Song of a Humble Heart

Well, I hope you all have your Christmas decorations up already, because if you don’t, you’ve already missed it, right? It’s probably not worth putting them up now. When it comes to the Advent season, there are all manner of people that we get to have our attention drawn to, and they’re special to think about—the various roles that they play in this beautiful story. In the Gospels, the first person we’re really introduced to is Joseph in the Gospel of Matthew, when Gabriel appears to him to let him know about Mary’s pregnancy and the supernatural reality of who that child was. Then we learn about Zachariah and Elizabeth (Chaz read about them a little bit this morning) and the unique circumstances that their own lives included at this time, when they found themselves expecting the one who would one day give birth to the person we know as John the Baptist. But as we think closer to the coming of Christ, there are the shepherds out on the hill, and we think about maybe the little Christmas pageants at churches, with little boys dressed up like shepherds, you know, holding little stuffed sheep, and how cute that is—to think about the role that those individuals played in the coming of Christ.

But in terms of purely from a human perspective and human individuals, it’s hard to overstate the significance and the role that Mary played in the life of Christ. I mean, if you just think about the bond that any mother has with her child, it’s a very special and unique bond. But to imagine that that child is the Son of God takes it to a whole different dimension—something there’s probably no way that she could have even communicated to her friends and family, the significance of what that relationship was like. Hard to even imagine. And maybe you’ve thought about that. I wonder what it would be like to be Jesus’ earthly mother, to have the only truly perfect son who ever lived. And what would that have been like—every time your son corrected you, you just knew he was right, you know? There was no way to counter. There was nothing to rebut and come back with, you know. But it had to be a very special relationship.

And so when we think about Mary’s response to the angel Gabriel revealing to her the significance of what she was going to bring into this world through this child that she was carrying, and the role that she was going to play in human history as part of this incarnation—Jesus Christ taking on flesh and blood and coming and living among us—her response is all the more special when you think about what that relationship was like. And really what you see in Mary’s response to this discovery, as Gabriel reveals to her the nature of the child that she’s carrying, is this interesting dichotomy between the greatness of God and the humility of a very simple person, somebody who lived in very simple circumstances. And really what I think this reveals to us as we look at Mary’s response to this discovery, as it is revealed to her, is the idea that when humble people encounter the unexpected magnitude of God’s goodness, gratitude really becomes like a song to us. And that’s exactly how she responds. That’s exactly what we see in her life.

I want you to turn to Luke chapter 1. Luke chapter 1. This morning we’re going to be looking at Mary’s song. This Christmas series I’ve entitled “Songs of Salvation,” and so I feel like we have to start with what is often referred to as Mary’s Magnificat. You find it in Luke chapter 1, beginning in verse 46. And this is her response, really, to the whole circumstance—what Gabriel has revealed to her, what Elizabeth has revealed to her through the power of the Holy Spirit, as we’re told earlier in Luke that the Holy Spirit comes upon Elizabeth and she declares these words of joy. Mary’s response is this, in verse 46:

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 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.”

This song of Mary reveals to us so much about Mary’s understanding of God. It exalts God. And really, that’s how she begins: “My soul magnifies the Lord.” And in this song she demonstrates to us her perspective of being a humble servant of the Lord, being blessed in this amazing way. But what she reveals is true of every believer—something that we can hold on to with confidence, because what is revealed to us in this song is focused on God. It’s not a song about Mary. It’s a song about God.

And so from the very beginning Mary lets us know that God is a God who cares. The Lord cares. What’s so special about this is that while Mary holds a special place in human history, she is a woman who is marked by humility. That’s the character quality that really rises to the surface. She is a humble woman whose faith in God is strong. She is trusting in him to do what seems impossible. She believes that this is true, that what the angel Gabriel has revealed to her is true. And so among women she is uniquely blessed. That’s one of the things that Elizabeth declared to her. She alone is chosen to be the mother of Jesus at his incarnation, at his coming into the world as flesh and blood.

