Mary's Song
Text: Lk. 1:46-56
Introduction
1. Illustration: You cannot take Jesus out of Christmas and still have Christmas.
2. The same could be said about Christmas music. Most public school Christmas programs throw out any traditional Christmas songs that mention Jesus or anything found in Scripture.
3. Ironically, the Bible is filled with Christmas songs. We are going to be taking a look at a few of those songs.
4. The first Christmas song that we will look at is Mary's Song. In this song Mary expresses
a. Joy In Personal Blessings
b. Joy In Humanity's Blessings
c. Joy In National Blessings
5. Proposition: Christmas is about the joy of salvation found only in Jesus.
6. Let's stand together as we read Lk. 1:46-56
Transition: First Mary expresses...
I. Joy In Personal Blessing (46-49).
A. How My Soul Praises
1. Let's set the stage for this Christmas song. Mary has just found out that she is to be the mother of the Messiah.
a. Most scholars believe that she is only about 14 years old at this time.
b. Scripture teaches that she was a virgin from a small insignificant village in Galilee.
c. You might imagine that she is a bit overwhelmed at this incredible revelation.
2. Her response to all of this is, “Oh, how my soul praises the Lord."
a. This song is often called the “Magnificat,” the first word in the Latin translation of this passage.
b. Mary’s song has often been used as the basis for choral music and hymns.
c. Like Hannah, the mother of Samuel (1 Samuel 2:1-10), Mary glorified God in song for what he was going to do for the world through her (Barton, Life Application New Testament Commentary,245).
d. The term "praises," literally translated magnifies, means to "praise a person in terms of that individual's greatness" (Louw and Nida, Greek-English Lexicon, 1:430).
e. She was acknowledging the greatness of God and praising God for who he is.
3. Then she sings, "How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior! For he took notice of his lowly servant girl, and from now on all generations will call me blessed."
a. As Mary journeyed from Nazareth to visit her relatives, she had much time to think about what she had heard from the angel and what she understood about God’s plan for the Jewish people.
b. When she arrived and Elizabeth spoke to her, Mary’s joy overflowed and she could say with her whole heart, “How I rejoice in God my Savior!”
c. Mary humbly understood that she was just a lowly servant girl chosen by God.
d. She recognized that what he was doing in her life would have a profound impact on the world and future generations.
e. Mary focused on God’s power, holiness, and mercy. Her insight into God’s character formed the basis for her confidence in him.
f. Mary recognized that because God had chosen her to bear the Messiah, from that time on (apo tou nun) every generation would regard her as one who was fortunate enough to have experienced this great blessing (The Complete Biblical Library – Luke, (Springfield, IL: World Library Press, Inc., 1988), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 45).
4. Mary declares that what God has done, and will do, in and through her by saying, "For the Mighty One is holy, and he has done great things for me."
a. Like the deliverance from Egypt and the miraculous escape at the Red Sea, Mary sees this event as another example of God's mighty hand working in behalf of His people.
b. Because He is the mighty king His name is exalted (hagios), i.e., He is distinct from all others.
c. Mary recognizes that she is blessed among women; not because of what she has done but because of what God has done.
B. Joy of Christmas
1. Illustration: "To get ready for Christmas, God undressed. God stripped off his finery and appeared – how embarrassing – naked on the day he was born. . . God could not be God-with-us if he wasn’t flesh... As evangelicals we have focused on the saving death of Christ but thrown out the Incarnation in our Christmas wrappings. As we cover God with Christmas, we hide what is most distinctive about Christianity. And this is the tragedy: What many don’t know about Christianity is that God has chosen to identify with their pain, their humanness, their flesh. This is what we’ve lost as we’ve exchanged the Feast of the Incarnation for Christmas" (Mary Ellen Ashcroft, "Gift Wrapping God," Christianity Today, 12-8-97, p. 32-33).
2. The great joy of Christmas is that Jesus came to earth for us personally.
a. John 1:14 (NLT)
So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.
b. The miracle of Christmas is that Jesus became like us in everyway except sin.
c. He gave up his rights and privileges.
d. He gave up his place at the right hand of the Father.
e. He came to earth with all of its pain, suffering, rejection, and loneliness.
f. He subjected himself to all of the disadvantages of the human existence.
g. All because we had messed up our relationship with God and he, as the sinless Son of God, was the only one who could set it right again.
h. Jesus personal Christmas gift to you is himself.
Transition: Mary also sings about the...
