Amen. We come now to the ministry of God's Word, and as I have mentioned a couple weeks ago, we're taking a little break from Matthew as we are entering into the Christmas season. Of course, we feel no obligation to do that. We understand this is merely a cultural time of the year where people focus, or are supposed to focus, on the Incarnation of Christ. But here at Christ Church, we want that to be our focus. We want to focus on the coming of our Lord in mercy to save His people. And so, we are going to do that beginning this morning as we look at the songs of Luke. Our scripture text reading is from Luke chapter 1, verses 39 through 56. We read these words. In those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb lipped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord and Mary said my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. for behold from now on 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 for those who fear him from generation to generation and He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud and the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate. 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 offspring forever. This is the word of the Lord. You know, one of the traditions of the Christmas season that people enjoy so much is the music of the season, right? And of course, there's that great debate of when can you actually listen to Christmas songs? I can tell you that the answer to that is the day after Christmas, and you have to stop listening after New Year's Day. So. I'll fight you about that, no. We laugh and we enjoy the festivities of this year, and there's a vast repertoire of Christmas music, even within the secular realm, that we enjoy and listen to. But there's also this rich history of church hymnody that celebrates the incarnation of the Lord, of God becoming flesh and dwelling amongst us. And many of those songs that we sing around this time of year as the church are full of some of the richest, deepest theological truths regarding Jesus Christ. And they are indeed rooted within the word of God. And here within Luke's gospel, there are actually four songs, four hymns of praise, or you could even say four Psalms, which point us to the great mystery of God being made man so that he might die and rise from the grave to bring redemption. to the world. These four songs are traditionally known by their Latin names. I am not very skilled in Latin. My boys probably do a better job than me, but I will do my best to pronounce these. Mary's song we call the Magnificat. Zechariah's song, which is also in Luke 1, is known as the Benedictus. The Song of the Angels, we call the Gloria in Excelsis, and the Song of Simeon is called the Nunc Dimittis. These four songs have been recognized as telling this great story of hope and mercy that comes through the person of the Lord. And each of these divinely inspired hymns are a testimony of God's covenant mercy to his people. And so this morning, we want to look at the first of those, Mary's Song, the Magnificat. And that title comes from this text of scripture in the Latin. And I included in our scripture reading verses 39 through 45 basically just to give us a sense of the occasion, the context of why Mary is singing this out and where she was at that moment. And certainly there's enough Information even within those verses and truth that is there the to be a sermon in its own but we do want to just look at the occasion of Where this song comes from and it comes during Mary's visit as we see Mary the mother of our Lord with her cousin Elizabeth and And both these women have been blessed by the Lord with children. And both of those conceptions were miraculous. Now, Elizabeth was a older, barren woman. She was beyond childbearing years. But God had blessed her and her husband, Zechariah, which we'll look at his song next week, with a baby. That baby, of course, would be called John. He is John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus Christ. Mary's conception is even more miraculous. She was a virgin. And through the power of the Holy Spirit, the child she carries in her womb is Christ the Lord. And as these two cousins meet, We read that the unborn baby of John leaps with joy in the womb of his mother at Mary's approach, at the approach of Mary and the child in her womb who was Christ. Elizabeth also is filled with God-given joy as she shouts out a blessing to Mary, for she had been chosen by God to be the mother of the Christ. And so in response to this, in response to the blessing of her older cousin, Mary then breaks forth into this song. this psalm of praise to God. And the first thing we see in her song is that she makes much of God because God saw her for who she truly was. Her song is very much has the same tone of the Psalms of the Old Testament. And that is because Mary, being a Jewish girl and devout, would have heard the phrases of the Psalms repeated within her home from the time she was a young child. And so she worships the Lord with this depth of theological insight but also with a heart of authentic devotion. You see, those two things are not separate from each other. So often the church has batted over worships, some saying, well, it needs to be richly theological, and others saying, well, it just needs to be very devotional and from the heart. No, it needs to be both. As we understand who God is, we pour out our hearts to him in praise and says exactly what Mary does. And she says, my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior. To magnify something is to make it bigger, to make it larger, make it clearer or greater. Now, of course, she isn't saying here, I'm going