Mary's Song - A Call to Unselfish Service

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript. (This sermon was originally indented to be team preached with Pat Damiani. Therefore, credit is owed to Pat Damiani for a significant portion of the writing of the sermon, with some contributions and ultimately preached by Ryan Fregoso.)

Ryan Fregoso

Songs of Christmas (Luke 1:39–55)

I want to begin this morning with a question. What is your favorite Christmas song?

[Let people share].

A couple of years ago Spotify compiled a list of the top 25 most streamed Christmas songs of all time. And you probably won’t be surprised to learn that none of the songs you mentioned made the cut. I’ll just give you the top 5 because I think it will give you a pretty good idea of the kinds of Christmas songs that are most popular in our culture today:

5. Justin Bieber, "Mistletoe"

4. Michael Bublé, "It's Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas"

3. Ariana Grande, "Santa Tell Me"

2. Wham! "Last Christmas"

1. Mariah Carey, "All I Want for Christmas Is You"

I don’t think any of us are surprised that these secular songs top the rankings. But what is surprising and a bit troubling - at least to me - is that the top Christian radio station in the U.S. has been steadily increasing the number of these kind of secular Christmas songs in their playlist over the last several years.

I’m sure that none of us are surprised that the songs on the Spotify list have little or nothing to do with the real meaning of Christmas. But what might be surprising is that some of the traditional Christmas songs we sing in church aren’t always biblically accurate either.

Probably the best example is “We Three Kings of Orient Are”. The magi that visited Jesus - about two years after He was born by the way - were not kings, but rather a combination of astronomers and astrologers. The Bible only tells us that there were more than one of them, but nowhere does it indicate that there were three of them. That idea likely comes from the three gifts that they brought. Most of the time those magi actually traveled in groups of twelve to correspond to the twelve signs of the zodiac.

I’m not going to get all legalistic here and suggest that we don’t sing that or other Christmas songs. For the most part those traditional songs do incorporate the real story of Christmas. But for the next four weeks, we are going to look at “The First Songs of Christmas” - four songs that are definitely Biblical because they come right from the pages of Scripture.

Although we’re going to refer to all these passages as “songs”, they are a bit different than what we would think of when we think of a song. As you’ll see, these four songs definitely use poetic language and they have a meter or rhythm to them, especially in their original language, which was probably either Aramaic or Hebrew. But as we’ll also see, each of these songs was spoken and not sung to a melody or musical tune or accompanied by musical instruments like contemporary songs in our culture.

All four of these songs are quite different from the Jewish religious songs of the day. This was a bleak time in the history of Israel. They had been ruled by pagan nations for nearly six centuries and they had last heard from a prophet over four hundred years earlier. So their worship music wasn’t very joyful and didn’t include a lot of clapping and smiling.

But when Jesus is born and becomes flesh that all changes and new life is breathed into the worship music of those who recognize Him as the Messiah. So, as you’ll see these next four weeks, each of the songs we’ll study are filled with hope and joy. And each of them are a call to each of us to respond in a practical way to the miracle of the incarnation.

We’re going to begin this morning with Mary’s song. But before we look at her song, let’s set the stage by reading the verses that immediately precede her song in chapter 1 of Luke’s gospel. You can follow along as I read beginning in verse 39:

LUKE 1:39–45 ESV

39 IN THOSE DAYS MARY AROSE AND WENT WITH HASTE INTO THE HILL COUNTRY, TO A TOWN IN JUDAH,

40 AND SHE ENTERED THE HOUSE OF ZECHARIAH AND GREETED ELIZABETH.

41 AND WHEN ELIZABETH HEARD THE GREETING OF MARY, THE BABY LEAPED IN HER WOMB. AND ELIZABETH WAS FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT,

42 AND SHE EXCLAIMED WITH A LOUD CRY, “BLESSED ARE YOU AMONG WOMEN, AND BLESSED IS THE FRUIT OF YOUR WOMB!

43 AND WHY IS THIS GRANTED TO ME THAT THE MOTHER OF MY LORD SHOULD COME TO ME?

44 FOR BEHOLD, WHEN THE SOUND OF YOUR GREETING CAME TO MY EARS, THE BABY IN MY WOMB LEAPED FOR JOY.

45 AND BLESSED IS SHE WHO BELIEVED THAT THERE WOULD BE A FULFILLMENT OF WHAT WAS SPOKEN TO HER FROM THE LORD.”

Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah had been unable to have children and were past her childbearing years. But while he was ministering in the Temple, the angel Gabriel had come to Zechariah to reveal to him that his wife Elizabeth was going to have a child who would prepare the way for the Messiah.

Then, six months later, Gabriel came to Mary to reveal that she had found favor with God and that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and that she would bear a son who would be that Messiah. At the time, Mary was just a teenager, perhaps as young as 13 years old, which makes her response to God’s revelation even more impressive.

