Mary's Song: The Magnificat Luke 1:46-55 Sermon 2 December 11th, 2011   What do you consider dangerous? What do you consider dangerous to our world? 9-11 changed our view of that. I’m a Jack Bauer, 24 addict. I never knew there were so many ways to destroy the world. Now that Jack Bauer has retired who’s going to save our world from mass destruction?   We don’t think of books as being dangerous. Human Events asked a panel of conservative scholars and public policy leaders to help compile a list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Each panelist nominated a number of titles and then voted on a ballot including all books nominated. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was considered to be the most dangerous book of the last two hundred years. The second was Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler. Others that were considered dangerous were: Quotations from Chairman Mao, The Kinsey Report by Dr. Alfred Kinsey, The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, Unsafe at Any Speed by Ralph Nader and even, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.   Did you know that Mary’s Song was considered dangerous? The Magnificat is one of the most revolutionary documents ever written. Dr. E. Stanley Jones, the great Methodist scholar and preacher said that The Magnificat was “the most revolutionary document in the history of the world.” That’s quite a statement. But consider this, years before Dr. Jones made that statement, William Temple, the Archbishop of Canterbury, instructed his missionaries in India to never read The Magnificat in public when unbelievers were present. Why? Because in a country like India with its abject poverty, this portion of Scripture, taken out of context, could incite riots, even revolution.   We find Mary’s Song in Luke 1:46-55 (p. 856). After the angel Gabriel told Mary that she’d give birth to the Messiah, she goes to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, who’s pregnant with John the Baptist. When Elizabeth saw Mary, she greeted her with those famous words, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!” (Luke 1:42) When Mary heard those confirming words, she broke out into song, the words that are recorded for us here in Luke 1. Her song has traditionally been called “the Magnificat,” from the first word of the Latin version. It holds a very important place in church history and is a very important part of Christian worship. In some places they sing this song every single Sunday.   Mary’s song is steeped in the Old Testament. As you read it, it sounds like one of the psalms of David. When Mary says, “His mercy is for those who fear Him,” that sounds like Psalm 103. There’s also a strong resemblance to the Hannah’s song found in 1 Samuel 2, a fact that should not surprise us since Hannah’s song was occasioned by the miraculous birth of her son, Samuel. When you read The Magnificat, you’re reading the words of the Old Testament through the eyes of a teenage girl who’s been chosen by God to bring the Messiah into the world.     Our first step in understanding this song is to grasp its various parts. Like most songs, The Magnificat is easily divided into stanzas. When you look at it closely, you can see that it has two stanzas—Stanza One comprising verses 46-50 and Stanza Two consisting of verses 51-55. We can further divide it by observing that in Stanza One, Mary is reflecting on what it means to her to be chosen to bear the Messiah. She’s praising God for His great mercy to her personally. Her words are personal; her point of view is turned inward. In Stanza Two, Mary seems to fade from view; she is praising God for the effects the coming of Christ will have on the world. Her point of view is outward. Her words are global in their scope. Finally, we observe in the two stanzas that each one ends with a reference to God’s mercy (vss. 50 & 54). If you’re taking notes….   1. God is not impressed with wealth or fame. In verses 46-48 Mary praises God because He has chosen her to bear the Messiah, despite her lowly estate. Verse 48 is the key: “for He has looked on the humble estate of his servant.” The word “humble” refers to her age, background, economic condition and her lack of social standing. Mary is astounded that God would choose her, of all people, to bear the Messiah. “Why me, O Lord, when you could have had one of the rich, famous girls from Jerusalem?”   a. It reveals God’s values. She’s just a poor Jewish girl—one among thousands. In all of Israel no one was less likely. Mary is overwhelmed by the thought that she has been chosen by God.   If God had wanted wealth for His Son, He could have arranged it. If God had wanted power for His Son, it would have been done. If God had wanted Jesus to be born in the lap of luxury, He had only to say the word. If God had wanted Jesus to be born to an upper class family, He had hundreds of homes to choose from. If God had wanted education, or elite schooling, or the proper social connections, or any of the other things that people usually associate with success, it would have been done. God didn’t have to do it that way! That’s the wonder of Christmas.    b. It reveals God’s sovereign grace. Mary is really saying, “Lord, there was no reason for you to choose me.” It was a choice made in pure grace. There was nothing about Mary that recommended her to God. Yes, she was obviously godly, yet so were many other girls her age. Mary is saying, “I know you chose me because of your mercy. You didn’t choose me because of my education, or my background, or because of my parents, or because of my high standing in society.” Mary is praising God because He chose her despite all the things that made the world overlook her. God chose a poor peasant girl when He could have had any girl he wanted to be the mother of the Messiah. That’s what Mary can’t get over. If it had fallen to her by lot, she’d be grateful but the honor would not be the same. But it didn’t happen by chance or circumstance. Mary was not the last choice after everyone else said “no.” Mary was God’s first choice. No, really stronger than that. Mary was God’s only choice.   