Luke 1:46-55 - The Magnificat
Preached on December 06, 2009, by Joshua Krohse.
Topics: Christmas
Our sermon this morning is based on a song or poem by a young woman named Mary. At least we assume she was young. Most Jewish women were married at around age 14 in Jewish culture 2,000 years ago, and there's no reason to think Mary would have been any different.
Mary was engaged to a construction worker named Joseph. We don't know for sure, but since most marriages were arranged by parents, probably this one was, too. The engagement period, or betrothal, lasted for a year.
When we get to our text, in Luke chapter 1, an angel named Gabriel has recently shown up and told Mary the following: "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."
To say the least, Mary was surprised. She was betrothed, but she was a virgin. How would she have a child?
And the angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy--the Son of God." Well, that clears it all up, right? Mary, the Holy Spirit will make you pregnant--by his power and presence he will bring a child to life within you. The ordinary process won't be necessary this time.
And, your child will be holy. He'll be different, set apart for God. He'll be someone special. Specifically, he'll be the Son of God. You will give birth to the Messiah.
The angel offered some proof that God could and would do this amazing miracle. 36 And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God."
And Mary said, "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." We don't know what all went through her mind as the angel told her some of the most amazing news a woman has ever heard. But we see that she understood herself to be God's servant and believed that God could do anything he wants to. She wasn't going to argue with God.Of course, Joseph was not overjoyed to find out that his fiance was pregnant, so he decided to divorce her. Unlike in American society where engagements are relatively easy to break off, in the culture of the day, a betrothal had to be ended by a formal divorce. Divorce was actually a compassionate option in this case, because the prescribed penalty for adultery was death.
Thankfully, an angel showed up and explained to Joseph that Mary was pregnant with God's Promised King, the Messiah, by the Holy Spirit. I wonder how they explained that to their parents, friends, and relatives!
It might have been the people talking and pointing fingers that prompted Mary to put several days' distance between herself and her home, maybe she wanted time to think, or maybe she wanted to swap miraculous pregnancy stories with someone. So she loaded up her things and traveled to her cousin Elizabeth's house to hang out for a few months.
Elizabeth, as Gabriel pointed out was pregnant by a different miracle. In her womb she carried the prophet who would prepare the way for the Promised King. She was the mother of John the Baptist.
When newly pregnant Mary arrived at Elizabeth's house somehow the unborn prophet John knew that the Promised King was nearby. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord."
And Mary responded,
"My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever."This is a poem, probably a song. It has the feel and form of a psalm.
We don't know if Mary composed it herself or recited someone else's poem. The language is much like Hannah's prayer, but it's not a copy. It's also like a number of other prayers and songs in scripture. The phrases that make up the poem are all found in other places in scripture and are common in some non-scriptural Jewish psalms of the time.
What do we know is that Mary's poem is full of truth and exactly fits the occasion. By speaking these words, Mary shows us clearly and beautifully the greatness and goodness of God as he sends his Promised King, his Messiah, his Christ into the world.
Her words paint a picture of a powerful God who cannot be held back from his mission to rescue his helpless people and lavish his love on them.
Mary says her soul magnifies the Lord and her spirit rejoices in God her Savior. This morning, then, let us rejoice with her and magnify the Lord as we work our way through the great truths of Mary's song."My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior"
This is Hebrew poetry. The first line, "My soul magnifies the Lord", and the second line, "and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior" together express one idea. Mary, with everything she is, is glad for who God is. Together, soul and spirit, mean her whole inward person. She is rejoicing in God from her heart, and not just with her lips.
To magnify something is to make it great, to make it big. How can Mary magnify the Lord? Can she add anything to God? Can she make him bigger than he already is? No, she can't. He's already as great as great can be! Nothing she can do can make him more wonderful than he already is.
What she means, then, is that she is beginning to understand how truly great God is and everything in her wants to tell others about him. She wants her hearers to open their spiritual eyes wider and see more of God than they already do. She has caught a glimpse of his glory, his many perfect attributes, and suddenly he is bigger than she has ever imagined. To magnify God is to see him more clearly for who he is and to communicate who he is more clearly to those around us.