to make God bigger. That's impossible. God is infinite in his being, in his nature, and our finite minds cannot make the infinite even more infinite. But what she is saying is that in her mind and in her heart with her understanding and with her affections, she is seeing God for who he truly is and she is understanding them in a way that is greater from which she had understood him before. from the deepest parts of her being, she wants to exalt God. She wants to make much of the Lord so that others can know the benefits of his salvation. And just notice how personal her language is. I mean, even the very first lines of this song, she says, my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior. She, in a very real way, has tasted of the goodness of God's mercy and grace so that it overflows from her heart in praise. And that's what grace does. It leads us to worship the giver of that grace, to rejoice both with our minds and with our hearts, with our affections. So in seeing God for who he is, what does Mary see? But she makes no hesitation to tell us. what she sees here, and she sees him as her Lord and as her Savior. In other words, she saw him as the one who is absolutely sovereign, the creator of the universe, her creator, who is absolute over all things, but she sees him as her Savior, he who is absolutely merciful towards her, a benevolent Lord, a loving God, a compassionate King. And if she sees him as her savior, it also means that she is seeing herself as someone who needs saving. See, Mary was not sinless. Mary was very much like you and I. She was born into this world with a fallen nature, a corrupted nature, inclined towards sin and rebellion against the Lord Most High. She knew she needed rescuing. She needed redeeming. She needed a savior. And that very savior, she is blessed now to carry in her womb. She saw God for who he was, because God had seen her for who she was. And so she sings out, he, that is God, has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed. For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. God, the holy God, the mighty one looked upon her. And what does he see? Her humble estate, her condition that others may overlook. There's two things actually implied by this idea of a humble estate that she sings of. One would be her social status. She was, after all, a young Jewish girl of low standing in society. She was not wealthy. Most people probably did not even know who she was or think much of her. She was all but unnoticed by many people. But now she has been seen. She has been seen by he who is the mighty one. He whose arm of strength scatters his enemies. He who is the maker of heaven and earth. He has noticed this lowly girl that nobody else takes the time to see. But there's another side to this humble estate as well. And it does have to do with her spiritual condition. She sees herself as one who is not worthy to be noticed by the mighty one of heaven. And in the ancient Near Eastern society, if a king, if a ruler, a person of power looked upon another person and actually turned their face, their gaze upon him, it meant that, well, it meant two things. It meant either you were in trouble because the king was about to bring judgment on you, or it meant that the favor of the king was upon you. And that is very much the idea of numbers 634 25, which is the traditional benediction at the close of worship. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. And so for the Lord, then in these words to look upon a person to turn his countenance, his face, his gaze upon them meant they're indeed blessed. with his grace and with his peace and that is why when we close worship every week with that text we do so intentionally because through the ministry of word in sacrament we are recognizing that God indeed has turned his face upon us as his people and he gives us peace and we go forth into the world of chaos that we live in But we do so knowing that the peace, the smile of our God is upon us because of Christ. And that's very much the same truth Mary has in mind as she sings forth how God has noticed her humble estate. He saw her in the very way she needed to be seen. He saw her as a humble sinner who needed rescuing. And he, in his sovereign wisdom and love, chose her to have an important part in his redeeming plan. She would indeed be called blessed by all generations for God had done a mighty thing through his holy name to her. But Mary wants us to know through her song that God doesn't just see her as blessed as she is. He doesn't just see her with his eyes of mercy. She isn't the only one of lowest state upon whom the eyes of the Lord turn The words of her song now move from this personal hymn of praise to a public declaration. You see, not only does Mary see God for who he truly is, but God looks upon the world and he sees it for what it truly is. And that is a world that is scarred by sin, that is broken, that is in suffering and in need of his mercy. And mercy is what he gives. As Mary sings forth in verse 50, and his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. So, Mary has begun by magnifying God for His mercy upon her, and then she says, and world, listen to this, His mercy is for those who fear Him, from generation to generation. while she is blessed among women, while she has been given this great honor of being the virgin prophesied by Isaiah so long ago, who would bear this son called Emmanuel, God, with us, that child wasn't born just for her pleasure, for her joy, for her salvation. She would not be the only one to call him Lord and Savior for the mercy of God was for all those who would fear him from generation to generation. And what