Mary's Praise

Mary's Praise Luke 1: 26 - 55 I guess that we've all felt at times that things were getting on top of us ... those times when we've stood back for a moment and wondered if and how we were ever going to be able to cope. Not pleasant times. Times that we were glad to see the back of. Times, I'm sure, that more people than ever have been experiencing over these last months. And really, for many, Christmas can be an opportunity to put behind oneself the cares and worries that can sometimes dominate our thinking. Because it's a chance to relax for a while, an opportunity to forget, to enjoy being with family and friends, which surely explains why there are those who are advocating a lessening of our current restrictions over the Christmas period. Christmas then tends to be associated with happier times. And what's more a rosy picture is so often painted of that first Christmas and of the experiences of the characters involved. Don't we sing: "the cattle a lowing, the little Lord Jesus ... no crying he makes. All is calm, all is right". But then if we consider Mary, the one whose song we're focusing on this morning, well surely her situation was anything but a bed of roses. Because here she was; a poor young girl, someone who, it's very likely, had never sought the limelight, content to live in an obscure backwater that few cared much about, happy in being betrothed in marriage to a local carpenter. And yet suddenly she was being thrust to the fore. She'd been visited by God's angel, Gabriel, who'd brought her the message that she'd been chosen by God out of all the other women in Israel past and present to bear his son, the Messiah. The one who God had been promising he would send for hundreds of years, and whose coming would signal a complete change around in the entire history of the whole world. How would anyone be able to come to terms with the immensity of all that? How could she, Mary, ever cope? Especially as, finding herself unmarried and pregnant, suddenly her status in the community would've dropped to rock bottom such that many would've wanted to stone her to death for adultery? Granted, as we read, she'd acted with great faith when the angel had brought her the news. But this had only been the start, would she, though, continue to have that faith as her pregnancy continued, as, when having hurried off to visit her cousin Elizabeth who was also pregnant, the reality of her own situation perhaps began to hit home? Well of course we find the answer here in our passage from Luke's gospel, from the words of Mary's song of praise, known as the Magnificat from the Latin meaning 'glorifies'. A song that has brought such inspiration to Christians down through the centuries. Now it's been said of these verses that "no words can express more aptly the praise for redeeming mercy which ought to form part of the public worship of every branch of Christ's Church". So it's surely worth a closer look at them! And firstly we see, immediately, the depth of Mary's trust in God. "My soul glorifies the Lord", she says, "My spirit rejoices in God my saviour". In other words she's worshipping God here with her whole being, with all her heart, soul, mind and strength, the fulfilment, as Jesus was to later say of the greatest of all the commandments. All that she has to give of herself she gives, there's no doubt in her mind, she's completely hooked, completely captivated by God. Her enthusiasm for him is total, such that she's filled with an inner joy. And why is that? Well for one reason she's recently experienced God and now she's simply responding to that experience ... a reminder that worship is only true worship when it begins with God, when it's motivated, and sustained, by a meeting in faith with him. This is why, in normal times, we can go into the largest church with the largest congregation where the most beautiful songs of praise are being sung and yet leave cold because for whatever reason there's simply a lack of God awareness there. And why too we can meet with a small number in a small place where few would call the praise joyful, or even where, as is now the case, praise is restricted and yet find ourselves being lifted into his closer presence. The key is that worship must be a response to God's initiative... we can't somehow drum him up by our own desiring, by somehow creating the right atmosphere. Although some do attempt just that, and can even convince them-selves that they've succeeded. There's another reason, though, that Mary trusts in God, which is that she recognises that she's now an integral part of his plans. She remembers that, throughout the Bible, he's used those who take him at his word and are prepared to obey him, and that he's helped them to do great things for Him so as to bring about his will; people such as Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets and many in between. And she's remembers that God, through these people, has been pointing to and paving the way for his Son. And now she sees that she herself is fitting into that long line of God's faithful servants, taking on this most blessed of roles, bearing the Holy child. So that she trusts God and she praises Him saying (verse 48 of our passage): "From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me - holy is his name." And, you know, the reality is that we too, once we've come to know the Lord Jesus as our saviour, are made aware by God's word that we're also a part of his plans for this world. That he's chosen us as well, and that as such he has things lined up for us to do. That we now have a God ordained purpose in life that we're called to fulfil, and so we can delight in discovering that purpose as we strive to follow him on a daily basis and as the Holy Spirit directs and moulds us. What reason, then, for us to trust the Lord ever more strongly as we live out our lives! But do we? Is this our experience? Or are we too often taken up with what we see as difficulties, with the unknowns that we face, which cause us to be afraid for the present and for the future? Do we at times choose to forget, or simply ignore, the truth of our position in God's eyes? Notice, though, how Mary's recollections of what God has done for her personally only extend to two verses, verses 48 and 49. The fact is that the majority of her song, the remaining six verses, tell us about what God has and will continue do for the whole of his people. You see, for Mary, the Lord is much bigger than just her personal experience of him. For her the most astounding facts about God concern the extent of his love and care, that: "His mercy extends to (all) those who fear him, from generation to generation" (verse 50), that throughout the history of his dealings with mankind: "he has performed mighty deeds with his arm" (verse 51) as he helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful