The Magnificat

But today, I've got a dinner, so I'm going to give you a half sermon. How's that? Half? Now I'm going to give you a whole sermon, but it is a little shorter.

So I'd like to ask you to turn your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke. Gospel of Luke chapter 1. I don't know if you're aware, but this past week was apparently a really, really big one for a certain character in the Christmas story.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

When I say character, that doesn't mean they're not real. Real person, but a character in the Christmas story. It was Marian Week. Marian Week. Now, not the local high school, although it is named Mishwaka Marian.

I'm talking about Mary, the mother of Jesus. So, the feasts alone this past week were quite impressive. You had the Feast of Immaculate Conception on December 8th, and then that was followed by the Feast of Our Lady of Loreto on the 10th.

And guess what? This past Friday, it was the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. And again, all these feasts are all about Mary. About honoring and venerating the birth mother of our Lord and Savior.

Now, I suppose in some sense, having a feast to honor someone isn't such a terrible thing. Maybe we should do more of that. But here's where the problem arises.

It arises when we begin to look into some of these feasts and the liturgical prayers that go along with them. I was doing a little study this week.

I looked at this Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and I found the litany, the liturgical prayer, and I wanted to share it with you. So, I've got it with me on the screen.

This is what the prayer says. And again, I'm quoting a prayer. I'm not offering this prayer, okay? So, you understand? I'm not a heretic. I'm going to quote this.

It says, Mary, worthy of honor and veneration, perfect and ever virgin, most merciful and worthy of confidence, cures, remedies, and alleviates all suffering, keeps us under her compassionate and merciful gaze,

shows us help, love, and compassion, graciously repays all who serve her, who chooses those who are humble and simple, keeps us under her shadow and protection, our fountain of joy.

I don't know about you, but by the time I get to the end of that prayer, I'm wondering, are we still talking about Mary? Mary? It's like Houston, we have a problem.

Or maybe we should say, Rome, we have a problem. You see, this is an example of what's called Maryology. Maryology is the veneration and elevation of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Elevates her to a salvific role. I remember when I was studying at a Catholic university, I was at Marquette University for a few years, and I first heard the term co-redemptrix, co-redemptrix.

Apparently some of the Catholic church leaders have backed off that a little bit, but they're still very comfortable calling her a mediatrix, like a mediator, a mediatrix.

Both positions are wrong. Both positions miss who and what Mary is really all about. And if someone wants to argue the point, I would simply say, take it up with Mary herself.

Did you know that Mary actually composed a song about her role? It's in Scripture. It's right here in Luke chapter 1. It's traditionally called the Magnificat, and I would like to read it with you, if you would follow along with me, in Luke chapter 1.

Luke 1 · chapter mention Luke 1 · chapter mention

I'm actually going to back up to verse 39 and set the tone. Verse 39, and we'll read through verse 56.

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.

And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. And she exclaimed with a loud cry, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

And why is it granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.

And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. And Mary said, or maybe we should say sang, 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. 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. And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.

Let's pray once more. Will you pray with me, Father? In the midst of snow this morning, very cold temps, in the midst of many of us bringing in food and trying not to slip and fall, will you just settle our spirits right now and help us to focus, Lord, on the core, the reason,

the meaning of this holiday that we gather and that we celebrate and that we feast for. And we know it's not a person like Mary. It's not decorations or food.

It is your son. And so, Lord, let us focus on this child who did grow up to become a man, who died and was resurrected by you and is now reigning with you at your right hand.

This Jesus, help us to focus on him today as we retell this old, old story. It's in his name that we pray. Amen.

Well, I don't mean to poke too much fun at the Catholics in a Catholic town. I could probably get myself in a lot of trouble in South Bend, Indiana, right?

But honestly, I think we have to agree and understand, and we should make sure our children, our families understand, that the Catholic Church has created some innovative dogmas about Mary.

It started a long time ago, back in early, I'm sorry, not 19, A.D. 533, in the 6th century, there was the declaration that Mary is a perpetual virgin.

We do believe that Mary was a virgin. Jesus was born of a virgin. This is a doctrine that says that she stayed a virgin the rest of her life.

I got some problems with that when you read about Jesus having half-brothers and sisters. More recently, in 1854, it was decided that Mary had been immaculately conceived herself.