Isn’t that just like God to choose the most unlikely person for the greatest privilege any woman would ever know? No wonder Mary says, “From now on all generations will call me blessed.” She didn’t know how true that statement was. 2000 years later we’re still talking about Mary. Outside of Elizabeth, can you name even one other mother who lived in Israel in Mary’s day? The rest are all forgotten, but Mary is remembered forever. That’s the first stanza of The Magnificat.     In the second stanza the focus shifts away from Mary to the world around her. As God has done great things by choosing such an unlikely person, He will now do great things in unlikely ways. In verses 51-55, you not only notice a change in focus, there is also notice a change in tenses. When Mary talks about herself, she uses the present tense; when she talks about the world, she uses the past tense: “He has shown strength…He has scattered…He has brought down…He has filled.”   What’s going on here? When she says “He,” Mary is talking about Jesus Christ. When she says “has,” she’s talking about what Christ will do. BUT at this point, the Lord Jesus is still growing inside her body. How can she speak in the past about what Christ will do in the future? The answer is that Mary is using what the grammarians call the “prophetic aorist.” Sometimes prophets would look into the future and be so certain of what they saw, that they’d use the past tense to describe what was for them an absolutely certain future event. Mary is so convinced about what her Son, the Lord Jesus, will do when He comes, that she speaks of it…as if it had already happened. In time, it is yet future; in Mary’s mind, it’s an accomplished fact because God has willed it to happen. In the Second Stanza Mary describes revolutionary changes that will happen on earth because of the birth of Jesus Christ.   2. His birth will bring about a Moral Revolution, vs. 51. “He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.” The coming of Christ means the end of all human boasting. It’s the end of arrogance and outrageous ambition. His coming means an end to insatiable greed and lust for power. The mighty are brought down by the strong arm of the Lord.   That’s what’s happened across the centuries. Proud, boastful men lift their heads to challenge the Almighty, but He swats them down like flies. What happened to Saddaam Hussein? Muammar Qaddafi? What about Vladimir Lenin? When was the last time you thought about Ho Chi Minh? Or Mao? They come, they rise to power, and sooner or later…disappear. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “The arm of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”   The coming of Jesus Christ means that God has set a moral revolution at work in the world, a revolution in which the workers of iniquity are eventually brought to justice. You could write beside this verse “Tower of Babel.” That story tells us how God works. He lets the proud gather together and in their grandiose schemes plan to rise up to heaven. God watches for awhile, He waits and even seems to ignore them. In their temporary success they congratulate each other on their cleverness. But God scatters the proud, and He does so very suddenly.   Where is Bernie Madoff? Where is Rod Blagojevich? Where is Steve Jobs? Two are broke and convicted criminals, the other is dead. Proud men expect to carry it all with them. But God takes them out. He breaks them down. He blows away their projects. He brings them low. And He does it by the very counsels with which they thought to advance themselves.   3. His birth will bring about a Social Revolution, vs. 52. “He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate” (vs. 52). It’s the great reversal of fortune. That’s what Mary is talking about here: The coming of Christ brings about a great reversal of fortune in society. The proud are brought low and the humble are lifted up. What men call luck, Mary calls the work of God. When someone loses it all, we talk about bad luck. When someone hits the jackpot, we say it’s good luck. Not Mary. She understands that behind the faceless mystery called luck stands the Sovereign God. He lifts up and no one can bring down. He brings down and no one can lift up again.   As Calvin observes, the princes of the world don’t understand this. They grow insolent, opulent, lazy and greedy. They indulge in luxury, swell with pride and grow intoxicated with power. They soon forget that all that they have comes from God. To quote Calvin exactly, “If the Lord cannot tolerate such ingratitude, we should not be surprised.”   But go one step farther. No one lives forever—not the just nor the unjust. Sam Walton is dead. Someday President Obama will join him. Aaron Rogers will one day be a rotting corpse, so will Oprah. No king reigns forever. Just ask Elvis. If we lived forever, we’d all soon forget God. The Bible says, “It is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment” (Heb. 9:27).   By raising the lowly to power, God triumphs over the world.   Make sure you get the lesson: The ups and downs of history are really the hand of God at work. One man rules, then another, then another replaces him. Behind the seemingly impersonal flow of history is the very personal hand of God—suddenly pulling down a proud man (or nation) and replacing him with someone else. Those movements which seem to upset society are all regulated by God with unerring justice. The mighty think they are secure.  