May our souls magnify the Lord this morning as we see his merciful, gracious glory on display!
"My spirit rejoices in God my Savior"
In case any of you have heard differently, Mary was a sinner. Whatever her good traits (her humility and willingness to be used by God, for instance), she was still a sinner like all other human beings (except the one in her womb). For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Ever since the Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the garden, all of us have been sinners. All of us rejected God as King in our lives. None of us has lived in such a way as to bring glory to God constantly, but that's what we were created for. Each of us has earned death because of our sin, our disobedience, since the wages of sin is death. And each of us has earned hell, since we were by nature children of wrath. Left to ourselves, we don't want God, we won't seek him, we earn death and hell, and we are helpless to change this situation.
But Mary rejoices in God her Savior. I'm sure you've all heard someone ask--or maybe you've asked yourself--"Are you saved?" What does that mean--saved? It means rescued--have you been rescued. Rescued from what? From not wanting God, from not seeking him, from sin and death and hell, a situation so helpless that the apostle Paul calls it already being dead:
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience--among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
So Mary rejoices that God is her Savior. Her Rescuer. How much Mary understood of what that meant that God was her rescuer, we don't know. She saw, though, that somehow this "Son of God" within her was part of God's rescue mission. As we look back from this side of the cross, we know that God, in love, rescues his people from sin, the devil, and from his own righteous anger, his wrath.
May our spirits rejoice in God our Savior.
Mary specifies why she magnifies the Lord and rejoices in God her Savior: "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant."
For God to "look on" someone means for him to treat them favorably. God has seen Mary's humble estate and treated her favorably. What does Mary mean by "the humble estate of his servant"?
She means that she was and had nothing of value to the world. She was a "no one" engaged to a "nobody" living in a little town in the middle of nowhere, a member of a conquered people on the outskirts of somebody else's empire. Her people were dispersed and to some extent oppressed. She was not wise according to worldly standards, she was not powerful, though a descendent of David, she was not of noble birth. She was one of the foolish things of this world, one of the weak things in the world, the things that are not.
But God looked on her with favor. She had nothing to commend herself to God. She had nothing God needed. At best, she is his servant, there to do what he wishes. But he, out of sheer grace, chose her to be the mother of his Son, Jesus Christ, the Promised King.
That's the kind of God that God is! He uses those of humble estate to accomplish his plans so that in the end no one gets the glory but God himself. Paul said in I Corinthians 1, "For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."
Praise God who showers favor on the weak and helpless. If he did not, we would have no hope!
"For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name."
Mary declares that all generations will call her blessed. The word "blessed" in and of itself doesn't mean important or chosen or godly or especially spiritual. It means "truly happy." So, for instance, when Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." He means the poor in spirit will certainly be truly happy, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.
Mary, then is not calling attention to herself, saying that she is somehow special, but celebrating her happiness in God who is mighty and holy and has done great things for her. She is not happy because of who she is; she is happy because of the great deeds of her mighty, holy God. And she wants us all to know that God has made her happy.
Our God is a mighty God. Psalm 24:8 describes him like this, "Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle!" God is able to fight and destroy anything and anyone who opposes him. When God has decided to rescue someone, to save them, and to show his great kindness and love to them, nothing can stand in his way. Zephaniah 3:17 says, "The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save."
This mighty God has done great things for Mary. No one else has had an angel appear to her and say that she will be the mother of the Son of God. No one else has become pregnant by the Holy Spirit. No one else has carried the Son of God within her. God has indeed done great things for Mary.
But Mary is not the only recipient of the great things of God. God has always been doing great things for his people.
The Bible is full of stories of the great things that God has done on behalf of his people.
And so, God's people sang in Psalm 126, "Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy; then they said among the nations, 'The Lord has done great things for them.' The Lord has done great things for us; we are glad."And in Psalm 71, "Your righteousness, O God, reaches the high heavens. You who have done great things, O God, who is like you?"