Herself the product of a virgin birth. And then come just 75 years ago, in 1950, it was again decreed that Mary never died a natural death. She was simply assumed, body and soul, right up into heaven, like, I guess, Elijah style or something.

The problem with each of these three Marian dogmas is that they're fabricated. They are made up by someone or someones. They are not in Scripture anywhere.

What is in Scripture is a beautiful and amazing story about an angel named Gabriel came and visited a young lady and gave her some news. And Mary, she received it very well.

She said, let it be to me according to your word. Luke 138. And now, as we go on to read here in the very next verse, verse 39, Mary has left town and she's traveled some 80-plus miles, presumably by herself, gone all the way to this unnamed town

in the hill country of Judah. And we're told that she comes in haste to see Elizabeth. And yet, before she even so much as walks through the door, it's a prophetic sign.

Here's Elizabeth. She herself is six months along with her baby, who will be John the Baptist. And no sooner does Mary walk through the doorway and we're told that she greets Elizabeth.

And in verse 41, the baby leaped for joy in her womb. Now, I've never been pregnant. Just to be clear. I can never get pregnant. I should probably also be clear about that.

We men can't get pregnant. But I've heard tell about this sort of thing. I mean, at least the kicking. Anybody ever hear how to baby kick or felt a baby kick?

A few people? I asked my wife this week. I called her up when I was studying the sermon, just out of the blue. I said, which one of our kids kicked the most?

We have four. Any guesses? She didn't remember. She doesn't know. I asked her next. I said, did any of them leap for joy in the womb? Leap. She said, no, I'm pretty sure none of them did that.

And by the way, if you need more biblical support for being pro-life, right? If you need a good argument for being pro-life, for protecting the unborn, I'd say this is a pretty good passage.

This is not God jolting this fetus to do something involuntarily. This is personal agency, right? Personal agency of a living person, an unborn person, who by the way today would be viable outside the womb,

being prophetically enabled to understand whose presence he's in. John, the unborn child, who himself, by the way, we read, was filled with the Holy Spirit from conception.

He is reacting to being in the presence of Jesus. And Elizabeth goes on to get into the prophetic action too. Filled with the Holy Spirit, now she cries out, blessed are you among women, verse 42, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

And then she says, and how is it that I get this incredible privilege that the mother of my Lord should come to me? She goes on to tell her much younger cousin, Mary, of what's happened inside of her.

Even as she is divinely enabled, they have not had conversation yet, now she's suddenly divinely enabled to know what Mary's response was to the angel.

She commends her for believing Gabriel's words. And then we finally come to Mary herself. Because in verse 46, what Mary does is she now breaks out in a prophetic song.

And what does she say? What does Mary proclaim? Does she say things about herself? No, she doesn't. Not really. She quickly mentions her humble estate.

She mentions how future generations, yes, they're going to call me blessed, but Mary really proclaims not herself. As we listen to her words, we don't hear any hint of Mary thinking that she is somehow worthy of anyone's confidence or of her being able to remedy or cure anything.

There's no suggestion that she's in any position to graciously be able to repay people who serve her or that she chooses much less protects anybody.

Instead, what Mary proclaims is all about God. This song, this Magnificat, is all about God. And what she proclaims in these ten verses are truths about Him.

Truths about God and what He's done. Truths about what God is currently doing. And even truths about what God can be counted on to do in the future.

And so if you want to take a few notes this morning, what I want to do very quickly is highlight three of these truths for you. Three truths from Mary's song.

In light of the angel's words, in light of Elizabeth's prophetic word to her, and in light of this child who's been supernaturally conceived and is now growing inside of her, I want you to hear three truths that Mary proclaims about God.

Here's the first one. Truth number one. God is a merciful Savior. merciful Savior. Mary starts out with this like two-fold description of her inner being.

She says, My soul, verse 46. My spirit, verse 47. What she's trying to say is, My entire being, inner being, magnifies the Lord, makes Him great, rejoices in God, my Savior.

Yeah, even though Mary does not yet fully comprehend all the dimensions of the salvific role that her son is going to have, she nevertheless, even at this point, recognizes that the Messiah she is carrying is the Christ.

He is the Christ who's come to save His people. And it's not because He has to. It's not like He was on the hook to do it. It's not like He's doing this out of some obligation.

No. God has done this great thing out of that special quality of God's character and that's His mercy. Verse 50. Take a look. And His mercy is for those who fear Him from generation to generation.

