Grace and Glory

Overview

Psalm 113 points us back to the song of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1 and 2, and it looks forward to the song of Mary in Luke 1, where Mary sings because she has been told she’s going to give birth to Jesus. So these three — the song of Hannah, Psalm 113, and the song of Mary — are connected. There’s a theme running through all of these that will shed light on what Christmas is about.

So what is Christmas about? It’s about the infinitely high becoming inconceivably low, the infinitely huge becoming astoundingly small. In other words, there’s a protocol God has when it comes to renewing the world and renewing your life. The protocol is he tends to work through the poor to renew the world, and he tends to work through weakness and suffering to renew you.
Let’s take a look at this protocol, first of all as God depicts it in Psalm 113 and then as Jesus Christ works it out through his own life.