As Mary shows us, it is right to praise the Lord for the great things he has done for us. And, if by God's grace you have turned from your sins to trust in Jesus Christ, God has done, is doing, and will continue to do great things for you.
God is holy. Holy is his name. To be holy is to be different. God is unlike anyone else in his perfect goodness, in his creative power, in his sovereign control of all things, and in his great saving grace and love. As the psalmist says in Psalm 111:9, "He sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant forever. Holy and awesome is his name!"
May we, like Mary, find true happiness in the holy God who has done great things for us.
Mary praises God who is holy, and yet is merciful. "And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation."
God is not like us. God is set apart and different. Yet, God shows mercy to his people by coming to them and rescuing them and making them alive and dwelling with them. Isaiah 57:15, "For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: 'I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite."
As Mary spoke these words of praise, she carried in her womb Emmanuel, "God with us". Though we deserve his wrath God has given us mercy in his Son, Jesus Christ.
And that is what God is like. He takes his enemies, you and I for instance, and makes us his friends and his children. He takes those who do not fear him and teaches them that he is great and awesome and worthy of praise and obedience. And he takes those who therefore fear and reverence and obey him and mercifully loves them forever. Psalm 103:17-18: "But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children's children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments."
Let us with Mary and with the author of Psalm 89 sing of the steadfast love of the Lord forever. With our mouths let us make known God's faithfulness to all generations.
At this point, an interesting thing happens in the wording of the poem. Remember that as she speaks or sings these verses, Jesus is a tiny baby only a couple weeks old inside her. Mary has not seen Jesus walk the earth as a man, feed thousands using a few loaves of bread and a couple dried fish, calm a storm, bring a child back to life, give sight to the blind, or conquer sin and death and rise from the dead as Savior of the world. What has this little fetus done?
And yet Mary will speak as though Jesus' work is already accomplished, as though God's enemies are already destroyed and God's children are already vindicated, as though God's people are enjoying all good things as all the nations of the earth are blessed through the offspring of Abraham.
How can she speak with such confidence? Mary speaks with confident expectation, because she knows that God has promised all these things. If God can say, "Let there be light" and out of nothing there was light, she can certainly trust that he will accomplish all he has promised. And here, in her own body, was the hope of Israel, God's promised King.
God's promises were already coming true, and so Mary speaks of things to come, things God has promised, as if they are already accomplished. And, so may we. God always keeps his promises. The definition of faith in Hebrews 11 is, "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." In other words, faith is trusting that an all-powerful, completely trustworthy God will keep his promises.
So, let us look at Mary's confident faith-filled statements.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.Mary tells us that by sending his Promised King Jesus, God is putting into effect a great reversal, a great upheaval--that he is, as his followers were later accused of doing, turning the world upside down.
God, she says, will scatter the proud by the strength of his arm. Those who think they are really something, that they are self-sufficient, that they are worthy of praise and glory will not be able to stand before God. The phrase "by the strength of his arm" means that he is going to take them on himself. And the picture here is not of the proud shuffling out of the way as God breaks up their party, but of a tornado throwing around bits of hay and stubble.
Those who remain proud in the thoughts of their hearts (that is, those who are proud on the inside whether or not other people can see their pride externally) have no hope of standing against God or his Messiah.
God will dethrone the mighty. God had brought Nebuchadnezzar down from his throne and humbled him by making him eat grass like an animal until he acknowledged that Yahweh, the Lord, was God alone. God would strike down Herod, when the people shouted, "The voice of a god, and not of a man!" Acts 12 says, "Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last."
God is very much in the business of pulling people off their thrones and showing them that there is only one King. Not just kings, either. We all have wanted to rule our own lives, to be masters of our own domains--we have wanted to be free to run our own worlds the way we see fit and to be subject to no one. But praise be to God, he has brought down the mighty from their thrones.
He has shown us that without Jesus, we are spiritually bankrupt, that we are sinners and enemies of the true King. He has humbled us so that we have mourned over our sins and cried out to Jesus for help.
And, as Mary says, God has "exalted those of humble estate." As he has shown us our need for him, many of us have humbled ourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he has lifted us up.
