Mary’s Song of God’s Glory

Take your copy of the scriptures now and turn to the gospel of Luke, Luke’s gospel. I’ll be reading from chapter one this morning, starting at verse 46. But before we hear the word preached, let’s ask the Lord’s blessing upon him, let’s pray. Our dear heavenly father, we thank you again for this your word. Lord, we Confess again that it is perfect and is complete and preserved and given for us, Lord, as at your will, by your design. We confess that you have revealed yourself to us and you have shown us all that we would need to know for life and godliness. And we ask, Heavenly Father, that you would help us to believe it, to base our life upon it, that we may know you, Lord, that we may grow, Lord, in Christ, and that we would find comfort as we hear it. Lord, help us to hear the voice of our Savior now and that would have its effect upon us and receive with the affection that you would attend to be received with. We pray all of this in Christ’s name and all of God’s people said, amen, amen.

Luke chapter one, starting verse 46, please give your full attention. This is the word of our God. 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 servants. 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. So for the reading of God’s word, may he add his blessing to it at this time.

Well, this time of year, historically, culturally, has been focused on the incarnation and the birth of Christ. Of course, the Christian church proclaim and take glory in and preach the incarnation, not just at Christmas time, but all year and the resurrection, not just at Easter time, but year round as well. But as we hear, as we do, again, historically and culturally, and seeing wonderful music connected with the birth of Christ at this time of year, we’re familiar with the greats, right? The great classics of old, Vivaldi, Bach, Beethoven, Handel, but the music of Christmas did not originate with these great musicians. The music of Christmas originated with God himself. And this is quite awesome and wonderful when we think about it. God himself is the originator of music, which proclaims the coming of his beloved son. And the music of Christmas first comes from heaven. Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, they’re a bit faint imitators of this glorious heavenly chorus. They’re a bit faint imitators. And with Christ’s coming, hymns come to herald his birth. And we see this in the Gospel of Luke. We find these Advent hymns surrounding the coming of our Lord, the birth of our Lord. And there are four of these Advent hymns in Luke one and two. They’re sung by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit preserved for us. In Luke 1, 46 to 55, our focus this morning, we have what’s referred to as the Magnificat, Mary’s song of praise, Mary’s song as the Virgin sings, my soul magnifies the Lord. And then in verses 68 to 79, we have the Benedictus, this song of Zechariah, his song, blessed be the Lord God of Israel. And then third, Luke 2.14, we have the Gloria, right, the choir of angels, glory in excelsis deo, glory to God in the highest. And then finally, we have in chapter 2, verses 29 to 32, the Nunc Dimittis, right, which is Simeon’s song of farewell. It’s what we sing very often at the end of our There’s our dismissal hymn, a song of departure and a song of arrival, Nunc Diminitus, which is, now your servant may depart in peace, O Lord. Our hymn singing, we must remember is a small echo of the songs of glory. Luke’s infancy hymns are songs of redemption. We’ll look at these for the next number of weeks as we lead up to our celebration, pointedly, specifically, again, culturally, of the advent of Christ, God come in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. But this morning we’re looking at the Song of Mary, the Magnificat. We know the basic outline of what happened historically. Sometimes we run past it too quickly, right? The angel announces to Mary that she’ll give birth, right? Mary, the virgin Mary, that she’ll give birth to the Messiah. And then our minds move forward to the birth narratives, into the angelic hosts, as we find Christ there in the manger shortly after his birth. But I wonder how many of us stop and reflect upon Mary’s response to Gabriel’s announcement. Mary’s response to Gabriel’s announcement. right, her response, right, this announcement that she would miraculously give birth to the Messiah. Have you ever paused and reflected upon her song of praise, the Magnificat? He reflected upon her words, especially in light of the Old Testament, the Bible that she had at the time that was raised on. If you consider this inspired song of Mary as a model of faith in the gospel of Christ, many times because of whatever the reason, outside influences or over familiarity, or because we’re Protestants and we react against the abuses of Rome and the idolatry of Mary, Sometimes we can be uncomfortable with Mary. Sometimes we can be uncomfortable thinking about this blessed young