The poor despair of their fate. But God delights to reverse their fortunes.   Please understand that God doesn’t pull the mighty from their thrones just to punish them. He also does it in order to teach them the truth they couldn’t learn any other way. A wonderful example of that is King Nebuchadnezzar.   3. His birth will bring about an Economic Revolution, vs. 53. “He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.” This is the most revolutionary part of Mary’s song. Not only does the coming of Christ upset the proud of this world, not only does it lift up the humble, but it actually means that the hungry are fed and the rich go away empty.   Do you know what this means? It means that in Jesus Christ there is no such thing as a “common man” or a “common woman.” Sometimes those terms are used derisively to refer to working men and women, to blue collar people. There’s a planned contrast between “common” workers and the “upper class.” Most like to feel that they’re a little bit better than being just a “working man” or a “working woman.” After all, it’s part of human nature to look down your nose just a little bit at people who have less than you do. But in Jesus Christ there’s no such thing as a “common” person. God doesn’t know any “common” men or any “common” women. We dare not call anyone common for whom Christ died!   Let me explain the practical ramifications of this moral, social and economic revolution which the coming of Christ brings about. Throughout history whenever the gospel has gone into a society, it usually enters at a lower socioeconomic level. It’s a rare thing for the rich to be the first to embrace the gospel. Poor folk usually make up the first church in any culture. Why? Because the poor have nothing in which to trust, so when they hear the gospel they embrace it as truly good news. But the rich don’t see their need of Christ, so they ignore the gospel. It’s not usually the rich who listen. It’s usually the poor, the lowly, widows, orphans, the forgotten and disenfranchised who are first willing to listen to the gospel.   Do you remember what John the Baptist did when he was thrown into prison? He’d heard about Jesus and His miracles and he began to wonder if Christ was indeed the promised Messiah. So he sent his disciples to Christ with one simple question: “Are you the One we are waiting for, or should we look for another?” Jesus answered with these words: “Go back and tell John what you have seen. The sick are healed, the deaf hear, the blind receive their sight, the dead are raised, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.” At first glance, that last phrase seems out of place, but not to Jesus. There were many miracles that proved His Messiahship—among them the miracle that the poor were hearing and responding to the gospel message. That’s the genius of the Christian faith; that it goes out first to the poor of the world. First to the hungry, first to the hurting, first to the needy, first to the homeless, first to the forgotten classes of mankind.   Here’s an additional fact you may not know. Whenever the gospel has entered a society and made an impact on a significant group of people, it’s always had the effect of lifting those people up economically. Whenever the gospel goes out to the poor, it raises that group up in society.   How does it happen? Here’s a husband who’s been an adulterer, who’s sleeping around. When he comes to Christ, his whole life is redirected. Here’s a woman who’s abused alcohol for decades. When she comes to Christ, her whole life is changed. She learns how to get sober and stay sober. Here’s a man who hasn’t done a lick of work in years. He’s lived off welfare and the handouts of his friends for a long, long time. But when he comes to Christ, he gets a new purpose in life. That new purpose gives him a new desire and out of that new desire, he gets a good job…and he keeps it. In the process he becomes a productive citizen. The gospel makes better people and better people make a better world. The gospel not only works an inner transformation; it also works an outward transformation that literally changes the way people think and talk and act. In the process it produces the qualities that tend toward economic progress.   In other words, there’s an economic implication to the gospel. When gospel principles are followed; the hungry are filled and the rich are sent away hungry. Our problem in America is that we’ve got so much wealth and so much worldly prosperity that we’ve forgotten why Jesus came in the first place. Do you understand that, in a large part, what we have in America today is a result of our Christian heritage? It’s the spillover from the Puritans and others who taught gospel principles of hard work, thrift, saving and investment. It is the residue of an educational system that taught children to read by using stories from the Bible—not the lurid tales of Postmodernism. It’s the result of generations of believers who founded hospitals, clinics, libraries, colleges and universities. In large part, the liberties we enjoy and the economic standing that’s ours have come about because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Atheism, agnosticism and even humanism could never produce what we have today. If you want to see what they produce, take a look at the grave of the Soviet Union.   The gospel is the only hope for mankind—not only for his soul but also for his body, not only for the church but also for the world, not only for the individual but also for society. When the gospel makes headway in society, there you will find peace, harmony, tranquility and (ultimately) prosperity.   