Advent Magnificat 3

Luke 1:39-56 - Advent 3 Midweek - December 17, 2014
God Exalts the Lowly

“He has shown strength with His arm;
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
And exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
And the rich He has sent away empty.”

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When Mary greeted her cousin Elizabeth with the Magnificat, John the Baptist leaped in his mother’s womb.  “Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11).  We can think of all sorts of reasons why Jesus would have said this – why this is so.  But I think we have a pretty good answer here.  Even before he was born, John came to saving faith through the spoken word.  And with all his might he confessed his saving faith just as his Aunt Mary had taught him.  Her soul and spirit magnified the Lord and rejoiced in God who saved her.  And so with his entire little body John did the same.  Even before he was born, John was fulfilling his role as a faithful witness of God’s grace and mercy toward sinners. 

God has formed us all, and has known us all even as we were yet unformed (Psalm 139:16).  Because of this, we Christians are able to find hope in the gospel even for babies whose lives are cut short in miscarriage.  Baptism isn’t a clever trick that God uses to keep people out of heaven.  It is the means by which he publicly claims us as his and grants us certainty of our salvation through the forgiveness he attaches to water. 

But Baptism also teaches us what the heart of God is toward us all. 

Its institution is part and parcel with his express desire that all nations be saved.  He who joined our race in the womb of Mary regards the lowly.  He joins the mortal and unites himself to the dying.  He dies for sinners and shares with us the power of his resurrection.  Through baptism, we are buried with Christ and raised with him as well (Romans 6:4).  If God so regards a little baby who is helpless and weak by freely giving him everything through water and the word, how much can we also find comfort in his salvation for little infants who die in the womb?  He who has shown strength with his arm by exalting the lowly assures us of his good will toward all who are weak.  And if his word does not explicitly promise something, if something we want to know remains hidden and uncertain, then we fall back on what he does promise and what is certain, and embrace it all the more.  

When Jesus says that he is the only way to the Father, he is not making the Father less accessible.  He is granting the only access there is.  So also, when Jesus says that unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter his kingdom, he is not adding something that we need to do to be saved.  No!  He is teaching us where we are saved, where we are born into his kingdom.  When God bares his arm, his arm is not thereby shortened.  But if we will find salvation in the strength of his arm, we must look and see only where he extends his arm – to where he points us – and look nowhere else.  God reveals and delivers his grace in Baptism, not to limit himself, but to limit us – to focus our attention on where he reveals the strength of his love. 

His strength is found in weakness.  Often when the sorrows of life leave us with no specific promise of God to hold onto – such as with a miscarried child who could not be baptized – God is inviting us to trust in his mercy.  It is a gracious invitation to wrestle with his word.  We do not presume to see what God has not revealed – to look in the shadows of God’s hidden will.   Rather, we find refuge in him who reveals his commitment to us in the lowliness of his birth and passion. In the darkness of grief we find comfort in the light of his word.  We flee to him who answers prayer.  And so we pray with Jesus, albeit ever so weakly, “Thy will be done.”  

Ever so weakly.  And it is. 

What made John great was not how strong he was.  What made him great was found in what God gave him.  God revealed his will toward him.  John is the only baby that we know who actually confessed the truth of God’s word even before he was born.  And he did so with all his might.  All his might consisted of a little kick that Elizabeth felt.  That was all his might.  By this we are reminded that God prepares praise in our weakness.  He calls us great not when we do great things, but when we expend all that we have and are to confess how lowly we are and how great God is.  In John’s case all this amounted to was a little jump in the womb.  Yet, as Jesus also says, “he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”  

We do not point to our praise or devotion or our unwavering confidence to know our greatness.  Rather, in humble repentance, we point to him who left the glory of his throne on high in order to serve sinners below.  This was God’s will.  We look to him who throws down the mighty from their thrones and says, “Become like me.  Become nothing.  Leap for joy at the knowledge that your God and Lord has regard only for that which is helpless and weak, since this is where his help and strength are made perfect.  Look at me.  I prove it.” 

The strength of God is found in his weakness.  The wisdom of God is found in his foolishness.  This means that we must know our own weakness and our own foolishness in order to leap with John and rejoice with Mary.  We must become the least if we are to know and love the great things that God does for us in Christ.   

But people imagine that they are strong.  People imagine that they are wise.  God scatters them. 

But he doesn’t scatter them by coming down with flexed muscles to prove them wrong.  No, he scatters them by hiding his strength under a cover of weakness, and hiding his wisdom in the foolishness of his cross.  They are scattered in their own futile and darkened thoughts.  They judge God’s strength by assuming that it should look like their own.  And they insist that God should persuade us the way we persuade one another.  But he won’t.  He simply won’t do it.  He insists on being found only in the foolishness and weakness of the message preached.  This is God’s will. 