does the Bible mean when it talks about the mercy of God? I mean, it is like so many things. As Christians, we speak of God's mercy, and I'm sure we have some sense of what it actually is, but we don't always stop to think and ponder how great the mercy of God is. You see, mercy isn't just a feeling. Sometimes in our contemporary sense, that's how we kind of view it. Well, mercy is just this compassion, this sympathy, this empathy, and that is certainly involved in mercy. But mercy is more than a feeling. It actually involves action. It involves something happening. Mercy does things. It acts in kindness upon others who have a great need. And so when we think of God's mercy, We should think of it not as an emotional response, rather a planned and a purposeful action of God to meet the need and the life of the one upon whom he gives that mercy. And this mercy is given as Mary tells us to those who fear God. And this fear is that reverence that devoted all. that, just like Mary, has seen God for who He is and understands exactly who they are before Him. Fearing God is magnifying God. It's understanding that one is of humble estate like Mary, that one should, by nature, have no right to the Mighty One. That we have no right to have his gaze look upon us with favor. We need his mercy. We need him to act. And so that is the mercy that comes from the king of all creation. And he does that in abundance. Or as Mary sings forth from generation to generation, that's, that's a poetic way of saying forever and ever. In other words, the mercy of God towards his people is eternal. There is no end to it. You cannot measure it. There is no shortage of God's mercy. It is there. It is ready to act, ready to save, ready to work its redeeming power upon the one who comes to the Lord in faith and one who will fear him enough to trust him. as I so often am fond of quoting that quote from Richard Sibbes, there is more mercy in Christ than there is sin in us. So mercy involves action. Well, what kind of action? We actually see two kinds of merciful action here in Mary's song, and one of them probably isn't one you wouldn't immediately think of as being merciful, but it is. Both of these actions are closely tied with the coming of Christ. And Mary, knowing the promises of God, pours out praise to God for the great reversal that comes through the fulfillment of those promises. And she has understood, of course, as we've already noted, from a child that God would come and turn the world upside down as he works his mercy upon it. He would make all rights wrong. He would reverse the tide of evil. But that means, then, that evil, that sin, must be condemned. It needs to fall under the judgment of God. In fact, you can't have true justice without judgment. You see, mercy is not the absence of judgment, rather Judgment itself can be an act of God's mercy. And so we read that from God's arm of strength and from his might comes his judgment in verses 51 and 52. She sings forth of God's judgment. He says he has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate." And pride, when you think about it, is very much tied to that original sin in the garden. I mean, it's what Satan himself even manifested in his rebellion against God. As we read in Isaiah 14, he says to God, I will make myself like the most high. I mean, pride was at the heart of the devil's temptations in the garden. As he said that if Eve and Adam would simply disobey God and eat of that forbidden fruit, they would be like God. He appealed to their pride. to insist on living life according to my own designs and desires, that is pride. When we don't love our neighbors as we ought because we're more concerned with ourselves, that is pride. When we do not worship God with heart, soul, and mind as we are called to and ought because we are tempted by the glitter and the luster of so many other things, that comes from a heart of pride. And so to disperse evil, to right the wrong in this world, God must scatter the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. Those that exalt themselves, whose confidence is in their strength, their ability, their own power, they will be cast down. They will be shown that they are not the king. They are not the Lord. There is one who is higher than them. They will experience his judgment. But to a world that suffers under sin, that is an act of mercy. It is writing that which is wrong. But it's terrifying to consider that as well. Because, you see, we either need, as sinful people, to bear that judgment ourselves, or it must be borne by another. Because under the gaze of this Holy One, whose arm is mighty, it means that my pride is exposed for the ugly sin that it is. But here's the beautiful thing. God's merciful acts aren't limited to his judgment and the casting down of all evil, because the second act of mercy that Mary sings about is God's provision. Listen again to Mary's voice, verses 52 through 53. She says, He has exalted those of humble estate. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty. While He pulls down those who continue in unrepentant pride, He will exalt those who humble themselves and acknowledge they need His mercy. Those who see themselves for who they are, just as Mary has, because they have seen God for who he is. They have seen that he is holy and they are sinners, that he is the most high and they are but dust, that he is powerful and they are weak, that he can save while they are enslaved in their own corruption, that he is life while they are dying. And when they see themselves of that, what does he do? As Mary says, he exalts them. He lifts up their weary heads in gentleness and he looks upon them in favor. That is the gospel. That is the salvation that this child that Mary is carrying will bring. He will pull his people from the grave of their own making. and their own fears and plant them on solid ground. He will break the chains of their shame and their guilt and their sorrow. He will lead them from prison into his own palace. That's the mercy of God. And they will feed upon a banquet of his grace that will never end for the hungry as she says have been filled. Now, there is an aspect of this mentioning of the hungry being filled as God comes to redeem his people that very much does have to do with meeting the physical need of hunger of feeding those who are hungry. And the Bible does, of course, use that kind of language, metaphorically pointing us towards the spiritual realities in Christ. But there's a physical side to it as well. You see, God isn't just creating a spiritual world through his work of redemption. He creates a physical one. And we know that the building of His Kingdom is incomplete. We are in the middle of that already, but not yet. And we eagerly hope the final consummation of all things. But we see God actually working in very practical, tangible, hands-on ways. And He does that. through the means of his people, his church. That's why we engage in ministries of mercy. That is why we feed the hungry and we lift the fall and we help those who suffer because we have been helped. We have been shown great mercy, and so we will reflect that mercy to those who need it most. See, Mary understood that the mercy she had been shown was only the beginning of God's great reversal, his great redemption. Because from the one who would be born from her would come the turning back of all suffering and sin and evil in every form till one day it is finally erased forever and ever. And so we hope for its completion, but even as we are hoping for it, we actively love our neighbors to show the mercy that God has given us. But we do that. because God has remembered his covenant promises, which is the final thing we see in Mary's song. Notice how she concludes it in verses 54 and 55. She says, he has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring. See, he's not only a God who sees, but he's also a God who remembers. He remembers what he has said generations ago. And in seeing those of lowest state, those who fear him, he remembers all the promises of his covenant love that he has spoken for their sake. I mean, Israel is the people of God in the Old Testament, His covenant people. And that covenant people has expanded beyond ethnic Israel. So, very much as Mary sings forth these words of God remembering His people and coming to their aid, She sings them about us as the Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 3 29. If you are in Christ, if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring heirs according to the promise. So track with me here. What Mary is saying. She's explaining that God comes to the aid of Israel of his covenant people because he has remembered his mercy. Mercy that he's first spoke to Abraham in a promise a promise that he would through Abraham bless all the nations of the earth. That's the promise she has in mind. And what is this song that she's singing all about? Why is she praising God because she has been visited in a special way. She has conceived the Christ the Lord the mediator of that promise. She's saying here. World listen God is fulfilling his promise. And it's right here in my womb that promise that he spoke to Abraham so long ago. It is being fulfilled right here. All the families of the earth are being blessed in this Christ because God has remembered his promise. He has not forgotten us. And oh, how the world needs a God who not only sees, but a God who remembers. Because it is from that remembrance that his aid, his help, his saving power does come upon his people. And to be forgotten is a horrible thing. It feels terrible to feel that nobody notices one's struggles, one's condition. It's a lonely place to be. And so many people, especially this holiday season, suffer in darkness and in the private recesses of their own hearts, feeling forgotten and abandoned and lost. And perhaps you can relate to that because that is you. But Mary's song plays out. It's beautiful melody of God's covenant mercy to speak to you. He does not forget his own. He never does. And in remembering his covenant promise, if you are United to Christ and faith, he is remembering you even now in this moment. And so as we celebrate Christmas, let us celebrate our God who looks upon us in mercy. And as he looks, he remembers us by name as he considers his promises. You are not alone if your trust is in the Lord who sees you. And so you can sing with Mary. My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. Mary's song is our song. It is the Christmas hymn of every person who has tasted of the mercy of God, who has seen God for who he truly is, and thus seen themselves for who they truly are. And so we can say, come and magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together. Let us pray. Father, We are so thankful that you are a God who has not overlooked us in our sinfulness, in our fallenness, in our great need, but you and your mercy have chosen to redeem us, that you chose a young Jewish girl who conceived by your power the Son of God, God in the flesh, so that we might taste of this mercy, so that the judgment that should rightly befall upon us because of our pride is now forgiven through the work of Christ. Help us to remember these things, even as we celebrate this time of year, looking to Jesus, our Savior. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.