This Sunday, we begin our new Christmas message series, "Christmas Compilation:The Original Songs of the Season." I wanted to call it, "Christmas: The Musical" but was outvoted! The series is based on the four songs found in the first two chapters of Luke's gospel in the events surrounding the birth of Jesus.

We begin in Luke 1:46-55 with Mary's song of hope known as The Magnificat. The title is based on Mary's declaration that her "soul magnifies the Lord." The song is extraordinary on many levels. It begins with "And Mary said . . ." capturing the words of an impoverished young woman living in the Middle East during the first century. In a time and culture where women were treated as second class citizens, the Bible preserves Mary's words as she bears witness to the coming of Christ. There is no equivalent found in Greco-Roman literature or in the writings of the Jewish rabbis from that time in history!