The proud are going to take the difficult questions of life – the questions that plague our own sinful minds too – if God is so gracious, why is there so much suffering? – if God loves everyone, why are so many still damned? – if Baptism saves, why does God permit death in the womb? – if God’s will is done, why does he deny us what we want?  The proud take these questions and they stick them to God: “Answer them, and we will give our ear.”  They presume to pull God down from heaven and set him in the hot seat to be cross-examined like a suspect of high crimes against humanity.  But God will not be interrogated.  God will not be put on trial.  God will not give answer to such questions.  God will not be pulled down from heaven.  Those who insist that he must are scattered in the imagination of their hearts. 

But this same God, who will not be forcibly dragged down, willingly comes down.  He does not answer the impudent demands of sinners, but humbly obeys the benevolent command of his Father.  He hides his glory in the form of a helpless baby.  He entrusts his safety to the lowly virgin who has nothing to guide her but the word of God that makes promises to her.  He reveals his wisdom to those of low degree, who do not interrogate God, but supplicate him, begging for mercy, forgiveness, wisdom, and faith. 

Those who sit in their high and mighty thrones will be cast down.  They demand that God answer them.  But Christ comes only to those who know that they owe an answer to God.  Those who are lowly will be exalted.  And they are.  He exalts the lowly by giving them the answer we need.  He feeds those who hunger for righteousness – who are poor in spirit – by giving them the forgiveness of sins and the riches of heaven.  He has mercy on them that fear him.  God is God.  We are not.  God is holy.  We are not.  God is righteous.  We are sinners.  God is Spirit.  We are flesh.  We need what God gives.  We need him to deal with us as we have not deserved.  We need God to descend from heaven and join us in the weakness of our mortality.  We need Jesus.  Know this need.  This is the fear of God and the beginning of wisdom. 

In Jesus we find the measure of God’s grace – and who can measure it? 
In Jesus we find the fullness of wisdom – and who will know him? 
 

God sent his eternal Son to become a Man in order to pay for our sin against him.  He sent his Son to bear the scorn of cross-examination once and for all – to willingly endure mockery and false accusation – to be executed for affirming his title as King.  But by so doing, God has extended the kingdom of heaven over all the earth.  He persuades the nations not by defending himself, but by remaining silent as he bears the indictment of God against all people.  He honors the sinner by joining the sinner.  He exalts the lowly by lowering himself.  He invites all children by becoming a Child.  He supplies the answer to the most pressing questions we have by showing his strength in weakness. 

To be lowly in heart is not to be the picture of trust and devotion that you wish you were – like the beautiful paintings of the Madonna with Child.  To be lowly in heart is to see the futility of your own thoughts toward God and the error of your heart’s affection toward the things of this world.  To be lowly of heart is to know your sin and to confess it.  To be lowly of heart is to recognize your poverty and emptiness and desire God to make you rich and fill you.  And he does.  He gives you Jesus in answer to your lowly prayer:

Oh, kindle, Lord most holy,
Thy lamp within my breast
To do in spirit lowly
All that may please Thee best. 

And what pleases God is to hide from the wise and prudent what he gives to babes (Matthew 11:25).  This is God’s will.  He sends the rich empty away because he is the Lord and Maker of all they have.  But he gives to you what you hunger for because he is your Lord and Savior who fulfills all righteousness.  He gives to you what no hand has crafted, but that fills all space and time.  He who made all things and still preserves them gives to you what once made his home in the womb of a lowly handmaiden.  He became a baby to bring life to you.  And so he makes his home in your heart – as we pray:

Oh, dearest Jesus, holy Child,
Make Thee a bed, soft, undefiled,
Within my heart that it may be
A quiet chamber kept for Thee. 

Here we find the strength of God’s arm.  It is the arm stretched out from the manger and stretched out from the cross.  It is the arm that governs the world in his own divine wisdom for your good, and the arm that gathers his lambs to himself who have learned to listen to his voice in the barren desert of life.  He is the strength of your faith, and the certainty of your salvation.  Let us pray: 

O Savior, Child of Mary,
Who felt our human woe;
O Savior, King of glory,
Who dost our weakness know:
Bring us at last we pray
To the bright courts of heaven,
And to the endless day.  Amen. 

-OR-

He comes to judge the nations,
A terror to His foes,
A Light of consolations
And blessed hope to those
Who love the Lord’s appearing.
O glorious Sun, now come,
Send forth Thy beams most cheering,
And guide us safely home.  Amen.