woman, this virgin, right? The spirit conceived in her womb. But whatever reason, let’s take a moment and think about what the Lord has for us here, right? Why is this inscripturated? Why is this preserved and given to us in his word? And we’ll find what he has for us, his people. When we look at this passage, we see it teaching us the flow of the faithful heart, right? What does it tell us about the faithful heart of this servant of the Lord, the heart given over in trust to the Lord? Well, it tells us about the doctrine of the trusting heart, right, the knowledge, right, the data, the doctrine of the trusting heart. And it tells us about the doxology of that trusting heart, right, the praise that flows from that. And it tells us about the devotion of the trusting heart, the faith, right? The faith that is present there, that issues forth in these things. So let’s look first at the doctrine, the knowledge of the trusting heart. All right, again, think for a moment about Mary. Think of her context. Think of the base of her knowledge, right? What is her doctrine grounded on? What is informing her knowledge? Because, you know, this song here is one of the few New Testament psalms that’s been referred to, right? And it’s not merely blurting out random words or thoughts in general, right? Sadly, we are so submerged in an entertainment-centered and an entertainment-gold culture that trivial pop songs flood our minds. Sadly, I can remember jingles from TV when I was like six. So these things impress themselves upon us. And even many so-called praise songs sung in churches are merely love songs that could be sung to a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Not the case with the Magnificat, not the case with Mary. She’s not singing trite, meaningless words. We can only scratch the surface of this wonderful song here. But let’s look briefly for a moment at the opening verses there, verses 46 to 48. It says, and Mary said, my soul magnifies the Lord. Of course, this is after the announcement and she’s in thrall, she’s in amazement. 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. This of course is rooted in scripture. This is rooted in her Bible, rooted in her Old Testament. Think of Psalm 34. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall be continually on my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord. Let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me. and let us exalt his name together. This is David, King David, reflecting on his own unworthiness for God to condescend to him and deliver him from his foes. And so Mary picks this up, this echoes in her heart, and she picks up this particular theme and she reflects on her utter unworthiness to be the mother of the Messiah, to have this blessing bestowed upon her, to be used of the Lord. the one who would give birth to God incarnate. And so she’s praising God for what was, rather, from what was in her mind and in her heart. And she’s using the language of Psalm 34, which led her to praise. Her words also echo the words of Hannah. You remember barren Hannah in the Old Testament, who prayed diligently and earnestly and emotionally that she would have a child. And as she was there in the tabernacle praying for the child, she cried out, my heart exalts the Lord, exalts the Lord. And what we see here is Mary. We see a heart fed on the word of God, a heart full of the word of God. So much that she rejoiced and praised and when she did so, her expression and her prayer was infused with the language of the Psalms, with the language of scripture. And this is probably not just me, but one of the characteristics that I’ve noticed in people that I love and respect and listen to and read. Scripture flows from their veins. They’re steeped in the Word of God. They think and they meditate and they reflect and they pray the Word of God. And this is the way it should be for all of God’s people, right, brothers and sisters? We are to know it, to hide it in our hearts. It is to influence and shape and correct and rejoice and comfort us. You know, you’d be surprised at how much information we can actually memorize if we work at it. It’s quite extraordinary. I had a professor in seminary who, my Hebrew professor, and as he studied, we had an opportunity to study with some rabbis in Israel, and they would memorize the whole book of, the whole Psalter, right, by memory, and they would test them, and he was verging, given the verse, they would recite it in Hebrew. And that’s not a superhuman task. We can do these things if we put our minds to them, right? Our minds are so full of other things, we become lazy. We don’t push our minds, we don’t stretch our minds. We don’t do the hard but valuable work of getting God’s word into us and getting into God’s word. So many things compete for our attention and for our memories, right? But it makes complete sense for somebody like Mary. As young as she was, who listened to the word of God read in the synagogue, prayed God’s word, heard the