church

INI
Fourth Sunday in Advent
December 23, 2012
Ascension Lutheran Church, Tacoma WA
Paul Naumann, Pastor

THE MAGNIFYING SONG OF MARY
Luke 1:46-55

Grace and Advent peace be with you from God the Father, and from our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The Word of God that we would bring into our
hearts this morning comes from the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke,
beginning with the 46th verse, as follows:

Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 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.” So far the Holy Word.

In the name of the Christ Child, Who comes to us again this season, Dear
Fellow Redeemed,

Magnification is an interesting concept. Many of us use a magnifying glass to
read small print or find a splinter. Lab technicians use microscopes capable of
magnifying blood cells up to 2,000 times. The most powerful magnifying device
known to man is the scanning electron microscope. It allows scientists to
magnify objects up to 2 million times, making it possible to actually view an
object as small as an atom. As a comparison, if you magnified, say, a thimble 2
million times, it would be a mile and a half high and cover the city of Tacoma!

The song of Mary that forms our text for today is a MAGNIFICATION. They
are the words Mary spoke when the Angel Gabriel announced to her that she
would be the mother of the promised Savior. These words are also referred to as
the "Magnificat,” because in Latin – for centuries the language of the church –
Mary’s song begins, “Magnificat anima mea Dominum,” -- "My soul magnifies
the Lord!" The word she used literally means, "to make something great or
large." Of course, a humble human being can't actually make God any greater
than He already is. What Mary's song does is magnify the image of God so that
many other people can see it. In this beautiful song, the powerful light of the
Holy Spirit is shining through the faith of Mary, giving us a clear picture of the
magnitude and scope of God's Grace and mercy. It’s particularly appropriate for
us during this Advent season to have a closer look at this song. Maybe you and
I too, like Mary, can become magnifiers of God’s grace in a dark and ungodly
world! Our them this morning is,

THE MAGNIFYING SONG OF MARY
Mary magnifies:
I. God's personal Grace to her
II. God's Grace to the humble
III. God's Grace to Israel

Mary's song was, above all, a song of faith. She had been told some absolutely
incredible things by the angel Gabriel: that a Savior was to be born to mankind,
and that she - a virgin - was to be the mother of the Child. As incredible as this
news was, however, Mary didn't flinch. Because along with the incredible news,
God had given Mary the faith to believe it. A miracle was about to occur. The
long hoped-for Messiah was about to appear!

Fired by the Holy Spirit, Mary bursts forth in song, praising God, "magnifying
the Lord." And the first thing she praises is how much God had blessed her,
Mary, as an individual. As an individual, Mary was both very ordinary and very
unique. She was a descendant of David, just as Joseph was, but she wasn't
considered royalty and she wasn't rich. Really, she came from much the same
background as many of us - she was a humble person of modest means, who
grew up in a small rural community. She could hardly believe that God had
chosen her, of all people, to be the mother of Christ! 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. And her prophesy came
true, didn’t it? All generations have called her blessed, all down through the
twenty centuries of history since she first spoke those words. She was the one
woman out of the billions who have lived on earth to conceive and bear the Son
of God. Of all those who came to know the Savior while He was on earth, she
was the closest to Him. She carried Him under her heart for nine months; she
had the joy watching Him grow from a boy into a man. Mary can't help but
magnify God's personal Grace to her!

Today, in the town of Bethlehem, there is a shrine in the shelter where Jesus is
said to have been born. It's a very small place, and the doorway to it is so small
that only one person can enter at a time, and he has to stoop down to do it. The
way we worship our Savior this Advent season is similar to that. It's a
one-by-one process. Because when you get right down to it, it doesn't matter
what Christ has done for the Church, or what Christ has done for "mankind.” It
doesn’t matter what Christ has done for your friends or acquaintances or
parents or grandparents. What really matters most in your life is what Christ has
done for you! He took on flesh to save you; He overcame all temptation to give
you righteousness; He walked the dark way of the cross to pay for your sins.
True Christmas joy comes when you realize the coming of the Christ Child as a
personal gift to you. Then you can say with feeling, For He who is mighty has
done great things for me, And holy is His name.