What I think is so unfortunate about all that is that throughout church history we’ve managed to devise all sorts of fantasies about Mary that actually don’t add to her character and to who she actually was as a woman, but detract from it. They attempt to exalt her and make her seem as if she was chosen by God because she was better than everyone else—perhaps not even in need of salvation herself. We’ve concocted things like the immaculate conception or the personal sinlessness of Mary or the perpetual virginity of Mary. These things are not what we see in passages of scripture like Luke chapter 1. What I think is unfortunate is that because of these, Protestants are often very reluctant to talk about Mary lest we be perceived as building some sort of idol out of her. And while Mary does play a unique role in redemptive human history and she is the earthly mother of Jesus, she would be the first to object to these fantasies about her that attempt to elevate her, because we see her response is nothing but a humble response to what God is doing through her. This song is a song of praise, but it is one of true humility, not false humility.

In this psalm she recognizes that the Lord, the Most High, has regarded the lowly. And really throughout Mary’s praise there is this contrast that is woven from start to finish—this contrast between mighty God and helpless people. And Mary would put herself not closer to God, but she would put herself down in this category: helpless people. How is it that God has chosen me? How is it that I am to receive this favor? How is it that I am to be the bearer of this blessing? I’m a nobody. She doesn’t say, “You know what? I knew it. I knew that from my immaculate conception and my perpetual sinlessness that God would choose me.” She doesn’t say that at all. She very much echoes a statement of David in Psalm 144: “What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you regard him?” Mary would put herself right in that category. Who am I, God, that you would choose me to be in this special position? I don’t deserve it. And she declares that God is great, God is mighty. And so he hasn’t looked on Mary in her purity, hasn’t looked on Mary in her holiness, hasn’t looked on Mary in her exaltedness. She says, “No, he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. He’s seen me for who I am, and he has still chosen to allow me this blessing—to be the bearer of the Son of God.”

Even on the negative side she really calls out the fact that even the high and the mighty, the powerful and the exalted, are no match for the power of God. In this psalm she says that he has shown strength with his arm and 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. Imagine—go back in time. Imagine that you’re a soldier in Joshua’s army. You’re entering the land of Canaan and you’re heading toward Jericho, and you get there and Joshua lays out the battle plan. “Okay, this is how we’re going to defeat this mighty city. All right, just hear me out, guys. God’s given me the plan. Okay, day one, we’re going to walk around the city. Day two, we’re going to walk around the city again. Day three, pretty much the same as day one and two—we’re going to walk around this city. We’re actually going to do this six days in a row. We’re just going to walk around the city. Day seven, we’re going to walk around the city seven times, but we’re going to hoot and holler and we’re going to blow our trumpets. That’s how we’re going to do it. Okay, let’s go. Here we go.”

You know, this is a great example of how the mightiness of God, just with his arm, brings down the exalted and the proud of this world. They are no match. It doesn’t matter the military skill of Joshua as a leader or the battle readiness of his army. That isn’t going to play a factor at all in the defeat of this mighty city, this mighty Jericho. Without any effort, God humbles the mighty. Mary understood that the humility and the simplicity of Jesus’ earthly life—starting with who God chose to be his parents, including her as his mother—would be a testament to the power of God, a testament to his might, to his ability to deliver on his promises, a testament to the ability of God to redeem his people. Mary does not exalt herself. She recognizes she is humble and God is the one who is exalted.

Another thing that we see in her psalm that really demonstrates to us that Mary has true humility is in the statement where she says that from now on all generations will call me blessed. This is not because there’s something intrinsic in her that Mary says, “Aha, now people are going to see who I am. Now people are going to recognize me for what I am and they’re going to esteem my true worth.” That’s not what she’s saying—that from now on people are going to realize my inner beauty and my inner strength and all of that. That’s not what Mary is saying. She’s saying that from now on I’m going to be called blessed because God has chosen me to give birth to the Savior. She’s blessed because of the role she plays in the Son of God coming into the world.

Luke 1:30, the angel says to Mary, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” Okay, I think we have sometimes misunderstood what the angel Gabriel is saying to her. That word “favor” isn’t that God has recognized something in you. No, it’s the word “grace.” You have received unmerited favor from God. You, a humble lowly woman—God has extended his grace toward you in allowing you to be this special mother. She’s not earned the favor of God. She has been freely given it. And now, because of the privilege of giving birth to Emmanuel, she will forever be regarded as blessed by God despite her lowly status. Mary is declaring this in this praise when she says, “From now on all generations will call me blessed.”

