Mary’s Song
Luke 1:46ff
Rev. Wm. A. Huegel
Wallingford FBC
November 27, 2005 - 1st Sunday of Advent
“He has scattered the proud …but has lifted up the humble”.
The Song of Mary
46 And Mary said: “ My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
48 For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
49 For He who is mighty has done great things for me, And holy is His name.
50 And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with His arm;
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty.
54 He has helped His servant Israel, In remembrance of His mercy,
55 As He spoke to our fathers, To Abraham and to his seed forever.”
56 And Mary remained with her about three months, and returned to her house.
The world’s most incredible announcement had come to an unknown, quiet, humble young woman in the back quarters of Judea – from the unknown town of Nazareth. An angel had come to her. In fact we even know the name of that angel – it was Gabriel. The angel Gabriel came to Mary to announce that she would have a child and that this child would be the Son of the Most High God. She was to name him Jesus, or in Hebrew, Jeshua, which sounds like Joshua – the word means Savior. He would have no earthly biological father. She would be impregnated by the Spirit of God.
This was God-in-the flesh, born of the virgin Mary.
Mary was a nobody. She knew she was unworthy of such a blessing. And she was right. It’s a problem to elevate her too highly. The point of the Gospel is that God only uses people who understand that they are not worthy and without God they are nothing.
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty.
God is in the habit of using “nobodys”. Think of whom God had used in the Past. Moses was a little boy who was destined to die. His mother had put him into a basket to float among the swamp grass. The Pharoah had ordered all the babies to be killed. He was saved only by God’s grace.
David, was the little kid who had been assigned to taking care of his father’s sheep, while all of his big brothers went to fight the Philistines. He was the least likely of his family to be anything important.
Gideon, one of Israel’s greatest warriors was called of God to deliver Israel. Do you remember his response? He said, “I’m the least important kid in the least important family, in the weakest country in the world.” Gideon knew he was a nobody. God simply said, “Yeah! I know. But I will be with you.”
There are many, many such illustrations. Those who thought there were really somebody, became a nobody, and those who knew they were a nobody became someone powerful, simply because God chose them and empowered them. That is true of all the disciples of Jesus, and all the great men and women of God in both the Old and New Testaments.
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty.
I know that today’s society wants to tell us that we really are “somebody”. Self worth and ego boosting, pumping people up and even putting them on a pedestal is popular. We want our children to feel good about themselves. It is one of the highest values in education, today.
We sing Jesus loves me to our children, and it’s good. We want our children to know that God loves them. We want them to feel good about themselves. I’m not advocating that we put anyone down – certainly not children.
But self-worth itself becomes worthless, if the self-worth is followed by Godless and evil behavior, or even it results in simply ignoring God. It is not good for a person to feel so great about themselves that they don’t need God, do not need a Savior, do not need salvation, do not need to repent of anything.
Godless, ruthless dictators, down through the century, have not seemed to have suffered from low self-esteem. Teachers complain about children in the classroom who misbehave and have become very disrespectful toward them, but seem not to suffer from low self-esteem. We can have drug dealers who seem to feel just fine about themselves.
The highest good of man is not that they have self-esteem, but that they recognize that without God they are nothing, but by humbling themselves before God they can become something.
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty.
Passages on Humility:
Moses said in Deut. 9:18 “Then once again I fell prostrate before the LORD for forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in the LORD’s sight and so provoking him to anger. 19 I feared the anger and wrath of the LORD, for he was angry enough with you to destroy you. But again the LORD listened to me.”
Listen to the words of Job in the first chapter, verse 20 “At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship 21 and said:
"Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart. [c]
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
may the name of the LORD be praised."
22 In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.”
When Isaiah saw a vision of the Lord, he cried out, "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."
When Peter recognized the power of God in Jesus, “… he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!"
The Apostle Paul writes in Phil. 2:5 “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
8And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself
and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!
9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.”
Finally, this reminder from 2 Chron. 7:14 – “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
I am the least of the apostles. 1 Corinthians 15:9
I am the very least of all the saints. Ephesians 3:8
I am the foremost of sinners. 1 Timothy 1:15
Mary, who had no elevated opinion of herself, said: “He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. 52 He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly. 53 He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty.”
It’s hard to find a humble person. When you, do you remember them: Booker T. Washington, the renowned black educator, was an outstanding example of this truth. Shortly after he took over the presidency of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, he was walking in an exclusive section of town when he was stopped by a wealthy white woman. Not knowing the famous Mr. Washington by sight, she asked if he would like to earn a few dollars by chopping wood for her. Because he had no pressing business at the moment, Professor Washington smiled, rolled up his sleeves, and proceeded to do the humble chore she had requested. When he was finished, he carried the logs into the house and stacked them by the fireplace. A little girl recognized him and later revealed his identity to the lady.
The next morning the embarrassed woman went to see Mr. Washington in his office at the Institute and apologized profusely. "It’s perfectly all right, Madam," he replied. "Occasionally I enjoy a little manual labor. Besides, it’s always a delight to do something for a friend." She shook his hand warmly and assured him that his meek and gracious attitude had endeared him and his work to her heart. Not long afterward she showed her admiration by persuading some wealthy acquaintances to join her in donating thousands of dollars to the Tuskegee Institute. Our Daily Bread.
Mary said, “He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty.”
Although George Whitefield disagreed with John Wesley on some theological matters, he was careful not to create problems in public that could be used to hinder the preaching of the gospel. When someone asked Whitefield if he thought he would see Wesley in heaven, Whitefield replied, "I fear not, for he will be so near the eternal throne and we at such a distance, we shall hardly get sight of him."
W. Wiersbe, Wycliffe Handbook of Preaching and Preachers, Moody Press, 1984, p. 255.
Mary said, “He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty.”
Wakefield tells the story of the famous inventor Samuel Morse who was once asked if he ever encountered situations where he didn’t know what to do. Morse responded, "More than once, and whenever I could not see my way clearly, I knelt down and prayed to God for light and understanding."
Morse received many honors from his invention of the telegraph but felt undeserving: "I have made a valuable application of electricity not because I was superior to other men but solely because God, who meant it for mankind, must reveal it to someone and He was pleased to reveal it to me."
Tim Hansel, Eating Problems for Breakfast, Word Publishing, 1988, pp. 33-34.
Mary said, “He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty.”
On a visit to the Beethoven museum in Bonn, a young American student became fascinated by the piano on which Beethoven had composed some of his greatest works. She asked the museum guard if she could play a few bars on it; she accompanied the request with a lavish tip, and the guard agreed. The girl went to the piano and tinkled out the opening of the Moonlight Sonata. As she was leaving she said to the guard, "I suppose all the great pianist who come here want to play on that piano."
The guard shook his head. "Padarewski [the famed Polish pianist] was here a few years ago and he said he wasn’t worthy to touch it."
Source Unknown.
Hudson Taylor was scheduled to speak at a Large Presbyterian church in Melbourne, Australia. The moderator of the service introduced the missionary in eloquent and glowing terms. He told the large congregation all that Taylor had accomplished in China, and then presented him as "our illustrious guest." Taylor stood quietly for a moment, and then opened his message by saying, "Dear friends, I am the little servant of an illustrious Master."
W. Wiersbe, Wycliffe Handbook of Preaching and Preachers, p. 243
Mary said, “He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty.”
Let us pray!
