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.

Our language, which seems so rich to us, is bankrupted when it comes to conveying the nature of

God. When God told Moses at the burning bush that He was sending him Pharaoh to bring the children of

4 Israel up out of Egypt, Moses tried to evade the moment of decision by asking God what he should tell the Israelites when they asked him to identify just who the God of their fathers was. God replied to

Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” Philosophers and theologians find endless meaning in this opaque statement.

To those who are good a ferreting out the meaning of poetic utterances this statement is a source of endless delight and speculation. But to those who are literal minded, it is difficult to understand the meaning of this name for God.

This instance of the limitation of human communication in interacting with God is not unique.

When we pray, we speak to the all-knowing God as though we need to inform Him about the nature of our problems. In fact, we tell Him – and it is proper that we do so – not because He needs to be told, but because we need to do the telling even though He already knows.

Our limited ability to convey meaning with words is not limited to our attempts to interact with

God. There are times of grave significance on purely the human level when we exhaust the limits of language. Such was the case when President Abraham Lincoln journeyed to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to attend the ceremony to mark the dedication of the cemetery there.

After three days of hot, deadly battle in early July 1863, the fields of Gettysburg,

Pennsylvania were soaked with the blood of 7,000 men. As the Union forces celebrated a victory that proved to be a turning point in the Civil War, it was the President of the beleaguered United States,

Abraham Lincoln, who observed that the day, July 4th, was the anniversary of the Declaration of

Independence. Lincoln believed that the Union soldiers had died defending “the principle that all men are created equal.” And as the end of the war began to seem imminent, Lincoln became focused on how to communicate that vision to an embattled country and rebuild a nation. When he was invited later that year to give remarks at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg, Lincoln seized the occasion as an opportunity to frame the ultimate purpose of the national conflict that had become so horrifically costly.8

Still, on the way to Gettysburg, Lincoln was troubled about his role in dedicating this battlefield turned cemetery. Nothing anyone could say, he believed, would make that place more sacred or those

5 grounds more hallowed. He began drafting the speech, writing in longhand on White House stationery, in

Washington. But he had trouble concluding the speech, and boarded the train for Gettysburg with his address still unfinished. When he did complete the address, it was only 272 words long and it took him only two minutes to deliver. Former senator Edward Everett, who preceded Lincoln on the podium, spoke for two hours. It is Lincoln’s brief words, however, that are now remembered and recognized as a masterpiece of the English language.

His words were few, but carefully chosen. Lincoln rose to speak deliberately and, observers commented, somberly. His voice, which was “penetrating” rang out:

. . . in a larger sense we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not

hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have

consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.

This is the essence of humility: an accurate sense of proportion, a proper assessment of the weight of our own contribution to the eternal. This, too, was Mary’s great strength. If anything, she underestimated her own significance. She was after all the one woman in all of human history, chosen by

God Himself, to bear His son!

We do the best we can with our puny human language and limited logic, but they are totally inadequate as we approach the Almighty. We cannot encompass Him with our words or capture Him in the net of our categories. We are finite and He is infinite. If we are to know Him, He must come down to us. We cannot rise up to Him. We catch a bare glimpse of His glory in the awesome scope and beauty of

His creations. We sometimes sense the beauty of His presence in a song. These experiences are fleeting and quickly slip from our grasp. The possibility for us to be in a relationship with the awesome creator of the universe exists because He chose to reveal Himself to us in ways that we could understand. He is great and apart from Him we are insignificant.

In moments of reflection we understand our insignificance. Yet at other times, we hold up our views as the measuring rod by which God is to be measured – to which He must be accountable. Instead

6 of bowing in humility before God as Mary did, we demand that He be answerable to us, that He conform to our wishes and expectations. All this despite the fact that we are so puny that we cannot give glory to

God anymore than the moon can give light to the sun. All glory is already His and our efforts do nothing to add to or take from that glory. We can, at most, praise Him and we can, at most, in thanksgiving enumerate all that He has done for us – as Mary did in her song. She ends her song with reference to

Abraham’s seed. The most marvelous thing we could ever comprehend is that the Almighty God has offered us a covenant relationship with Himself, a covenant whereby He is our God and we are His people. He promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob a land to be their possession. In this land they could be free. There they could work and live and raise their children. We are foolish to take so lightly God’s offer to be our God. We should daily give thanks to God for the privilege he offers us to be joint heirs with Christ.

