Advent Magnificat 2

Luke 1:39-56 - Advent 2 Midweek - December 10, 2014
All Generations Call Her Blessed

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth 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 on those who fear Him
From generation to generation.”

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We call it the Magnificat, because it is the first word in Latin for “My soul magnifies the Lord.”   It teaches us how to worship God.  It teaches us how to worship by teaching us the faith.  The highest worship that any soul can extend to God is to believe the gospel.  There is no greater way to magnify the Lord than by confessing Christ who saves us.  This beautiful canticle could as easily be called the Exsultavit, which is the first word in “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”  True worship is founded in true joy, not forced joy or worldly joy or sentimental joy, but true, godly, Spirit-wrought joy.  Our soul learns to call God great only when our spirit learns to know God’s grace.  We magnify God by rejoicing in him who saves us from our sin. 

When Mary first heard from the angel Gabriel that she would give birth to the Savior of the world, she said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word.”  This is the response of faith.  This is what we speak to God when his ministers deal with us according to his word.  We first acknowledge that God is speaking to us — “Behold the maidservant of the Lord.”  We second acknowledge that what he says to us is both true and beneficial — “Let it be done to me according to your word.”  This is what we say to God.  We say Amen and Amen. 

But the Magnificat is more than an Amen.  It is a greeting.  It is not what Mary sang to the angel.  It is not what Mary sang to herself once the angel left – although it was no doubt being composed in her heart even as she sat pondering the things which the angel had told her. 

Rather, the Magnificat was what Mary sang as a greeting to her cousin Elizabeth as she drew near her home.  She did not say, “It’s so good to see you.”  She did not say, “Oh, my how you are showing already!”  Instead she spoke of a more profound joy that the two of them shared.  She sang of the great joy that Elizabeth’s child would one day preach to the souls of all men as he prepared the way for the magnificent Child that Mary was carrying. 

She sang: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” 

By singing the Magnificat to Elizabeth as a greeting, Mary did exactly what St. Paul admonishes us to do in Colossians 3:16, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” 

Within Mary, the Word of God dwelt richly in all wisdom – the very Word of God and Wisdom of God made flesh, the Christ.  And so with her greeting to Elizabeth, Mary sang with grace in her heart to the Lord.  And with this spiritual song, she taught and admonished her cousin.  

Here we see two important aspects of Christian worship: we see both the where from and the what for of praise. 

Praise does not merely consist of the worshipper’s emotional response to something wonderful.  As Jesus says, it is God who prepares praise out of the mouths of infants and nursing babes (Matthew 21:16).  God prepares praise by teaching us the gospel.  So praise, therefore, is first of all, something that God teaches us.  That’s the where from.  It isn’t the impulsive expressions of the heart.  It is the intentional and articulate confession of the soul. 

Mary did not say, “I magnify the Lord and I rejoice in God my savior.”  No, instead she says that her soul and her spirit do the praising.  This is because it is her soul and her spirit that have been taught to believe.  Her praise does not flow from her inner emotions.  Her praise flows from the gospel that she received by the word of God.  

It is as Isaiah says, “With my soul I have desired You in the night, yes, by my spirit within me I will seek You early; for when Your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness” (Isaiah 26:9). 

And this brings us to the second important aspect of praise.  It is instructive.  It teaches righteousness to the inhabitants of the world by recalling the judgments of God.  This is the what for of praise.  Certainly praise is pleasing to God for its own sake.  In as much as God is pleased with faith that trusts his promises, God delights in all we do to thank and honor him.  But our praise is useful.  We must not forget that.  By recalling the promises of the gospel, the praise of our soul and spirit proclaims to those around us, and those gathered this evening, how God regards all of us for Jesus’ sake. 

When Mary conceived Jesus, the judgments of God truly came down to earth.  God’s verdict on the whole world was made known.  By filling her womb, he instructed her soul and taught her spirit to rejoice.  So also, by making his home in us through the word we hear, he prepares praise that cannot be silenced.  He teaches us to confess that we are righteous before God for the sake of him who fulfilled all righteousness.   He teaches sinners to know true righteousness by knowing first that we are lowly.   He teaches sinners to rejoice in righteousness by regarding our lowliness and becoming lowly himself. 

It is as Mary’s song continues – she gives the reason for her magnifying and rejoicing.  Why does she praise the Lord?  “[Because] he has regarded the lowly state of his maidservant.”  That’s why.  He has not judged her according to her sin and unworthiness.  No he regards her highly precisely because her sin and unworthiness make her perfectly fit to need a Savior.  He did not search the earth for a worthy receptacle of his incarnation.  No he beheld the sons and daughters of men and found lowly sinners – every one of us.  He taught Mary to know it.  He taught Mary to confess it.  He found in her a lowly sinner.  And then he taught Mary how he regards lowly sinners by teaching her about Jesus – by giving her Jesus.  Mary found favor with God because God regarded her lowliness.  He looked at her lowliness and said, “This is what I will lift up.  This is what I will exult.  This is what I come now to assume as my own flesh and redeem with my own blood.  This is what I regard with affection and love.” 

