I heard someone once say that God’s great works have long gestation periods. He is patient and deliberate in working out his will and plan. Advent celebrates the birth of God’s promise he made 4,000 years before in Genesis 3. Because in Luke 1-2, the One who had come to crush the head of the serpent arrived. That’s actually what advent means - “arrival”. Luke 1-2 gives us the most extensive narrative of the events surrounding the birth of Christ. Matthew gives us a fair amount too. Mark none at all. And John, just the glorious statement on the nature of Christ as the eternal word who became flesh. 

But here in Luke, we get two chapters of events leading up to, the events of, and immediately following the birth of our Lord. And it is remarkable what we see. 

Throughout the bible, songs are important. Especially when they are sung after some great victory. I think of the songs of Moses and Miriam in Exodus 15 after they crossed the Red Sea and Pharaoh and his men were destroyed in the sea. Or the song of Deborah after God delivers his people from their Canaanite oppressors. In Luke 1-2, there are four songs of triumph in relation to the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. Mary’s, Zechariah, The Angels, Simeon. Today we are going to look at Mary’s song called The Magnificat (Magnifies). Triumph? Yes! 

Joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her King!

Earth’s King has come. His mother, Mary sings of this great turn of events in her Magnificat.

The angel visits Mary with the news of what God is going to do for and with and through her. Mary’s response is: How can this be? I am a virgin. The angel’s response ( READ 1:35-45). 

Mary’s Magnificat

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…

Parallelism → Mary is not making a distinction between the soul and spirit. She is saying the same thing in a different way. 

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…

Notice, for Mary this is no mere lip service. She says, “My soul magnifies, my spirit rejoices”. In other words, from deep within, the deepest part of my being I am rejoicing, magnifying the Lord. The Pharisees were charged with honoring God with their lips while their hearts were far from Him. Not so with Mary. 

The word magnify is interesting. John Piper once said there are two ways to magnify something. You can magnify something really small with a magnifying glass or microscope in order to make it look bigger. You can also point a telescope into outer space and get a better perspective on just how beautiful and enormous the moon, stars, and distant galaxies are. That is the kind of magnifying Mary is doing. God is glorious, and in this song of Mary, we get a better glimpse of that. 

My prayer is that by the time we wrap up this morning, through your griefs and joys you would all say like Mary, “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” 

God Looks On the Humble (v. 48)

Why does Mary magnify the Lord? Well first, because she recognizes her lowly, humble estate estate and is amazed that the Lord of heaven and earth would look on her with such favor. 

For he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed…

The ultimate snub you can give someone who is trying to get your attention is to ignore, look away, not pay attention. To walk past without acknowledging or looking at and regarding that person. “Talk to the hand!” What is the first thing Mary mentions for why she exalts in the Lord? He looks on the humble estate of his servant. What was Mary’s humble estate? 

• She was part of a conquered people (under Roman occupation)
• She was from an insignificant town (Nazareth)
• She was a young girl - probably between 14-18 (not of a powerful position)
• She was probably poor (not part of the upper crust in society)
• Then add to that she was a young, unmarried woman - pregnant (by the Spirit, not her husband)

This is a humble estate to be sure. Then notice the way Mary describes herself. She is the Lord’s servant. She is anything but haughty. She doesn’t say, “Look at God has blessed me, how he is using me. I am pretty amazing.” She says I am the Lord’s servant. He is the Master, who can do as he pleases with me, his servant. Luke 1:38 (Mary’s response to the angel). Cindy - her spiritual beauty was wrapped up in this. She was never trying to be someone great. She was a servant of the Lord. English translations somewhat blunt the force of this word. The word really means slave. Mary, the Lord’s slave. Of course, there was a form of slavery in the OT where a slave, though offered release, willingly and gladly continued as a bondslave. That’s what Mary is saying. The ultimate change of fortunes. This young girl, in such a humble position, a servant has been highly esteemed by the Lord of the universe.

It is still this way. God still esteems the humble. Isaiah 57:15 says that God dwells in two places. Listen:

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.

Did you hear that? God dwells in a high and holy place… a place too high and holy for us to attain on our own. But he also dwells in a low place, among the humble and contrite and those of a lowly spirit. That’s a place we can go. That’s where Jesus meets us. That’s why he came the way he did, lowly and veiled. O Holy Night has a verse that says,

The King of kings law thus is lowly manger. In all our trials, born to our Friend. 

It’s hard to know what all Mary knew. She certainly knew some of who this was growing in her womb. But how much? We don’t know what she knew. But now we know who He is. He is the Lord who came to us in our humble, helpless state to rescue us. He was made like us in every way… so that he might be the kind of Savior and High Priest we need. One who is sympathetic to our weakness (tempted as we are) and griefs (Man of sorrows). Yet also perfect so that his perfect life and righteousness could count as ours. Yet also God, so that he could bear the punishment our sins deserve. The perfect Mediator between God and man. Mary magnifies the Lord because He esteems the humble. 

Mighty, Holy, And Merciful (v. 49-50)

Mary magnifies the Lord because he is mighty, holy, and merciful:

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 who is mighty has done great things for me. This little girl, probably no older than my daughter Eden. The Lord had done great things for her. The One who holds the stars - the entire cosmos - in his hands had blessed Mary so tremendously. A few years ago I was going through a book with some of the homeschool kids in the church on the names of God. One of God’s names has the word mighty in it. Does anyone remember what it is? El Shaddai. El is God. Shaddai is almighty. Psalm 91:1 says,

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High shall abide in the shadow of the Almighty. 