not only to their great forefather Abraham but to "his descendants forever" (verse 55), just as he promised. So for example he repeatedly rescued his people when they'd wandered from him, he forgave David when he sinned against him, he brought back the remnant from captivity, he sent the prophets and finally, after four hundred years of silence following on from the prophet Malachi, he sent his son and chose Mary to be his mother. And Mary's attitude here does perhaps highlight the other side of the coin to our tendency to forget our position before God, to forget his constant blessings upon us. Which is that, at times, we can find it hard to think of anything but our own relationship with him. So that we focus our thinking entirely upon ourselves asking: what has the Lord done for me, or else, what is he doing for me? And then, when it seems to us that our life is becoming too predictable, lacking we feel in excitement, or when we're facing difficulties with little sign of a let up, we become disheartened, we begin to doubt God's care for us, his control over our present and our future. In other words we forget to consider the larger picture which, if only we did, would enable our faith to grow rather than shrink, as we remembered just how great our God is. The one who loves us individually as a Father and yet who cares for all people, especially his own. Such a narrow view can affect us both as individuals, preventing us from enjoying the full benefits and privileges of Christian fellowship, and as a church, causing us to become inward looking, as we forget that our mission is to reach out to others with the wonderful gospel of Christ. So we've seen the depth of Mary's trust in God from her song of praise. We also though notice from Mary's song the depth of her humility. A humility which seems very much at odds with the view of those who would venerate and worship her. Here she was, chosen by God out of all women to the high honour of being the Messiah's mother, and yet we find her talking about her humble state, acknowledging her own need of a saviour. There's no indication here that she feels in anyway sinless. Rather, having been granted a close experience of God's presence, she appears to have been made peculiarly aware of her own inadequacies, so that she's left amazed at how God has blessed such a person as her. This is her genuine reaction to God's choice of her, and it's surely an example to us when we're tempted to think more highly of ourselves in relation to others than we ought to. Because the fact is that there's no room in the Christian life for feelings of superiority. Because the reality is that any talent, any goodness, any faith that we have is his free gift, and nothing for us to take personal pride in. Paul puts it like this in 2 Corinthians chapter 8 verse 9: "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, so that through his poverty we might become rich". And so, like Mary, we should surely seek to be lowly in our own eyes, thinking little of ourselves, guarding against our tendency to glory in our achievements, whilst not forgetting to give God the glory; remembering, along with Paul, that we have God's "treasure in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from (him) and not from us" (2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 7). And then, thirdly, Mary's song has something to teach us about the depth of her thankfulness. Her gratitude for what God has done for her stands out, particularly in those verses where she remembers God's goodness to her. She has a thankful spirit; something that was the case too for such a servant of God as David, whose psalms so often express his gratitude to the Lord. Paul too was continually thankful to God for all his many mercies, urging the Thessalonians for example to "give thanks in all circumstances", whilst stating, in his letter to the Romans, that one of the marks of fallen humanity is that: "although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him" (Romans chapter 1 and verse 21). And so we also ought to be people who naturally give God thanks for all His mercies to us. We should be people who have a deep conviction, from when we get up in the morning to when we go to bed at night, of the fact that we're constantly in His debt and that each day we receive far more blessings than we deserve ... even on bad days! Then finally, as we study Mary's song we become quickly aware that her recent experience of God wasn't something that had happened in isolation. Whilst she was afraid when Gabriel came to her, she recognised him for who he was because of her familiarity with Scripture. In other words she already knew the nature of the One she was praising. How he'd brought down rulers but lifted up the humble, how he'd filled the hungry with good things but had sent the rich away empty. No doubt remembering from Scripture such historical figures as Pharaoh, and Haman in the book of Esther, along with people like Joseph, Moses, Hannah and Esther herself. So that when Mary responds to God, as her mouth speaks what her heart is feeling, she does so in familiar scriptural language, language found in the psalms and in many other places; choosing language which God himself has already made holy by using it. A reminder, surely, of our need to become more deeply knowledgeable about scripture to "let the word of Christ dwell in you richly" (Colossians 3:16). Of our need to take time to study it, to dig deeply into it, to learn from it. After all we learn of so many other things, we read so many other books. And yet when it comes to our Bibles how often do we make excuses for not to be reading it? "Oh I don't have time just now, it's boring, I can't understand it", we say. So then, Mary's life was suddenly turned upside down as a result of God's Son coming into this world. And perhaps if she'd been a typical 21st century young woman her situation, her feelings, her fears, her sudden realisation that she was in the spotlight and under the critical gaze of most people, would have taken over her life and completely swamped her; so that she simply wouldn't have been able to cope, preferring to hide away until the storms had passed, or even looking to bask in the limelight of her new found fame. But praise God she wasn't such a young woman. And, in her response to the angel Gabriel's visitation and to the news that she was to bear God's son, as well as to the massive pressures that this put upon her, we can see nothing of Mary but all of God. Her unselfconscious praise and worship being all about him. May we also, this Christmas, and indeed every day of our lives for that matter, see only Him, and seek to give him all the glory. And in doing so may we find in him our strength and assurance to continue travelling the road, albeit difficult at times, which he's marked out for us. Amen