And this is how we magnify the Lord.  His word teaches us how.  We magnify the Lord by humbling ourselves – by counting all our noble deeds and even our sincere praises as rubbish compared to him who has mercy on sinners.  God does not look down from heaven searching for the most sincere, the most virtuous, the most noble.  No, he looks down and regards our lowliness.  He sees fitting vessels for his abiding presence by seeing sinners who have been humbled by the law and cannot raise themselves back up. 

Are you fit for God?  How do you know?  What honor do you seek?  What relationship do you claim with Jesus in order to join in his praise and be found worthy?  Is it because you have always been a churchgoer?  Is it because you give money to your congregation or because you give your time?  Is it because you magnify the Lord so well, or because you are such a joyful believer?  Is it because you have raised Christian children? 

Well Mary raised Christ.  Mary knew joy.  Mary gave her time, her honor, her very body to the service of her Savior God.  But we must remember what Mary was once taught, and which she admonishes us to embrace in her spiritual song: that God regards none of these things.  He regards our lowliness.  He seeks to have mercy on sinners. 

A woman once cried out to Jesus from the crowd: “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts at which you nursed.”  But this is not what Mary meant when she sang that all generations shall call her blessed.  Her blessedness was not in the service she rendered.  It was in the service she received.  So Jesus responded, “Blessed rather are those who hear the Word of God and keep it” (Luke 11:27-28).  Yes, blessed are those who do what Mary did – “Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). 

She believed.  She believed that she was blessed not because the world could see it, not because she could feel it.  She believed because the word of God had said it.  As Elizabeth also said, “blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” 

No one has ever been more blessed than Mary.  No greater honor has ever been bestowed on any man than was bestowed upon this woman.  The eternal God who, because he sought to make his home in you, made his home in her.  He became flesh and blood for you – in her.  He lived a perfectly obedient life for you by being the perfect Child who brought joy and honor to her – more than any child could bring his parents.  He was pierced for you.  But what sorrow his sacrifice works in your heart cannot compare with the sword that pierced his mother’s.  Her dear Child gave his life for hers, was mocked for her honor, was beaten for her safety, was brought low that she may be exalted.  All this for you.  Mary is a picture of the Church.  We receive what she received by calling her blessed.  We acknowledge what God gives us only by acknowledging what great things God has done for his Church on earth.  We gather with her.  We listen with her.  We sing with her.  We teach and admonish one another like she did. 

In honoring Mary the way he did, God honors motherhood.  He teaches us that there is no greater privilege that God bestows on mankind than to be a mother, than for God to give life in the womb – and so it has been since Adam named his wife Eve, the mother of all living.  The incarnation of the Son of God proves this. 

Motherhood is avoided these days, even by Christian women who have learned from their culture instead of from Mary.  Children are seen as commodities that bring as much stress as joy.  And so women seek respect and fulfillment elsewhere where they can get the recognition they think they deserve – outside of the home where caring for children remains a thankless task that gains no public admiration.  Being a mother is a lowly thing in the eyes of the world.  But it is a lowly thing that God regards.  As Psalm 127 says, children are a heritage from the Lord, and as Proverbs 31 says about the God-fearing woman, “Her children rise up and call her blessed” (Proverbs 31:28). 

Mary didn’t seek the praise of the world.  She sought the mercy of God.  Mary didn’t announce to the world what great things she had done.  She sought council and friendship with her dear Elizabeth who shared her joys and fears of motherhood, and told her of the great things that God had done for her.  Let this be an example for all Christian women.  Yes there is stress.  There is heartache.  There are tears and pain in motherhood that no man can understand.  But God does.  As God had compassion on weeping Mary at the foot of his cross, so God has compassion on every mother whose children bring them grief. 

Do you want them to rise up and call you blessed?  Do you want them to bring the honor that the world does not offer?  Have they not?  Will they not?  Then look where Mary found her honor.  Find with Mary where her Child earned her blessing, and where all generations of the children of God rise up to call her blessed.  Teach your children to praise God as Mary did.  Teach yourself. 

Your honor is in your lowliness.  The world will not praise it – no more than they will praise the selfless sacrifices of a stressed-out mom.  But God will.  He regards the lowly because he gives value to lowliness.  He joined Mary in hers and saved her by his.  And it is on us who fear him that he has mercy.  So come here where he who is holy sets you apart to do great things for you.  For it is here that he who is holy sets his Church apart and does great things for her. 

He has created his Church through water and the word so that through water and the word she might bear many children to God.  And so the Church rises up to praise him for his eternal blessing.  We who have been taught the word magnify the Lord; we whose sins have been washed away in the blood of the Christ Child rejoice in God our Savior.  We who have been honored by God with the mercy of Jesus honor our mother, the holy Christian Church, by rising up to confess that God has blessed her.  And so he blesses us.  Therefore we honor one another.  We honor the lowliness of the one next to us by singing with grace in our hearts to the Lord.  We teach our children true wisdom by teaching them to know Christ.  We encourage one another to have regard for what God highly exalts. 

In Jesus’ name, Amen.