Luke 1:46-47 (ESV)
And
Mary said,
“My
soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior”
Luke
1:54-55 (ESV)
[54]
He has helped his servant Israel,
in
remembrance of his mercy,
[55]
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”
Mary’s
song in Luke 1 is often called the Magnificat or the Canticle of Mary. With the
words of the above quoted verses Mary begins and ends her song. It is not Mary
that is magnified. It is the Lord, God my Savior that is magnified. Why? In the
final lines of her song, Mary expresses two truths.
First,
God “has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy.” That doesn’t
mean that God forgot he was merciful. It means that he is now acting with mercy
toward his people. Historically they have been under foreign rule for over 400 years.
It had felt to many like God had forgotten them. They knew the promises. They
expected a Messiah. But they had been looking, longing, waiting for Messiah for
a long time. Would the promise every be fulfilled? Now, with Mary, the promise
of the coming Messiah is finding fulfillment.
Second,
what Mary is experiencing is like something out of the Torah itself. Abraham
spoke with God. Isaac and Jacob spoke with God and/or angels. Jacob wrestled
with God. Those seem almost like fairy tales of the far past. Yet here is a
young virgin who had an encounter with an angel who claims to stand in the
presence of God. An angel specifically mentioned by name in the book of Daniel,
which had been written over 400 years earlier.
God
has remembered his people. In doing so, he has chosen to use an obscure young
woman from an insignificant, even somewhat contemptible village of Nazareth. He
didn’t choose a queen in Jerusalem. He didn’t choose a nobleman’s daughter from
the city. He didn’t choose a Pharisee’s son. God chose a nobody from nowhere to
carry his one and only son into the world.
It
is amazing how often God uses nobodies in his kingdom. In our world we glory in
any encounter with a somebody. We celebrate the births and deaths of
somebodies. But it is the obscure, the unimportant, the humble that God most
often chooses to use. Martin Luther was an obscure monk, but he led an attempt
at reforming the Catholic Church that ultimately led to the Reformation and the
founding of the Lutheran Church. John and Charles Wesley were two of Susanna
and Samuel Wesley’s nineteen children. Susanna herself was the twenty-fifth of
twenty-five children in her family. Susanna was an obscure Anglican preacher’s
wife who laid the foundation for the ministry of John and Charles. Their
ministry laid the foundation of the Methodist Church and left us with countless
hymns of worship. An obscure Sunday School teacher led D.L. Moody to Christ. Moody’s
evangelistic meetings led thousands to faith including J. Wilbur Chapman.
Chapman’s ministry led Billy Sunday to faith. Billy Sunday led Mordecai Ham to
faith. Mordecai led Billy Graham to faith. Who says that Sunday School teachers
are not important? These are just three stories of obscure individuals who
accomplished great things in the Kingdom of God.
That is how God works. He chooses people that we
would not expect to accomplish great things for the kingdom. We may never see
the fruit of our ministry. We may never realize how God has used us until we
get to Heaven. But God is in the business of bringing glory to himself and
mercy to a broken world through obscure, unimportant people. Why? Maybe because
of what James 4:6 says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
As we approach Christmas, may we humbly magnify our Lord rather than seeking glory for ourselves. May we serve, rather than seek to be served. May we give rather than seek to receive. May we experience God’s grace which he gives to the humble.
Comments
Post a Comment