Seen in that light, what Mary is saying is radically revolutionary. We tend to privatize the gospel so much that we don’t see this truth. We talk about “asking Jesus into your heart” but we never talk about “asking Jesus into your boardroom.” We want to have Jesus and still spend what we want, wear what we want, do what we want. And we’d rather not have to worry about the poor at all. But if the Bible teaches anything—if the story of Christmas means anything—it’s that God is on the side of the poor. He’s not just the God of the rich; He’s the God of the poor. He’s on their side because nobody else is. He takes up their cause because no one else will. He fights their battles because nobody else will fight for them. He lavishes special attention on them because the rest of the world neglects them. The same is true for the hungry, the hurting, the homeless, the discouraged, the depressed, the handicapped and the lonely. God is on their side too, because if He doesn’t stick up for them, who will?   So Mary’s heart is filled with praise, because she knows the world will be a different place because Jesus has come. He’ll pull down the proud and lift up the humble. He’ll fill the hungry and the rich will be sent away empty. This is the ultimate reversal of fortune.   Verses 54-55 bring us to the end of Mary’s song. She concludes by praising God that in sending Jesus Christ into the world, God is keeping his ancient promises to Abraham. There’s a wonderful phrase in verse 54: “He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy.” That’s a wonderful way to put it. God remembered to be merciful. Aren’t you glad at Christmastime that God remembered to send His Son? What would we do if God had forgotten? Where would we be if Jesus had not come?   Then, Mary mentions Abraham and takes us back 2000 years before Christ. Something like 70 generations had come and gone between Abraham and Mary. They all lived in prospect of the promise of Christmas. That’s what they were looking for, even though they never heard that word. After all these years, Mary is seeing the fulfillment of what her ancestors only dreamed about. Her heart is so full that she can’t contain herself: “You did it, Lord. You kept your promise. It’s been 2,000 years but you remembered mercy.”   Conclusion: This is a great song, isn’t it? Sadly, we evangelicals often pass right over it without considering what it really means.   Let me share the words of William Barclay as he sums up the deeper meaning of the Magnificat, “There is loveliness in the Magnificat, but in that loveliness there is dynamite. Christianity begets a revolution in each man and revolution in the world.”   What’s the overall message of The Magnificat? If you put the two stanzas together, it comes out like this: God works in the same way all the time. These two stanzas are really saying the same thing, only from different perspectives. Mary is Exhibit A of the way God works. She’s the symbol of what the second stanza is talking about. When God sent His Son, He deliberately took the side of the forgotten people of the world. He still does the same thing today.   If we were planning the birth of Jesus, we wouldn’t do it that way. We’d get on the phone, call CNN and plan a big press conference. We’d say, “Meet us at City Hall because we’ve got a big event about to take place. Make sure you bring TV cameras because you don’t want to miss it.” We’d get Bryan Williams, Diane Sawyer and Wolf Blitzer, and all the rest. We’d arrange for fireworks and a ticker-tape parade with a big brass band leading the way. We’d email Matt Drudge to make sure that he put it on his headlines. We’d have Jesus arriving in a limousine. After all, that’s the least you’d expect for the Son of God. That’s how He’s supposed to come. First class. Pull out all the stops. Red carpet treatment. Spare no expense. Lots of money and glitter BUT that’s not the way God does business.   When God wanted to send His Son into the world, He picked the most unlikely girl He could find to be the mother. He picked a forgotten chunk of territory in a province in the Roman Empire. He arranged so that His Son would become a part of the hated Jewish race. Then He found the most unlikely hometown and arranged for His Son to be born in a stable, taking His first nap in a feeding-trough.   Can I point out that if Jesus were going to be born today, He wouldn’t be born in Burlington? He’d be born a few miles east of here, in some crack house in Racine. That’s what Mary was praising God for—He always does the unexpected. He moves against the false, humanistic values of this world. When God gets ready to move, He surprises everybody.   In short, Mary is praising God that when Jesus comes He’s going to start a revolution of love and reconciliation and forgiveness that will eventually spread to the ends of the earth. The revolution He starts will be greater than anything the world has ever seen. It started in a stable—the most unlikely place of all.   And what started 2,000 years ago is still going on today. 2011 has been an amazing year, hasn’t it? We’ve seen some shocking things happen all around us. I think even the most hardened observer would concede that these are truly revolutionary times. But the greatest revolution is not one you’ll see on CBS or CNN. The greatest revolution—the one that is making the biggest impact in 2011—is the one that started in Bethlehem. And today and every day His call is the same: “Come join the revolution and let’s change the world together one life at a time.”   So have you come to King Jesus? Have you joined His revolution? Have you let Him revolutionize your sin enslaved life and set you free?