Then again, down to verse 54. He has helped His servant Israel in remembrance of what? Of His mercy. This word mercy here is, it's a rich word that conveys a sense of gracious faithfulness.

Gracious, not deserved, gracious faithfulness for those who fear Him, for those who acknowledge and revere God. Mary, first thing she sings is that God is a merciful Savior.

But she goes on and she sings yet another powerful truth about God in verse 49. Take a look. Verse 49. For He who is mighty has done great things for me.

Second truth is this. Second truth is that God is a mighty deliverer. Mighty deliverer. Mighty as in powerful, able, capable. Again, listen.

Mary may not know everything about this child. She does not totally grasp the significance of His work yet. He's going to, she is going to, but not yet.

But here's what she does know. What she does know is that God has done what only God can do and that's the impossible. Virginal conceptions, she knows, are not possible and she's had one.

God has done the impossible. And we should also recognize that this really is warrior terminology being used for God. terminology that is not unfamiliar to the biblical writers in scripture, especially as you go to the Old Testament and hear the way that people like the psalmists talk about God.

I'll just share with you quickly verse 51. He has shown strength with His arm. Our God is a warrior God. Our God is one who fights on behalf of His people.

Here's what the psalmist sings in Psalm 24. Psalm 24 verse 8. The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle. And you know, maybe it was psalms like this one, Psalm 24, that was filling Mary's mind right now.

Psalms 24:8

Perhaps she'd memorized it as a child. Jewish children memorize scripture. Maybe the Holy Spirit brought it to her mind supernaturally. But she is singing about God as a mighty deliverer.

And you know, speaking about songs of deliverance from God, you can't talk about deliverance with God if you're an Israelite for very long without immediately thinking about what?

The greatest moment of their deliverance to date? Which would have been the exodus from Egypt. Because the same kind of power that God showed at the exodus when He freed His people from their bonds of slavery and released them from their burdens is now on display in the birth

of this boy. And just as God once humbled a proud Pharaoh, right? And the Pharaoh who stubbornly refused to release the people, God humbled him.

Just as God brought down the mighty Egyptian army by, what, drowning them in the Red Sea. Just as God plundered Israel's rich oppressors even as the people were marching their way out of Egypt, they literally plundered the Egyptians who willingly gave them all their treasurers.

Mary's singing about the same things right now, the same concepts.

Who's against God? Well, the proud. And who's God against? God's against the proud, right? God opposes the proud. Who are the rich and the mighty of Mary's day?

Well, it would be the self-sufficient. It would be the person with the mindset that is not open or responsive to God because they don't think they have any need for God.

The independent, those confident in their own spiritual standing who don't think they have any sins that need to be forgiven. Now, certainly in Mary's day it was the powerful Romans, those Roman oppressors, those occupiers, yes, but it was also among God's own people.

You had the religious elite that Jesus himself will grow up and confront soon. They had a stranglehold on the common people. Parties like the Sadducees or the scribes, other privileged classes of the elite who did what?

Tied up legalistic burdens ! And heaped them on people's backs! And of course, we would be remiss if we didn't remember the most essential enemy, the most essential, supernatural, mighty one to overthrow and that would be Satan.

Satan and his dark forces. Is it any coincidence that when Jesus grows up in Luke chapter 10, here's what he's going to say in Luke chapter 10 verse 18, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.

Luke 10 · chapter mention Luke 10:18

I don't know how you want to work that out with all your eschatology and where Satan is, when, in relation to earth and heaven, but it seems pretty clear that the coming of this child, the coming of the Son of God into the world did something, it dethroned some mighty being from its throne and Mary is singing

about that right here. Singing not about herself but about a God who is mighty and powerful to deliver. A mighty God who is now enacting his deliverance plan through the very gift of the child she's carrying.

Verse 52, God has brought down the mighty from their thrones. He has exalted the humble, he has filled the hungry and sent away the rich empty.

And then there's that third truth from Mary and it's one that she saves really for the end. Verse 55, verse 55, as he God spoke to our fathers to Abraham and to his offspring forever.

The third truth is this, truth number three is that God is a faithful promiser. Faithful promiser. Kids, you're with us. Kids, do you guys know what a promise is?

Do you know what a promise is? You know, a promise is only as good as someone's word. So in other words, what that means, if someone tells you that they're going to do things all the time and doesn't do them, then you know that you can't really trust their promises.