When it comes down to it, there are only two types of people. There are people who are proud in the thoughts of their hearts; who consider themselves to be their own kings, who think they are rich. And there are people who were proud in the thoughts of their hearts, who considered themselves to be their own kings, and who thought they were rich.
If you are a proud person, if you think you are capable of running your own life apart from the rule of King Jesus, if you think you have all you need, beware.
Listen to the words of Jesus from Revelation 3, "For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent."
Jesus said, in the sermon on the mountainside, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."
God rescues those who see their need for a rescuer. God exalts those of humble estate;
and fills the hungry with good things. Only those who realize they need a savior, turn from their sins and put their trust in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, will be saved. The rest will be scattered, dethroned, and sent away empty.Our God is a God who lavishes good things on his children. As Mary says, God exalts those of humble estate; he fills the hungry with good things. To those who trust in Jesus, God gives the right to become his children. He adopts us. He gives us his Holy Spirit to help us understand his Word, to intercede for us, to convict us, to guide us, to empower us, and to serve as a pledge that God will finish what he has started with us. He gives us a new family, the church. He gives us comfort and confidence. He gives us the righteousness of Christ, he counts Jesus' goodness to our accounts. He will give us resurrection bodies and a new earth and access to his throne room with unspeakable joy in the presence of God and of Jesus Christ. He gives us himself. As Paul says in Romans, "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?"
Mary's poem ends with the words, "He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever."
God's plan had always been to rescue his people. As I read in our call to worship, from the very first sin, God promised that he would one day send a man to crush the head of Satan, the serpent. Throughout the scripture we see him clarifying this promise.
To Abraham, God said, "I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed."
Long ago, God promised Abraham that through one of his descendents would bless people from every nation. The New Testament makes clear that Jesus is that descendent, that Jesus is the one who receives all the covenant promises of God, that Jesus is the one through whom God shows his mercy to his people, that Jesus is the one who God uses to help his people, to rescue for himself a people from every tongue and tribe and people and nation.
As God had promised, he had sent a Savior. Jesus would live a perfect life--he never sinned. He deserved nothing but honor and glory. But God had sent him to earth, and he had willingly been sent, on a mission. Jesus' mission was to bear the sin of the world. Though he was the perfect Son of God, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
You and I deserve death, and we deserve hell, and we deserve all the whipping and beating and thorns and nails and more that Jesus endured on the cross. We deserve it, because we are sinners, and all of that is a fair penalty for failing to glorify and honor the infinitely holy God.
But God counted the sins of his enemies against his beloved Son, God in the flesh, Jesus Christ. Jesus was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way; and the Lord laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all. Jesus was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.It was the will of the Lord to crush him; God himself put Jesus to grief as he poured out his wrath, his furious anger at my sin and yours, on his Son.
Jesus suffered and Jesus died, and they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
And having suffered under and absorbed the wrath and fury of almighty God, Jesus completely paid the full penalty for the sins of all who trust him. Since he had made full payment for our sins, death could no longer hold him and God raised him from the dead on the third day. He has since ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father. And one day he will come back to judge the living and the dead.
To those who are proud and rich in their own minds, this judgment will be the beginning of the second death, of torment and hell and regret forever.
On the other hand there will be those who recognize their need for a savior, who realize that they are spiritually poor and hungry and of low estate. If they realize that they cannot trust themselves for salvation but can only trust Jesus, the savior God promised to Adam and Eve and Abraham.
If they see that their sin is a horrible offense against the holy God most high, turn away from it and trust the savior God has provided. If they trust that that Jesus died for them and provides them with his righteousness.
Then Christ's return will be good news, as the judgment will reveal that their sins have been paid for, their debt has been cancelled, they have been forgiven, that they are righteous with Christ's righteousness, that they have the Holy Spirit living in them, that Jesus is their advocate before the throne of God, and that they have life forever with God.
God has helped his servant Israel, all his people who trust in him. In remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.
If you do not trust the Promised King, Jesus Christ, trust him today.
And let all of us who have been rescued by the amazing grace and everlasting mercy of God say with Mary, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!"