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The Magnificat

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The Magnificat A LESSON FROM THE STORY OF MARY, MOTHER OF JESUS THE IMPACT OF HUMILITY by Beverly LaHaye and Janice Crouse The Magnificat My soul magnifies the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; For behold, henceforth 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 on those who fear Him From generation to generation. He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly. 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 seed forever. Luke 1:46-55 Mary was fully aware of the honor bestowed on her by God in choosing her to be the mother of the Messiah. Her selection by God to be the women to give birth to the Son of God was a unique event in human history. For Mary, it was a singular, unparalleled honor. God would not have chosen her had she not been pleasing to Him –– pleasing in her attitudes and her actions, in her beliefs about Him and her worship of Him, in her disposition and most especially in her character. Everything about the Angel’s visit to Mary confirms her purity, humility and devotion. She responded in the only valid way: in spite of any uncertainties she might have felt, she embraced the Lord’s will for her life.1 Given this, we should all want to know and understand as much about Mary as a role model as we possibly can. Though we have only fragmentary knowledge of her life, there are, nevertheless, some things about her that are fairly evident from the few events that are recorded. There is nothing that would 1 indicate that either she or Joseph came from anything more than modest means. Joseph we know was of the tribe of Judah (a direct descendent of David) and both he and Mary lived in Nazareth in Galilee where Joseph was a carpenter by trade.2 While Jerusalem was the center of Israel’s religious life, Nazareth was a place of corruption. Nathaniel asked, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Mary had relative Elizabeth – we are told by Luke 3– who was married to a priest named Zechariah, both of whom were descendents of Aaron. Luke also takes the time to say about them: “Both of them were upright in the sight of God, observing all of the Lord’s commandments and regulations blamelessly.” It seems strange that Luke would take the pains to describe the character of the parents of John the Baptist in greater detail than that of the mother of Jesus. Scripture is full of surprises. Given the affectionate relationship that appears to have existed between Elizabeth and Mary, it seems obvious that Mary followed the example of her relative Elizabeth (we are not told the nature of the relationship) and that she lived according to the same precepts. Otherwise would Mary have gone so hastily to see Elizabeth immediately upon having been visited by the angel?4 The few details exhaust the little we know about Mary’s background. Everything else we must deduce from her words and her actions. In addition to her conversation with the angel, Luke also recorded for us Mary’s song, the Magnificat. Here we find a goldmine from which we can learn much about Mary. The first thing that is obvious is the artful, poetic beauty of the language and its multiple references back to the Old Testament writings – including echoes of Hannah’s prayers from the book of Samuel5 and recitations of the promises of God. That information tells us that Mary was not – as some have described her – an ignorant peasant girl. Her language is elevated and refined and her mind was obviously saturated with the teachings of the law and the prophets. Consider, for example, her opening lines: My soul magnifies the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. Compare them with David’s words in Psalm 70:4 where we read: Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: and let such as love thy salvation say continually, Let God be 2 magnified. The similarities are clear, yet upon hearing Mary’s words there is no sense whatever that she is imitating or mimicking a better poet than herself. Her themes of “magnifying the Lord” and “God as Savior” are common ones from scripture but never stated in more lyrical terms. 6 For example, we read in Isaiah 45:21: . and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me. Similarly in Hosea 13:4 we find: . thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me. We would be remiss in looking at the poetic quality of her words if we lost sight of the fact that here Mary is expressing her deep devotion and great joy in her worship of her God and her Saviour. Mary’s statement that from now on all generations will call me blessed shows that – far from being an ignorant young girl who wasn’t quite sure what she was caught up in – she clearly understood the nature of the child she was bearing and at least something of the meaning of the coming of the Messiah. It is important to see the context of this statement. First, we need to recognize that the saintly revered Elizabeth has just deferred to Mary’s newly elevated status – as one might to royalty – by asking, “But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Then, we need to see that Mary’s opinion of herself has not change one whit from the moment when she replied to the angel, “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.” Though she clearly understood what Elizabeth had just said about her new role, she still saw herself as a humble servant and prefaces her remark about being called blessed by calling attention to that fact. Humility is one of Mary’s dominant characteristics; it flows as a natural consequence from her concept of who God is combined with her commitment and devotion to Him. How did Mary see God? As Saviour. God could be her Saviour because He was mighty. She knew God was her Saviour because He had “done great things for me.” She didn’t see God as someone who was interested only in Israel as a corporate body, only as a nation. Mary saw God in very personal terms: my Saviour who has done great things for me! But she immediately balances this familiar, personal viewpoint with one of great reverence, respect, and awe: And holy is His name. 3 Mary sees the implication of the fact that God is holy. When we come to see our sinful pride and willful disobedience in the light of God’s holiness, we know – like Adam and Eve – that we are not fit to stand before Him. There is and should be fear when we have our eyes opened. But the fear of the Lord – He who is both mighty and holy – is the beginning of wisdom. And the wise see that God has revealed Himself to be the merciful Father who has compassion on His wayward children. The mercifulness of God is so important to Mary that she speaks of it in two separate places in her song. At one point David said, “My sin is ever before me.” That, however, was not the end of David’s story for we also hear him say in words that Mary echoes in her song, “But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear him, and his righteousness to children's children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do His commandments.”7 Note that David links his confidence in the mercy of God to the keeping of the covenant and remembering to do God’s commandments; this is something he learned about in the most bitter of terms. Mary also recalls the covenant in her second mention of mercy when she makes the point of how God spoke unto Abraham. – Hates pride: put down the mighty/exalted the lowly – Provider: hath helped His servant Israel (note second use of term servant) in remembrance of His mercy (note this is the second use of term mercy referred to earlier) – Faithful – As He spoke, He acts / keeps His word, His covenant with His people. If we ignore the poetic beauty of the opening line of Mary’s song and instead focus strictly on the logic of the statement, we find a problem. In what literal sense can we as mere human beings magnify or glorify the Almighty? Now we can and we should proclaim His glory and praise His terrible majesty. But our praise adds no more to God’s infinite glory than our putting a thimble full of water in the ocean would increase its vastness. Still those who have experienced God’s grace and mercy cry out as best we can to try and give expression to our appreciation for the goodness of God.
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