But God is not like that. God is a faithful promiser. In fact, you could say he's the most faithful promiser ever. Because God has the ability to do exactly like he says.

If I promise, say kids, I'm going to come home from work at a certain time and we're going to build some Legos and then there's a snowstorm, I can't control the weather, I might get stuck somewhere and be late.

But God can do anything. Nobody can stop God. And so when God says something, you can have assurance it's going to happen. And it's very interesting that Mary closes her song on this note about God's word to her fathers, her forefathers.

First among them, of course, is a man named Abraham, Father Abraham. What's she talking about? Well, she's referring to Genesis chapter 12 when she says he spoke to our forefathers.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

Genesis chapter 12 verse 3. What did God say? He said at the end of his words that in you, Abraham, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

Genesis 12:3

You know, at this point, Abraham didn't even have one kid. He was childless. And we know that God would give him a child and through that child, a nation of Israelites eventually.

But the ramifications and the scope of this promise are bigger than even one nation, aren't they? God promised Abraham in that original covenant that the seed that he would give to Abraham, he would multiply that seed.

They would be innumerable. And now, right now, in the womb of this young lady Mary visiting Elizabeth, here rests the seed of Abraham. Here is the fulfillment of that covenant promise.

A promise for innumerable heirs that you can't count because from this child's work, people of all races, all nationalities, all ethnicities will be able to be brought into the family of God by faith.

A promise for God to be with his people, like we sang, Emmanuel, which means God with us. And God, through his son incarnate in this baby, is now with his people.

He will be born, he will live, he will grow up, he will walk among us, and he will bless us. And the blessings he brings will not just be temporary, they will not just be material blessings, they will be eternal and spiritual.

Because all who believe in this son, all who will grab hold of this horn of salvation that Elizabeth's husband, Zechariah, is about to prophetically describe a few verses later from now, they can have their sins forgiven in him.

God had first promised this to Abraham, he had gone on to renew this promise several times through men like David, through so many prophets, and now, finally, this promise had come to fulfillment in this gift of a child, now alive and growing inside Mary's womb.

well, we're told that Mary stays on with her cousin, here in the last verse we read, she stays on for about three months, coinciding perfectly with the birth of Elizabeth's son, John.

We imagine she's probably there among all the relatives when this other miraculous baby is born, who is fully human, not God, just a man, but a significant man.

And then we're told that she heads back home to Nazareth, and what's significant about this is that she's now had three months for the baby to grow, and so understand that as she comes back into the small village of Nazareth, she comes back as a very noticeable pregnant, not wife, fiance,

and we're going to pick this up next week. But for this morning, I hope these three simple but powerful truths about God that you have heard from the lips of Mary will really sink into your heart this Christmas, to know that

your God is a merciful Savior, to always remember that your God is a mighty deliverer, and to give your hope to a God who is a faithful promiser.

It's very good news for those of us who seek him, who have sought him, for the humble that Mary describes, for those of us here who have recognized our hunger and our need, but for those who haven't, for any who are maybe as of yet uninterested, who maybe even

see some of these things as beneath them, the proud, for the one who says, well, I'm in charge on the throne of my life, I do what I want, and I'm doing just fine, thank you, the mighty, what this is, is it's an invitation to consider, to consider the

one who, though right now, right here, only is in utero in our story, will be born, and will grow to become a man, and go to a cross to become sin for you.

Would you bow your heads with me? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this beautiful, powerful story, thank you for what you have done, this great thing that you did through this humble woman, Lord, young, young woman, thank you so much, thank you for the miracle

of this virginal conception that somehow in ways theologians can't even explain, you, God, took on human flesh, and we know you had to do that, God, because that is what the perfect sacrifice would require, and Lord, you sent him with that mission, and so, Father,

as we celebrate this story, that we retell it, we get excited about it, Father, this Christmas, will you help us always, always to keep our focus, not just on the human characters, Father, but upon you, because you indeed are the one who saves, you're the merciful Savior, you, God, and you alone are the

one who delivers, you're the mighty deliverer, and Lord, you have made good on your promise, you are a faithful promiser, and there are yet more promises that you will fulfill for us in our future, we hope and we trust in that.

We pray this as a church in the name of this Savior in Emmanuel's name, in Jesus' name, amen. Amen.