word being prayed, that it would have permeated her heart and fixed in her memory, scratched deep into the hard drive of her mind. And so when she encounters the things of life, sorrows, joys, fears, her prayers are full of God’s word that she knows so well, that she’s familiar with, that she’s intimate with. And again, that should be the case for all of us, brothers and sisters. In our fears, in our wonder, in our sadness, in our joys, when we are bumped around by the life circumstances, what should spill out of us is God’s word, right, and God’s love. And this is the case with Mary. As she proclaims in response to this glorious announcement, this most incredible announcement, she proclaims her joy and her wonder, and that all this knowledge would come flowing out of her in the song of praise makes complete sense. She was intimately familiar with her Bible. This is the heart that’s in love with the Lord. It’s in love with his word and it’s full of his words. So that’s a question for all of us, right? Of course, this is something that we should reflect upon, right? How well do we know the word of God? How important it is to you? We’re not all readers, we’re not all made the same way, but the avenues available to us for taking in God’s word are manifold. There’s many ways. If you’re not a reader, you can listen. You can take time, it takes discipline, it’s hard work at times. But how well do you know? That’s the promise, it’s the spirit working through his word. And so when you receive wonderful news or sad news or catastrophic news, what spills out of your minds and your hearts and therefore your mouths? What is it? Is it the language of Scripture? Are your prayers infused with the language of God’s Word of the Psalter? The prayers of Scripture. Another common characteristic that is of the faithful that I’ve noticed in my life, those I respect and most believers, is an insatiable desire to improve one’s prayer life, to pray better, deeper, to pray more faithfully. And of course, the answer to that, if you wanna know how to pray, or to pray more earnestly or faithfully, how do you learn that? You read your Bibles. You get familiar with your Bibles and the prayers of Scripture. And that’s the practice of the people of God, right? It’s to pray his word back to him, whether it’s in times of joy or trial or tribulation or sorrow or wonder or amazement. And of course, this is how Mary informed her song of praise, the Magnificat. with the words of her Heavenly Father that have been spoken to her through His word, that she was now speaking back, praying back to Him in praise. This leads us to our second thing that we learn about the trusting heart here, and that’s the praise of the trusting heart, the doxology that flows from that knowledge, that flows from that doctrine. Knowledge must lead to praise. It must lead to doctrine, to doxology. And we see Mary here, she doesn’t just store up and reflect upon her knowledge of God, merely. That knowledge drives her somewhere, right? It drives her somewhere. It brings her to recognize her insignificance in God’s power, in his covenant mercies, as she identifies with and she knows the story of Scripture. She knows the history of God’s people and God’s working in his power and his mercies. And she recognized her insignificance before him, how lowly she is and how great and exalted God is. Verse 48, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. She recognized that she has received this amazing blessing from God, a lowly servant of this God, her God, and she will give birth to the Messiah. And she repeatedly does what she compares this, her lowly estate with God’s power, powerful nature. Moving on, she says, for he who is mighty, has done great things for me and holy is his name. Verse 52, 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 sent away empty. And there’s a correspondence to many of these verses to our Old Testament readings, Psalm 107, that talk about this. Those who are hungry and wandering with no place to stay. He has fulfilled these things, Mary concludes, praises the Lord for. And she recognizes how high and exalted she has been lifted up from her, as she says, lowly estate. And also that God puts down the proud and the arrogant, and he brings judgment upon those who are high and haughty or proud. And notice also one of the things that she identifies here, one of the things that accentuates her praise, if you will, one of the things that made her acutely aware of how special this announcement was, was this. It’s her understanding that God’s love did not fall indiscriminately and equally upon all people. The redeeming mercy of God does not fall universally upon all people. Verse 51, he has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the righteous thoughts of their heart, right? He scattered the proud. This is a phrase that comes from the book of Exodus. Exodus 6, in regard to the Egyptians, it says, Exodus 6, 6, say therefore to the people