II. Joy In Humanity's Blessing (50-53).
A. Exalted The Humbled
1. Mary now moves from her personal blessings to God blessing for everyone.
2. She says, "He shows mercy from generation to generation to all who fear him."
a. Not only do these acts reveal God's might but they reveal His mercy as well.
b. Eleos more narrowly defined is a response to someone else’s condition of distress. Nevertheless, eleos is an emotion, not a moral relationship (Bultmann, “eleos,” Kittel, 2:477f.).
c. This mercy (eleos) is the expression of God's covenant love. The Lord's activity on behalf of His people is rooted in His compassion.
d. Mary alludes to Psalm 103:17, which in context emphasizes God’s faithfulness, in spite of human frailty, to those who fear him (Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary – New Testament).
e. Psalm 103:17 (NLT)
But the love of the LORD remains forever with those who fear him. His salvation extends to the children’s children.
3. Then she alludes what God has done and what he will do when she says, "His mighty arm has done tremendous things! He has scattered the proud and haughty ones."
a. This is the language of vindication through judgment; often in the Old Testament, God’s “arm” would save his people and “scatter” their (his) enemies (Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary – New Testament).
b. Mary pictured God’s strength being revealed to the sinful world as he scatters the proud, brings down the princes, and sends the rich away with empty hands.
c. By contrast, God’s power shows in his mercy to his own—lifting up the lowly and filling the hungry with good things.
d. The tense of the verbs indicates that, while yet future, Mary was speaking prophetically of these events so certain to occur that they could be spoken of as having already happened. (Barton, Life Application New Testament Commentary, 245).
e. Those who recognize their need for God and depend on Him (i.e., those of "low degree" and the "hungry") will be rewarded by being pulled up from their oppressed condition (The Complete Biblical Library – Luke, (Springfield, IL: World Library Press, Inc., 1988), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 47).
B. All Nations On Earth
1. Illustration: Frederick Buechner’s little book of character sketches of people from the Bible has this to say about the angel Gabriel as he encounters Mary: "She struck him as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child. But he had been entrusted with a message to give her, and he gave it. He told her what the child was to be named, who he was to be, and something about the mystery that was to come upon her. ’You mustn’t be afraid, Mary,’ he said. As he said it, he only hoped she wouldn’t notice that beneath the great golden wings, he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of Creation hung on the answer of a girl."
2. The joy of Christmas is the Good News for all people.
a. Luke 2:9-11 (NLT)
Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, 10 but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. 11 The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!
b. The Good News of Christmas is that Jesus came so that everyone could be saved.
c. He doesn't care what country your from.
d. He doesn't care what color your skin you have.
e. He doesn't care what side of the tracks you live on.
f. He doesn't care about your past.
g. All he cares about is that you humble yourself and accept him as your savior for the forgiveness of your sins!
Proposition: Mary also sings about the...
III. Joy In National Blessing (54-56).
A. He Has Remembered
1. One of the most important aspects of Christmas, one that is often forgotten, is that the blessings of Christmas are for nations as well as people.
2. Mary emphasizes this in her song when she says, "He has helped his servant Israel and remembered to be merciful. 55 For he made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever.”
a. The words he has helped . . . Israel are in the same verb tense as the previous verses—this is a future event so certain that it is mentioned in the past tense.
b. God had promised to be faithful to his people Israel forever, because of the eternal covenant he had made by oath with their ancestor Abraham (Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary – New Testament).
c. Jesus’ birth fulfilled the promise, and Mary understood this as the Spirit revealed it to her(Barton, Life Application New Testament Commentary, 245).
d. Another Old Testament theme included in this verse is the idea of God remembering His people.
e. The Hebrew term behind this concept is zākhar, "remember, pay attention to."
f. When God is the subject the term includes the dimension of taking the appropriate action, both in blessing and in judgment (The Complete Biblical Library – Luke, (Springfield, IL: World Library Press, Inc., 1988), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 47).
g. God has remembered us, the question is have we remembered him?
B. Whose God Is The Lord
1. Illustration: In a speech made in 1863, Abraham Lincoln said, "We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us."
2. God brings joy to all nations that serve him.
a. Psalm 33:12 (NLT)
What joy for the nation whose God is the LORD, whose people he has chosen as his inheritance.
b. God has blessed our nation and made us the greatest nation on earth.
c. But we have forgotten him and turned our backs on him.
d. We can only walk in his blessings as long as we walk in his will.
e. If we want his joy we have to keep his commandments and follow him.
f. If we do not destruction is what we have to look forward to.
g. This Christmas let us pray that God would send revival and that our nation would once again be one nation under God!
Transition: The joy of Christmas cannot be found in a store it can only be found in Jesus!
Conclusion
1. One of the great Christmas songs in the Bible is Mary's Song, also known as the Magnificat.
2. In this song Mary emphasizes...
a. Personal Joy
b. Humanity's Joy
c. National Joy
3. This Christmas let us sing a new song to the Lord, and let the joy of Christmas be centered on Jesus.
