirs the soul to acknowledge the Creator.
Now, imagine how this chorus, sung in the amphitheater of heaven, would sound. When all humanity opens its lips and allows the harmonies of all voices: sopranos, altos, tenors, baritones, the tone deaf, and the like-to-sing together in unison. “My Soul doth magnify the Lord.”
The Greek word for magnify is me-gä-lü’-nō. It means to make great; magnify; to make conspicuous; to deem or declare great; to esteem highly; to extol, laud, celebrate; to get glory and praise.
Thus, I hear Mary’s song of praise as an invitation for us to join her in magnifying the Lord. These lyrics remind us that we serve a mighty God, who is the same today, yesterday, and forever more.
- God Is Good
- God Is Loving
- God Is Forgiving
- God Is Merciful
- God Is Compassionate
- God Is Holy
- God Is Righteous
- God Is Worthy of Our Praise.
You will have to open up your mouth and sing, preferably on a daily basis. When I say SING, we express the sound of joy.
When we SING, S – SHARE what God has done for us.
“And Mary said, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord,and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior’” (Luke 1:46-47).
And other texts, like Psalm 103:1-2,
“Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.”
When we praise God with our whole hearts and souls, we express our thanksgiving in a real and personal way that mirrors the personal nature of God.
Mary’s bold statement of blessing is not a narcissistic statement of self-absorption, but rather a statement of fact. God blessed her. God has blessed you. Now tell somebody about your blessing. We are the beneficiaries of Mary’s song of praise and liberation. We have been liberated from our own sin and shame.
Like David’s plea in Psalm 51:8, we have been made to hear joy and gladness. We have been saved! Glory, Hallelujah! The virtues that Mary espouses, such as peace, justice, compassion, and equality, are the same virtues we seek today.
When we SING, I – INVITE others to sing, too. Our invitation acknowledges the great things that God has done for us. We are encouraged to share our testimony. We have an opportunity to tell our story. How God has changed our lives. How God has reversed the trajectory of our lives. “When nothing else could help, Love lifted me.”
I hear Mary’s song of praise as an invitation to join her in magnifying the Lord. One of the contemporary songs by Tye Tribbett puts it this way,
“If he did it before, he’d do it again; Same God right now, same God back then.”
That’s what our testimonies do – they encourage us, and others, to know that God is able. Likewise, in Psalm 51:8-10,
“Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
Part of our testimony is that God can restore our joy. So, even when life seems to push us to the brink, or press up against us like a giant compactor, God can release a sound of joy like none other. A joy that sustains, a joy that remains, a joy that the world can’t give and can’t take away.
God can make us new. 2 Corinthians 5:17,
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”
When we SING, N – NOTICE your worth as a woman. The text also encourages us to value who we are, and, most importantly, whose we are. This narrative, when applied to our lives, asks us to take a closer look at ourselves.
Women are asked to see their own value. How do we see ourselves and one another? How do others see us? Do we amplify the blessing of God in each other?
Nurture yourself. Affirm yourself. Believe in yourself. Believe that you are worthy. Why? Because God says you are. You are part of a royal priesthood. You have value, purpose, and meaning.
If, for some reason, this is a little harder to believe for yourself, then you are going to have to sing a little louder until you shake up that fallow ground in your own heart and soul, and replace it with the rich soil of God’s Word.
“For he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed” (Luke 1:48).
When we SING, G – GLORIFY God in all things. God has acted. God blessed all in human history.
“For the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name” (Luke 1:49).
“God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
CONCLUSION
We are encouraged to listen to the sound of joy.
I once heard the following testimony. A woman had just loss her second born son, age seven, because of a drowning accident at her pastor’s home during the church’s Annual Children and Youth Outing. But as she sat, heartbroken, during the funeral services, she heard the voice of the Lord ask her, “Can you praise me now?”
Can you picture the mounting questions? How could this happen? How could tragedy happen while serving the Lord? Can you feel the possible intensity of her anger, disbelief, and doubt?
Yet, in this situation, she is asked of the Lord, “Can you praise me now?” How do you think she responded?
Well, that women erupted in a shout of praise that shook the foundation of that church. Her praise was so pure, so unexpected, and so “irrational” that some doubted her love for her son, and others thought she was just plan crazy – she had lost it. But perhaps, her response was the internalization of what Peter wrote in 1 Peter 1:6-7.
“In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
That woman was my beloved mother, Rev. Deborah L. Shumake, Japhia (walking in the Glory of God). You see, my mother’s ability to respond to God’s question, and praise God in the midst of her pain, has taught me that my joy, too, comes from the Lord and not my circumstances. She would often tell us that ma ought to
“Praise God in spite of, because of, and no matter what!”
Yes, we can be people to carry hope in the midst of our challenges. We can recover our joy. As this is the test of our faith. Scripture tells us, time and time again, that joy comes. That joy can remain.
In light of the significance of this text and its emphasis on women, I believe it was canonized to remind you that God sees and cares about you. As we prepare for the birth of our Savior, we continue to reflect on the gifts that we receive every day. We are a blessed people.
When we complete an appreciative inquiry to see all the value and assets that we have in our midst, we recognize that what we focus on becomes our reality. When we understand the sound of joy, we will declare, like Mary, “Call me blessed!”
CELEBRATION
The Good News is that we are all invited to SING a song of praise. Our individual lyrics will not be the same. But I can guarantee that your utterance will be pleasing in God’s sight, and music to God’s ears, when you recognize and respond to the sound of joy.
We are encouraged to magnify the Lord! To make a joyful noise , a joyful sound unto the Lord. “Rejoice, Rejoice, Emmanuel, shall come to thee, O Israel.” God will come. Jesus is coming. Glory! Hallelujah!
Questions for Discussion or Reflection
- Psalm 51 is a prayer of repentance, while the Magnificat is a song of joyful praise. How do repentance and joy relate in the Christian life? Can you recall a time when honest confession or returning to God led to unexpected joy?
- David prays, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation” (Psalm 51:12). What does restored joy look like in practical terms? What might hinder us from experiencing the joy God desires for us?
- In Luke 1, Mary says, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” What does it mean to “magnify” the Lord in our own lives? What practices help you focus on God’s goodness, rather than on your circumstances?
- Both passages highlight God’s mercy — David seeks mercy, and Mary celebrates it. How does reflecting on God’s mercy shape the “sound” or expression of joy in your life? How can mercy change the way we respond to others?
- Mary announces that God lifts up the humble, and David prays that a broken and contrite heart is what God desires. Where do you see God bringing joy to the lowly or broken in these passages? How can you, your small group, or our church be part of amplifying that joy in the world in this Advent season?