The other reason that we see true humility in Mary, in recognizing that God cares for her and God cares for his people, is the fact that mercy keeps coming up again and again in this praise. God has been merciful. Only the guilty benefit from mercy. I love this quote from a Lutheran commentator. He says, “Grace is love toward those who do not deserve it because of their guilt. Mercy is love toward those who are in misery as a result of their sin and guilt.” What is so special about Mary’s thoughtful reflection on this remarkable situation is that she realizes that while she plays a unique role in what is happening, the implications of it extend far beyond her. This isn’t just about Mary. What God the Father is doing through the Son’s incarnation is for all, she says, who fear him. He is being merciful to her and he is being merciful to humanity in coming into this world. And this lets us know that the mighty God of the universe is a God who cares about us. We wouldn’t have the Christmas story if God didn’t care. You can be sure of that.

We also see in Mary’s song that the Lord doesn’t just care—he remembers. It’s so interesting that Mary, this young girl from Nazareth who in all likelihood was illiterate, had a remarkable command of Scripture. She knew the Bible and she understood what it meant. Luke 1:54–55, in her prayer 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.” Now think about that. Mary’s not a priest. She’s not a rabbi. As I mentioned, because she was female in that time and place in the world, she was in all likelihood illiterate. And yet she understood that the birth of Jesus is a fulfillment of the covenant promises of God that he made to Abraham 2,000 years earlier. In Genesis 12:1–3, this is the Abrahamic covenant:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

What I think is interesting, and to me what helps reveal just how well Mary understood Scripture, is when Chaz read of Gabriel coming to Mary and telling her this wonderful news about this child that she was carrying—she was going to give birth to the Savior. The angel Gabriel connects it to the Davidic covenant: he’s going to rule on the throne of his father David, and of his kingdom there will be no end. Mary understood: well, if he’s the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant, then he’s the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. This is how well she understands what God has revealed to his people in Scripture. She understands that those two covenants are interwoven; they’re interrelated. This is the reality. If you ever wonder why there’s a genealogy at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, it’s to connect these two covenants. Let me read Matthew 1:1. Matthew says, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” This is the connection. Matthew lays out this genealogy to say these two covenants converge at Jesus Christ. Mary understands that. She gets it. It’s one of the things that she praises God for. And it’s letting us know that she knows that God remembers his covenants. And what that really lets us know is that God keeps his covenants. He doesn’t just promise something and then forget about it. He promises something and he fulfills it.

Now, sometimes it takes a long time—2,000 years between God promising to Abraham that from your descendants the whole world is going to be blessed. That’s a long time. That is a really long time. This also lets us know that the baby in Mary’s womb isn’t just for Mary, and she understands that. He’s given for all the true descendants of Abraham. And if you want that fleshed out, we can go to the book of Galatians, which is where I’m going to go. Galatians chapter 3. Let me read a little bit of that beginning in verse 7. Paul says this in Galatians 3:

“Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’ So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”

What Paul is saying is that that promise that God made to Abraham a long, long time ago wasn’t just for Abraham, and it wasn’t even just for his physical descendants—the people that could trace their genes back to him. It was for people who are going to be saved by grace through faith in the Son of God, in Jesus Christ. He goes on to say in Galatians chapter 3:

“Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”

That verse—“there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female”—gets misused all the time in a million different ways. But all it’s really saying is there’s one Savior, one salvation, one way to be made right with God, and that is through Jesus Christ, who is the promise that God made to Abraham. You know what’s amazing? Mary understood all that. Mary got it when Gabriel told her who her son was going to be. She understood: this is the fulfillment that has finally come—the thing that we have been waiting for, the coming of the Messiah, God’s promise that he made to our father Abraham and the promise that he made to our father David is finally coming true. I get to play a special role in a demonstration of the Lord remembering this covenant and bringing it to pass. That’s so amazing.