of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. So Mary says he has shown strength with his arm, to me, with his outstretched arm, if you will, Right, and so she did not look upon this miraculous and monumentous event announced to her, this announcement, simply from the vantage point of her own personal experience. Notice, she looks upon it from what? The perspective of God’s covenant faithfulness over time for his people throughout the ages, right? And she reaches all the way back to Exodus and the judgment that fell upon the Egyptians and the redemption that was the nation of Israel’s by God’s grace. And she saw herself in the line of those who were considered loved by God, and the satisfaction of the promise given to the people of God, and that she would receive this blessing of redemption, and that she would give birth to the Messiah. God was not going to redeem every single person from the nations, but rather from Israel, God’s chosen people. And she was a recipient of this covenant faithfulness and love. Of course, this is expanded out as was promised in the Abrahamic covenant to the nations. But we see here that when Mary was aware of just how far and wide these promises, these covenant promises, spread throughout the history of redemption, as she looked and recognized God’s covenant promises to Israel, that they were being fulfilled in her, in her very body, in her life. And, you know, we look at the context of this and we can back up to verse 31, And it says this, and behold, you will conceive in your womb, this is Luke 1 31, you’ll conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, and he will be great, and he will be called the son of the most high, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there should be no end. And so Mary knows, she’s familiar with these things. She knew God’s promises to Adam and Eve, the promise of a son that would come and crush the head of the serpent, the seed of the serpent. She knew the promises given to Abraham, that the nation will be blessed through him. They will come into the family of God. And she was aware of God’s promises to David. Announced to her here that one of his descendants would reign eternally on his own throne. And so the knowledge of God’s faithfulness throughout the ages that she was so familiar with filled her with praise, with praise, doxology. And her posture of worship led her to see how great God was and how insignificant, how lowly she was, and yet the privileged place that she had. And even though low, the Lord chose her and was going to use her because of this profound blessing that she was receiving from God. And we too. We too, brothers and sisters, must maintain our sense of amazement and wonder when we consider something like this, when we consider our lowly estate and that the Lord chose us to be rescued, plucked us from the fire and given life. The amazement should wonder. Mary was filled with amazement and wonder, and she was filled with this sense because she recognized her utter disparity between her lowly place and God’s exalted place. She was aware of the blessing that God had bestowed upon her, being the earthly mother of the Messiah, of Jesus, God in the flesh. And so because of this, because of this grace of God, her heart was filled with praise, was filled and overflowing with a song of joy and worship and wonder. And so may we as well, brothers and sisters, never lose the appropriate sense of wonder and awe and praise that comes from knowing and reflecting on God’s mighty work of redemption, not just historically out there abstractly, but the work of redemption in Christ and his grace and his love for you specifically. Wonderful indeed. And this brings us, of course, to the final point, which is that devotion of the trusting heart or the faith of the trusting heart. Mary knew God’s word, his promises, and she praised him for it, overflowing. Her song flowed from a heart of faith. Her faith flows out of this passage, and we see it on full display. And, of course, we all know that to understand a passage rightly and fully and appropriately, we must read in context. We can’t read of Mary’s response of faith without seeing, in contrast, Zechariah’s response to the angelic announcement to him. Remember Luke 1.6, earlier on, says this, and they, that is Zechariah and Elizabeth, were both righteous before God, walking blameless in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. The announcement of John the Baptist, will be born, right, comes to them. He’s a righteous man, it says. He’s a priest of the Lord of the tribe of Levi. He’s dialed in, right, he’s dialed in, in the know of the things of God. And yet curious at what happens, notice. When the angel appeared to him and told him of the birth of his son, John the Baptist, Luke says that his response was what? Unbelief, it was unbelief. He was skeptical. And because of that, the Lord, what, remember, silenced him. He’s muted until the birth of his son. And at the birth of his son, after all that time, what breaks his silence? What is the first thing that he says when his tongue is loosed? You remember Luke 168. