"THE PRAISES OF THE VIRGIN”
Fourth Sunday in Advent
December 20, 2015
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
And Mary said, “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.”
Luke 1:46-48 (ESV)
The writer of the third Gospel must have been a man of many talents.
We know that Luke was an historian and a physician and yet, even with
such a scientific and precise mindset, he apparently was quite a
literary genius as well. His New Testament writings are among the
most difficult to translate, while John’s writings (with the exception
of Revelation) are the easiest. Luke’s Gospel contains a number of
beautiful poems that have found their way into the liturgical music of
the Church. There is, for example, the Benedictus, the outburst of
praise uttered by Zachariah the priest when he regained his speech
after the birth and naming of his son, John the Baptist. In Luke we
also find the Gloria in Excelsis, the song of the “multitude of the
heavenly host” (Luke 2:13) who appeared to the shepherds on the fields
of Bethlehem on the night of the Savior’s birth. And don’t forget the
Nunc Dimittis, Simeon’s prayer of thanksgiving, which he spoke when
Mary and Joseph, in obedience to the Law of God, brought their
Firstborn to the temple to present Him to the Lord and to offer the
appointed sacrifice to reclaim Him. And then, of course, there is the
Magnificat, Mary’s song of praise, which is perhaps the best known of
them all. It is the opening words of the Magnificat that we will
consider this morning.
So much of what has been said and written about this song of praise
centers on the virgin Mary herself: to what extent she is to be
honored in the history and devotional life of God’s people or whether
her words here either verify or deny that she ought to have some
special status in the sight of God and men. I think that all of this
misses the point. When we expend all of our energy on trying to
define the mother of our Lord on the basis of this poem, we miss out
on so much of what she has to teach us from her words here. This
morning we will try to put ourselves into Mary’s place as we pay close
attention to what she is doing in this song and why she is doing it.
The first thing that Mary mentions in regard to what she is doing in
this song can be found in its opening line: “My soul magnifies the
Lord.” The first thing that we need to remember when we look at this
is that the Lord certainly doesn’t need to be magnified by His people.
His divine glory is a reality whether anyone acknowledges it or not.
But the Lord does desire to be worshiped and glorified by His people.
In fact, I would even go so far as to say that the Lord is grieved
when people fail to acknowledge His glory. He is grieved not for His
own sake, but rather for the sake of those who refuse to see His
glory. He grieves for them because these people are missing out on so
much--and that is a great tragedy for them, since the real glory of
the Lord is the salvation of sinners. Mary is very well aware of this
and she sets an example for all of us by glorifying the One who has
resolved to save her and us by coming in the flesh and taking our
place under His own Law and judgment.
Mary goes on to say: “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” The
glory of the Lord (which, as I said before, is the salvation of
sinners) is good reason for great rejoicing among those who
acknowledge God as their Savior. You see, sinners are not only guilty
before God; they are in a helpless and hopeless situation. They
cannot bring themselves out of their sin, nor can they do anything to
escape the judgment and condemnation that their sin merits. If they
are to be saved at all, it must be God Himself who saves them. And
God does! And that’s what Mary is rejoicing in. She had recently
been visited by an angel and told that she is carrying in her womb the
incarnate Son of God who has come to be her Savior and ours. She is
overjoyed at this gift of God’s grace, as we all should be. In the
Child that Mary carries in her womb help has come to those who were
helpless, and hope has come to those without hope.
In her song Mary also tells why it is that she magnifies the Lord and
rejoices in Him. She says: “He has looked on the humble estate of
His servant.” That is truly something to be excited about. In this
anonymous world of ours we have, to a great extent lost our identity.
Perhaps that explains the popularity of social media. Nobody notices
us at all, it seems, unless we owe them money or they are trying to
sell us something. And even then they don’t really notice us. (If
you are blessed with a surname like mine, you’ll find that out quickly
enough, because the solicitors who call you can’t even pronounce your
name, even though they address you as if they were your best friend).
Humble Mary, a little known virgin-girl of Nazareth, has been noticed
by God Himself, and she is absolutely thrilled about it. We should be
too, for the Savior who she bore was born for us as well, because God
in His mercy “has looked on [our] humble estate.” He has not only
noticed the burden of sin and guilt that we bear; He has made it His
own.
Finally Mary sings: “From now on all generations will call me
blessed.” Sometimes pious Protestants take offense at the expression
“the blessed virgin” as it is applied to the mother of our Lord. No
one should be offended by that at all. Our Lutheran Confessions
themselves use that expression in that way without any hesitation or
apology. To be regarded as “blessed” (or “blest”) simply means that
you are the recipient of God’s blessings. In calling herself blessed
Mary is merely expressing her gratitude for what God has done for her
in the past and especially for what He is about to do for her in the
Child that she will bear. We also should consider ourselves blessed
because the Savior who God sent to Mary He has sent to us also. As
she was blessed to bear the Son of God, so we are blessed to bear the
Good News of His grace. Thus we ourselves become a blessing to those
who hear the Gospel from our lips and see its redeeming power in our
lives.
The lesson that we can learn from Mary as she sings her song of
praise is that God acts and we respond. Neither Mary nor we can take
the initiative. God’s blessings don’t in any way need to be
jump-started by us. He deals with us according to His infinite grace
and love in Christ. To be sure, we can refuse to be a part of the
story, as Mary certainly could have, but we cannot stop the story from
taking place. God has entered human history as a Man and that Man has
become the Savior of sinners. That’s the Good News of the seasons
that we call Advent and Christmas. Mary glorified God and rejoiced in
Him because she was blessed to be a participant in His great drama of
salvation. We are participants also--every time that we forgive or
are forgiven in the name of Christ--every time that we treat someone
with love and kindness because of Mary’s Son. In these and in
countless other ways He uses us as He used His humble servant of old:
to bring His Salvation to many.
Amen.
May the One who once came as an Infant in Bethlehem prepare you for
His coming again in glory by His Means of Grace, through which He
comes to you even now. May He equip you to be His witnesses so that
you, like the Baptist in the wilderness, may prepare the way of the
Lord. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.