Next, Mary magnifies another aspect of God's Grace - His Grace to the
humble. 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. In Hebrew thought the word "arm" is a synonym for
"power", or "might". And God showed His power in a miraculous way: by
toppling the "proud ones," the "mighty ones," and raising up the lowly. That's
just the opposite of how it usually goes in this world, isn't it? What's the old
saying - "Them as has, gets." You've got to have something to get something.
That's even what a lot of religions teach; that you've got to work to be saved,
you've got to do your part before you can expect God to do His part. But God
didn’t send His Son into the world to "help those who help themselves.” God
sent His Son to help the helpless! He sent His Son to help those -- like you and
me -- who were completely powerless to help ourselves! Jesus said, "I did not
come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Matt 9:13. Do you
remember the Pharisee in the temple? He was proud of his "righteous" lifestyle.
He thought he could stand on his own two feet before God. He was full of
himself! But Jesus said that this man went down to his house not justified. It
was just as Mary said, God has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich
He has sent away empty.

Have you ever noticed that you don't see many food commercials on TV
between 6:00 and 8:00 p.m.? That's because advertisers know that people aren't
likely to be attracted to food when they've just finished their evening meal.
God's Grace isn't attractive, either, if the person to whom it's preached is full of
self-righteousness! The only way for us to be filled with God's Christmas grace
is to admit that we're absolutely empty to begin with - admit we're nothing, and
let God be everything! At this season, God has prepared a feast for us richer
than any Christmas dinner. He wants to feed us with the righteousness and
forgiveness that we yearn for. The righteousness and forgiveness that we need
in order to live eternally. There's plenty there, and it's all free. Jesus said,
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be
filled." Matt 5:6. What about you? Are you hungry and thirsty to be clean before
God, to be pure, to be purged from the guilt of your sin? To know for certain
that you’re headed for heaven when you die? Then come to the Lord's feast of
forgiveness again this Christmas, and bring your appetite! Come to the only One
in the world who can fill you with the food you really need. As Jesus Himself
said, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he
who believes in Me shall never thirst.” – Jn 6:35.

The last part of Mary's song magnifies God's Grace to Israel: He has helped His
servant Israel, In remembrance of His mercy, As He spoke to our fathers, To
Abraham and to his seed forever. Along with people like Elizabeth, Zacharias
and her fiancée Joseph, Mary was one of the few in the nation of Israel who had
been faithfully waiting for the Messiah. She knew her Bible. She knew the
promises God had made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Israel had broken God's
Law again and again, so God provided them with a way out of their sin. He had
promised to send a Savior, the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of
the world. And now Mary rejoices that the promise is being fulfilled.

Well, I don't think there is anyone here this morning who's Jewish, so I guess
this part of the song doesn't apply to us, does it? Yes, it does! We talked about
this last Sunday. In his letter to the Romans Paul says, "They are not all Israel
who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of
Abraham." Rom 9:6. The ethnic nation of Israel has almost completely rejected
Jesus as the Savior. But Paul says they're not the true Israel, the real children of
the promise, "For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is that circumcision
which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly..." You and I
are the true Israel! The Christians, those who receive Jesus as their Savior by
faith, are the real children of Abraham. The first promise of a Redeemer in the
Garden of Eden, as well as all the promises to the patriarchs, found their
fulfillment in Christ. These promises, and their fulfillment, are our spiritual
heritage - yours and mine! The Advent joy is our joy, because we are God's
children, the true Israel.

A friend was showing me how to tune a guitar once, using a tuning fork. He
struck it against the edge of a table, and I remember being surprised that I could
hardly hear the tone it produced – that is, until he touched the base of the
tuning fork to the top of the guitar itself. Then it rang out loud and clear! When
does God's Grace ring out loudest and clearest? When it touches the lives of
individual believers. It was true in Mary’s life and it’s true in your life as well.
Mary's song is a beautiful expression of God's Grace. This year, as we once
again prepare a place in our hearts for the Christchild, I pray that God’s grace
will ring out just as loudly and clearly in our lives as it did in life of Mary! So go
to your homes and your places of employment. Go among your friends and
neighbors and be a magnifier! Do what comes naturally for a Christian – LET
YOUR SOUL MAGNIFY THE LORD! AMEN.