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he has visited and redeemed his people, right? Or he has accomplished redemption for his people is what it says. That’s what he says to break his silence after all that time. But contrast his earlier disbelief that muted him with the angel when he came to Mary, her response was very different, right? And she asked him, verse 34, following this announcement, she says, how can this be? How can this be? And that’s not a response of disbelief, but rather, how is this going to happen? How is this gonna work? And we know this how, we know this because notice her immediately faith-filled response in verse 38. She says, behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. Let it be according to your word. In essence, she’s saying, here I am, here I am. And this is a response of faith, a response of faith to the announcement. And then the closing section, the 54 and 55, she says, he has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever. And so earlier, remember, she references, she reaches back to Exodus. right, this word-shaped knowledge, this word-informed praise, doctrine and doxology. She refers to the Exodus, and then notice here, she reaches back even farther than the Exodus and goes all the way back to the promise of Abraham, the Abrahamic promise. As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his offspring forever, and she quotes Genesis, right? She reaches back. that the promise would be to him and to his seed after him. And of course, Paul, fast forwarding, Paul tells us in Galatians that that seed is Christ, that seed is Christ, the offspring is Christ, and those who are identified with him. And so Mary here is ultimately saying that she believed in the promise of the gospel, of the coming Messiah. She looks specifically to God’s promises to Abraham and recognize, of course, by God-given faith, that those promises were being fulfilled even in her own life. Can you imagine the intensity of that, the mind-blowing reality of that? And she not only responds by faith to the announcement of the angel, but she also looked by faith to his gospel promise to Abraham. and sees the fulfillment of that. And she looked by faith ultimately to her son, Jesus, the son of God, who would redeem the people of God from their sins and bring that redemption to them. This, of course, naturally confronts us with the question, especially in regard to this contrast between the responses, right, of Zechariah, his doubt-filled response to the angel, and Mary’s gospel-faith-filled response to the announcement to her. Do we doubt the promises of the gospel? Do we doubt the proclamation of redemption that comes through Jesus? And we’re probably being dishonest with ourselves if we answer that question and say, doubt never comes to me, doubt never comes. And while our faith may waver, God’s promises do not waver, praise God. His promises do not waver. Mary reflected upon that. Our faith is weak at times, our faith wavers at times, but we praise our Lord that His strength and His love and His promises never waver. They are not weak, they are sure. And so even over our weak faith, He gets the victory in Christ. He has defeated our weak hearts and our wavering faith through Christ, who’s both what? The author and finisher of our faith. He is the author and the finisher, not we ourselves. So God’s promises in Christ are sure. They’re sure. And this is the faith, of course, that Mary locked into. And this is the faith that fed her and enabled her to trust the promises of God. And so, dear Christian, during this particular season of year, as we reflect upon the birth of Christ more focusedly, let us not run past Mary’s song so quickly. Let us look back at this wonderful announcement to the Virgin, and let us recognize that the need to be grounded in God’s word for our good and for God’s glory, hearts full of God’s promises, Let us know and trust those promises, dear believer. And may these promises issue forth in praise and trust in the gospel, moment by moment, for all of your lives. Oh indeed, the gospel hymns of Christmas are far, far more wonderful and glorious than even the best copies and fate imitators of heaven’s chorus. And may we be in awe of fresh and always At the announcement of the coming of the son of God, Jesus Christ, the savior of sinners. Amen. Let’s pray.

Heavenly father, father, we thank you. We thank you for the coming of Christ and that he has accomplished redemption for his people. Lord, we praise you that all that was needed to be done to secure our eternal lives. and our growth, even in holiness in this life, has been accomplished in Jesus. Give us hearts to believe, help our weak faith, Lord, increase our faith, help our unbelief, Lord, that you may be glorified, that Christ may be magnified for our good and ultimately for his glory. We ask this all in his name, amen.