on the magnificat

Luke 1.39-56

Mary, the mother of Jesus, goes to visit her older cousin Elizabeth. Both women are pregnant — one carrying a boy who will become John the Baptist, the other carrying the baby Jesus. Both pregnancies were unexpected and are part of God’s plan, not only for the two women but the whole of humanity.

In spite of their surprise at this turn of events, the women delight in their situation and see themselves as blessed. Elizabeth thought her child-bearing days were behind her, while Mary understands that her baby is a very special gift from God.

When Mary arrives at her cousin’s house and greets her,  Elizabeth’s baby leaps in the womb and, as our gospel reading from Luke tells us, she was filled with the Holy Spirit — a final seal of confirmation from God that this baby is part of his special plan, and also that the baby Mary is carrying is especially blessed.

And then Mary breaks into an extraordinary hymn of praise which, in turn, has become a daily prayer used by Christians around the world ever since. It is also a profound statement of theological belief. Mary’s hymn is known as the Magnificat, taken from the opening line, ‘My souls magnifies the Lord,’ which is another way of saying my soul blesses or glorifies God. It is an expression of praise. Our opening hymn, Tell Out My Soul, is based on it and, we heard it as well in our canticle this morning.

Mary’s song begins with what amount to almost a shout of sheer joy, in which she responds to the extraordinary circumstances both she and Elizabeth find themselves in. Mary’s faith is really strong and she can see that the hand of God is at work in her life. She responds with the acclamation, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.’ (v46-7 NRSV)

Such a spontaneous outpouring of praise doesn’t come from an overnight encounter with an angel. It comes from already living a life that is tuned to God and is, in turn, more easily able to discern where God is at work.

Such a response can only be the outcome of a life that has been devoted to prayer, which in turn enables Mary to be open to God’s calling and alert to what she is being led to do. 

I can’t for a moment imagine that Mary, just a young teenager at this point, was someone who was simply going through the motions of religious life - attending worship, participating in the rituals, taking her place in the congregation. There is more to Mary than this. 

She is alive to God.

Only such a person could have been chosen to bear the Christ child to the world. Only such a one could respond with such deeply felt joy and rich wisdom as Mary does in her hymn of praise.

She also has an acute sense of how blessed she is. God has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me… (v.48-9) These are not the words of someone who is full of herself, but are rooted in genuine humility. Mary understands her place in the human order of things.

In a culture where women and children were very much regarded as second-class, Mary (on the cusp of adulthood herself) knows she is ‘lowly.’  She is also extremely poor, a resident of Nazareth, a town pretty much regarded by others as a bit of dump. It was certainly not a place where anyone of any real status would live.

No, Mary is the last person one might expect to be the recipient of divine favour. And she knows it. And yet it doesn’t prevent her from being ready to say ‘yes’ to God. Indeed, with all the disadvantages she faces in life she is still able to count her blessings, knowing that God does not show favouritism in the way that humans do.

2000 years later, we still live in a world where many societies and institutions will favour you provided your face fits — the right gender, accent, appearance, connections, ethnicity. This may be the human way, but it is not God’s way, so when we open our hearts to God, he will work in us, bless us and draw us closer to himself, regardless of our station in life.

Mary, I think, understands that this is the only favour that matters. God’s favour. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation (v50). In other words: ‘God’s mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him’ (Luke 1.50 MSG). This is what it takes to be the recipient of God’s favour, but for many there are significant obstacles to receiving it.

Those who are in awe of themselves, self-satisfied, filled with pride or a sense of entitlement will find it hardest to encounter such mercy. God, Mary proclaims, ‘has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts’ (v51). It is only when we set ourselves aside that we can instead turn our admiration in the direction of the only one worthy of it, and receive the benefit of doing so — peace of mind, an encounter with grace, an experience of love without conditions attached.

And then Mary says something that will be a feature of the teaching of Jesus when he is an adult, namely that the priorities of the Kingdom of God are the reverse of the way humans tend to behave. God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty (v52-3).

Unlike human behaviour, it is the way of God to reach out and touch the lowliest in society — those who have been disadvantaged by birth, by their position in society, by economics or politics. God’s way, Mary is saying, is to restore those who have been overlooked by others to spiritual union with himself, and all the benefits that brings. 

We see God’s upside-down ways at work in the birth of Jesus. C.S. Lewis writes, ‘The same divine humility which decreed that God should become a baby at a peasant-women’s breast, and later an arrested field-preacher in the hands of the Roman police, decreed also that he should be preached in a vulgar, prosaic and unliterary language.’

The first disciples of Jesus were not drawn from the upper echelons of society, those with power, position and honour. They were working folk, living a hand-to-mouth existence to feed themselves and their families. They didn’t speak posh. The language that spread the gospel of Jesus was in the wrong accent and the vulgar slang of the alleys. Their table manners were not refined. Some of them had previous form as swindlers or prostitutes. 

These are who God chose to be his first ambassadors.

For Christians over the centuries it has continued to be in serving the least well off members of society, the folk that respectable people overlook, that Christ is most closely encountered. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, now Saint Teresa, said, ‘The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.’  

The hymn writer Samuel Crossman writes of God’s love as, ‘Love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be.’

The Magnificat ends with Mary seeing herself in the wider context of the ancient people of God: ‘He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants for ever (v54-5).’

One way of describing what the Bible is would be that it is the story of God’s people as they encounter and learn to understand God, from ancient times until the days of the first Christian churches.  Mary places herself in the context of this wider picture. She does not carve out a starring role for herself, but sees herself as one part of that bigger story.

This too is a sign of humility, when we can see our own lives as part of something greater. Rather than placing ourselves at the heart of our life story, we place ourselves in relation to God and to Christ Jesus.

For good reason, then, the Magnificat has continued to be a prayer for Christians through the centuries. Pray it every day. Take it into your hearts. Allow yourself to be shaped by it and liberated by it. Let is direct you to the work in life that truly matters. Cultivate the humility and God-centredness of Mary so that, one day, you too may find yourself spontaneously proclaiming: My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour. 

Amen.