St. Paul wrote (Romans 8:16-19): The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.

And what is the source – no, who is the source – of the glory that shall be revealed in us? We receive glory by virtue of our connection to the all glorious Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Mary was faithful, but at the same time, strong – two qualities that together enabled her to fulfill her high calling to be the mother of Jesus. True strength, however, is born of humility.

Mary’s song is remarkable not only for its poetic beauty and the praise of God that comes straight from her soul, but also for what it tells us about her. She is not pretentious. She sees herself as lowly, a servant. Most of us from time to time utter words that portray us as being humble even though in our hearts we really think otherwise.

It is a mistake to think that being humble is the same things as having low self-esteem or to use a more old-fashioned term as having an inferiority complex. Some even equate humility with self-loathing.

7 But it isn’t necessary to think poorly of yourself or dislike who you are in order to be humble. True humility is an inner attitude. It is recognizing our unworthiness before Christ. Humility is acknowledging that the only thing that makes us distinctive is God’s image within us – that we are

“God’s workmanship.”9 We need to bring before God all the glory, honor and praise for who He is and for His willingness to call us His.

Mary’s song, the Magnificat, is dominated by her humility. Mary rejoiced that God “has been mindful of the humble state of His servant.”10 As we look at her reaction to the Angel’s visit and to the news that she is to be the Mother of Jesus, we see the importance of humility as a Christian trait. God, once again, turns human values upside down. He shows through Mary’s responses that God’s kingdom consists of those who have a different kind of strength. Those who were insignificant became powerful.

Those who were poor became great. Those from the wrong place in Israel, those who recognized their dependence upon God, and those who hungered after His righteousness were lifted up.

Mary’s response was one of true humility: God has the right to arrange my life however He chooses whenever He wants to intervene. Because Mary’s attitude was willing, God could use her to do the miraculous. What could He do with us, if we were willing to come before Him in humility to say, “Be it according to me as you wish, Lord.”

Lloyd Ogilvie, former pastor of the Hollywood Presbyterian Church in California, likes to tell the story of an unforgettable introduction he received when speaking at a large convention. The person introducing him gushed that the speaker was someone who could sense a person’s needs and meet them immediately. He could heal hurts and was an extremely compassionate, wise and sensitive communicator. Dr. Ogilvie describes how flattered he was at the introduction and his nervousness as the woman completed her introduction. “How in the world,” he wondered, “Can I ever live up to her extravagant remarks.” The woman concluded, “In our midst tonight is the supreme lover of people, Jesus

Christ. And here is the Reverend Lloyd Ogilvie who will tell us about Him!”

8 That is an attitude of humility – approaching every situation with the sole purpose of reflecting

Jesus Christ. In the great hymn, “The Church’s One Foundation,” there is a line describing a different kind of strength. “Lord, give us grace that we, like them the meek and lowly, on high may dwell with

Thee.” Mary recognized that only the meek and lowly would see God. She was willing to accept that role and to glory in serving God – whatever the role and whatever the capacity. That is the same mind and spirit of humility that we need when we approach the Almighty. Mary recognized that He alone is all- wise and all-knowing. Who are we, with our mere human perspective, to think that we know what is best? Once we internalize that Heavenly view, we, too, can be used powerfully by God for His purposes.

At the manager in Bethlehem, the wise men fell down and worshipped Mary’s baby boy. These scholarly leaders acknowledged the power and majesty of God embodied in the Christ child. Suddenly, everything was new and different. The old categories and status symbols were reversed; the insignificant had become significant and the powerless had become powerful. The weak had become strong an, behold, all things had become new. That is the different kind of strength that Christ brings to our lives when we are willing to bow before Him in humility and adoration.

1 Luke 1:38. 2 Luke 1:24. 3 Luke 1:5-6. 4 Luke 1:39. 5 I Samuel 1: 11 and I Samuel 2:1-10. 6 My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad. O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together. (Psalms 34:2-3) I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving. (Psalms 69:30) 7 Psalm 103:17-18. 8 David Herbert Donald, Lincoln, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), p. 459-463. 9 Ephesians 2:10 10 Luke 1:49

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