And that leads us to the third thing that we see Mary recognize and exalt God for in her song, and that is that the Lord saves. The Lord saves. The heart of Mary’s praise, the blessing she most rejoices in, is salvation. Right? “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” If you were here last Sunday, think back to that message, “Unlimited Praise.” If you weren’t, I’ll give you a little synopsis. The first step that I told you, if you want to have unlimited thanks, you need to prioritize praise, right? Don’t start with your circumstances. Start with praising God for who he is. That’s exactly what Mary does: “My soul magnifies the Lord.” She exalts him. That’s what magnifying means—I want to make him big. If you think about looking at something small with a magnifying glass, it looks bigger, right? This is what Mary’s trying to do. I want to make God big in this praise. I want to exalt him. I want to hold him in the highest honor.

What was step two? If you want to have unlimited thanks: prioritize praise, then state the obvious. That’s what Mary does. Who is God? He is my Savior. Let me declare that. Let me rejoice in that. Mary doesn’t say God saves Mary by lifting her out of her poverty. She and Joseph are poor. That’s why when they dedicate Jesus in the temple they give the offering for the poor people—two birds, two doves. That was the offering for poor people. There’s no evidence that they ever became anything but poor. In fact, historically it seems likely that Joseph dies early in Jesus’ life. Mary had to endure the agony of seeing her son crucified. Her circumstances don’t seem to really get any better from an earthly perspective. That’s clearly not the salvation that God has brought her. The Lord is the Savior of Mary in the same way that he is the Savior of people like you and me today.

Do you remember what Gabriel told Joseph when he was filling Joseph in on what was happening to Mary? What did he say to Joseph that was so special about Jesus? That you’re going to call his name Jesus because he will save his people from their abject poverty? No. From their really terrible circumstances in life? He’s going to make sure they get the job promotions they’ve wanted, you know? No, no, no. He’s going to save them from their sins. He’s going to save them from the judgment and condemnation of God for their sins.

What I love about Mary is she speaks about things in her prayers that are in the future as if they have already happened. Now, this is going to be a really lame comparison, but I couldn’t think of anything better, so just bear with me, but y’all have heard of Harry Potter, right? Okay. J.K. Rowling, when she was first pitching that book to publishers, was a single mother on welfare. She was rejected by over a dozen publishers. They didn’t want to publish her “trash.” That proved to be a wrong decision from them economically speaking, because those books have made over seven billion dollars. But in the story of J.K. Rowling coming from these humble circumstances and trying to get her book published, she had this confidence, this assurance that this was the right thing and that this was going to happen. And it did happen. But that’s different than Mary’s confidence and Mary’s assurance. Mary’s confidence is not in herself. The salvation that she is looking for is not a confidence in who she is as a person. Her confidence is in God’s ability—a God that can humble the mighty and exalt the lowly, a God that can fulfill promises made 2,000 years earlier. She’s confident that God can save sinners. And for that salvation to be realized, Jesus has to be born. He has to be our substitute. And in order to be our substitute he has to live among us. He has to live the same life that you and I live. It can’t be sort of a fake version of it. He can’t just sort of look like it. He has to be real flesh and blood. He has to do more than just live. He has to die. And he can’t just die of old age. He has to die paying the punishment for sins he did not commit. The Bible’s clear that the penalty for sin is death—real death—and that other inferior substitutes won’t do. The writer of Hebrews says that it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. That pointed us to our need of a Savior and the reality that the wages of sin is death, but they in no way could atone for our sins. But the writer of Hebrews goes on to say, “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”

He couldn’t just live and he couldn’t just die. He had to rise from the dead as well. So Peter tells us in 1 Peter 1, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” What’s so special is Mary hadn’t witnessed any of that yet. And yet she was confident that that was true and that that was exactly what was going to happen. I love how Kent Hughes describes faith. He says, “Faith is belief plus trust.” And that kind of faith is a gift of God even for Mary. But that’s exactly what she had. She believed that this was true and she trusted in it.

So when you come to this section of Scripture again—and I hope you come to it regularly; it’s a beautiful passage of Scripture—I think what I want you to see in all of this, maybe what Mary would want you to see as well, is that her words are a powerful reminder to us of a great and mighty God reaching down to help helpless people. A God who cares. A God who remembers. A God who saves.

Let’s pray.