El Shaddai, God Almighty has done great things for me, Mary says. And of course we would say, He was doing great things that will have consequences for the entire world for thousands of years to come. God Almighty had called this young girl to the monumental, glorious task of carrying the Messiah, the King of kings and Lord of lords in her womb. Somewhere Martin Luther described God’s left hand of power as his almighty power disguised or veiled in weakness. A young girl carrying a baby, who happens to be the Son of God, the Savior of the world. The cross. These are all exhibitions of God’s left-handed power - His triumph through apparent weakness and even apparent defeat. This time of year we sing the words,

Veiled in flesh, the godhead sees. Hail the incarnate Deity. 

Then Mary says, “And holy is his name.” The mighty One is also the Holy One. We often think of the word holy in terms of moral purity. A person who is holy is morally pure and upright. God is Holy and so He is the ultimate of moral purity. That’s not wrong. But when describing God as holy, it means something more fundamental. It means to be set apart. You and I are called to be holy, to be set apart. But God, in his very essence, is holy. His name is holy, Mary says. Which means… for the Holy One to act on Mary’s behalf in such a marvelous way, he is acting in grace. There was a conference on comparative religions and a group of experts were talking about the uniqueness of the Christian religion and CS Lewis walked in on the conversation. He asked all the hubbub was about. They said they were discussing what makes Christianity utterly unique. And Lewis supposedly said something like, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.” The Holy One who is utterly set apart from sin and sinners, condescends in the greatest act of grace by becoming a preborn baby in the womb of Mary for us and our salvation. 

And we see this idea of grace in Mary’s song. The mighty and holy One is merciful. I don’t think there is a fundamental difference between mercy and grace.  

And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation…

His mercy is for those who fear him. That may sound strange, but remember there are two ways to fear God. One is to tuck tail and run. The other is to draw near with reverence and awe in order to homage. That’s certainly what Mary has in mind. There is a kind of good and filial fear that a child has for their father. And there is the kind of fear that a prisoner has of a torturer. Mary says God is merciful to those who revere him as a loving, gracious, yet holy Father. 

He Has Shown His Arm (v. 51-55)

Finally, Mary magnifies the Lord because, verse 51 says,

He has shown strength with his arm.

When the bible talks about the arm of the Lord, it is referring to his mighty power by which he does great works. In fact, the NASB translates it that way: “He has done mighty deeds with his arm.” Remember, Mary had just said that the mighty One had done great things for her. But this goes beyond what God has done for Mary. This reveals the mighty deeds of the Lord in bringing down the arrogant and powerful oppressors of the world. We often wonder what difference we can make against such enormous forces of evil in the world. We need the faith of Mary. 

Do you remember when the magi came to Jerusalem looking of the King of the Jews? When Herod heard, it says, “he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him”. Herod, the king, was troubled that a baby had been born who apparently was a King. And what was his impulse? To kill the child. Jesus Christ upends all the powers of this world. I think we often have a worldly perspective on power and how evil can be conquered by good (Politics - matter, but!). Listen to what Mary says. How is his arm shown?

He scatters the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. O the arrogant and proud of the earth strut around, thinking they are the masters of the land. And what does the Lord do? He scatters them! Imagine a chess board with all the pieces set up in place and taking your hand and waving it across the board and sending all the pieces scattering across the room. That is what our Lord does to the proud. Psalm 2. 

He brings down the mighty from their thrones. Pharaoh. Nebukadnezar, Alexander the Great. Herod. All the Caesars. And all throughout history. All it takes is the fingers of God pinching the robe of the mighty to pull them down. He raises up leaders and brings them down. And it is the same in our day. As our society has been heading into a downward spiral, have you noticed there seems to be a growing dislike for Christmas? Have you ever wondered why? I am not saying we should love all the cultural entanglements that come along with the holiday. Because the incarnation was God’s D-Day invasion and the powers of darkness hate to be reminded of it. He brings down the mighty from their thrones. The mighty Roman empire, which was ruling at the time Mary sang this song, would fall in less than 500 years. You can still see the ruins today. He brings down the mighty. 

Then what does He do? He exalts the humble. God is opposed to the proud, but exalts the humble. Isn’t that a common theme in the bible? He fills the hungry with good things. The rich he sends away empty. And here at the end in verses 54-55, we see that God shows strength with His arm in keeping His promise. He made a promise to Abraham and his offspring. What was the promise made? And who is his offspring? The promise was that Abraham would become the Father of many nations. That all the families of the earth would be blessed through Him. The apostle Paul says Jesus is the offspring through whom all the nations would be blessed. So we continue to see this redemptive work unfold in history. The humble. Those who humble themselves under God’s mighty hand are exalted. Humble, joyful faith. That’s how we enter into the exultant joy of Mary. Her Lord is our Lord (came, lived, died…)

Hopefully we now see why Mary sang with such deep and exalting joy. Mary most certainly did not connect all the threads that we see weaved together in the rest of the New Testament. Which means we have even more reason to say, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” We see the rest of the story - the life, miracles, teachings, death, resurrection, ascension, and promised second coming. 

And so in the midst of this season with all its merriment and celebrations. And also its griefs and sorrows, because those exist too in this season. And in the midst of the cultural crisis and upheaval we are living through. May we have the triumphant faith and joy of Mary, and truly say, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” Let’s pray.