Shortly thereafter, Mary went to visit Elizabeth. It probably took Mary about four days to journey from her home in Nazareth to the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth in Judah. During her journey, Mary had the chance to ponder all that had happened. When Mary entered her house, Elizabeth’s baby leaped in her womb and she was filled with the Holy Spirit. She proclaimed a blessing on Mary both because the baby Mary is carrying is her Lord and because Mary has chosen to believe that God would fulfill everything He had promised to her.

I get the feeling that after having pondered what God had promised to do through her and having been blessed by Elizabeth, Mary is so overwhelmed that she naturally reacts with an outburst of praise and worship.

That certainly is a sharp contrast to what we see today. What was once a time to celebrate the birth of the Savior of the world has somehow devolved into Black Friday and Cyber Monday, a season of traffic jams and overwhelming stress. And when it is all over, many of us are left with presents that we don’t really want or need or gifts that need to be returned or exchanged, credit card debt that will take months to pay off and saddest of all, an empty feeling that somehow we entirely missed the meaning of Christmas.

But, I have some good news. Mary’s song is the antidote to all of that. Because her song brings us back to the real meaning of Christmas and how the birth of Jesus makes it possible for us to have a fulfilling life regardless of our circumstances. So, let’s look at that song. Follow along as I read from LUKE 1:46–55:

46 AND MARY SAID, “MY SOUL MAGNIFIES THE LORD,

47 AND MY SPIRIT REJOICES IN GOD MY SAVIOR,

48 FOR HE HAS LOOKED ON THE HUMBLE ESTATE OF HIS SERVANT. FOR BEHOLD, FROM NOW ON ALL GENERATIONS WILL CALL ME BLESSED;

49 FOR HE WHO IS MIGHTY HAS DONE GREAT THINGS FOR ME, AND HOLY IS HIS NAME.

50 AND HIS MERCY IS FOR THOSE WHO FEAR HIM FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION.

51 HE HAS SHOWN STRENGTH WITH HIS ARM; HE HAS SCATTERED THE PROUD IN THE THOUGHTS OF THEIR HEARTS;

52 HE HAS BROUGHT DOWN THE MIGHTY FROM THEIR THRONES AND EXALTED THOSE OF HUMBLE ESTATE;

53 HE HAS FILLED THE HUNGRY WITH GOOD THINGS, AND THE RICH HE HAS SENT AWAY EMPTY.

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.”

This song is known as the Magnificat, which is the Latin word for the “magnify”, which is the first word in the Latin translation of her song.

There is so much here in this song that we could easily spend the next four weeks just on these words. But we’re going to focus on just one important aspect of the song in order to develop our main idea:

Mary’s song is a call to unselfish service

Before we develop that idea further, I think it is important to address some common misconceptions and misinterpretations that have developed, largely due to Mary’s song.

Unfortunately, some entire denominations have taken some verses out of context and used them to teach some things about Mary that are actually refuted by Mary herself in the words of this song.

Our purpose this morning is not to attack any specific group or denomination, but because so many of us have personally come from traditions where these beliefs were espoused or at least know people who hold these tenets, we feel like we must address them using the truth of the Scriptures.

These erroneous beliefs come primarily from two verses. The first one quotes the words of Elizabeth as Mary enters her house:

LUKE 1:42 says:

42 AND SHE [Elizabeth] EXCLAIMED WITH A LOUD CRY, “BLESSED ARE YOU AMONG WOMEN, AND BLESSED IS THE FRUIT OF YOUR WOMB!

And the second comes right out of Mary’s song from:

LUKE 1:48, where Mary says:

48 FOR HE HAS LOOKED ON THE HUMBLE ESTATE OF HIS SERVANT. FOR BEHOLD, FROM NOW ON ALL GENERATIONS WILL CALL ME BLESSED;

These verses, combined with human reasoning and tradition, have been used to develop several erroneous doctrines regarding Mary, including the following, first is the:

• Immaculate conception

This doctrine maintains that from the moment she was conceived in the womb, Mary was kept free of “original sin”. Some also claim that Mary lived a perfectly sinless life. Next is,

• Perpetual virginity

Some claim that Mary was a virgin, before, during and after the birth of Jesus. Then,

• Co-mediator

Mary is viewed as a co-mediator, along with Jesus, in the process of salvation.

Before we examine Mary’s own words here in her song to refute each of these, let’s first look at the words that Jesus spoke when people tried to give special honor and pre-eminence to Mary. He said in …

LUKE 11:27–28

27 AS HE SAID THESE THINGS, A WOMAN IN THE CROWD RAISED HER VOICE AND SAID TO HIM, “BLESSED IS THE WOMB THAT BORE YOU, AND THE BREASTS AT WHICH YOU NURSED!”

28 BUT HE SAID, “BLESSED RATHER ARE THOSE WHO HEAR THE WORD OF GOD AND KEEP IT!”

Jesus clearly refuted any attempt to make Mary an object of worship. But Mary had already done that herself in her song thirty years earlier.

This is probably a good place to look at the structure of Mary’s song. The song clearly has two stanzas. In the first stanza – verses 46-49 – Mary focuses on what God has done in her life. You’ll notice that in that section, the pronouns are first person – my and me. This is where we’re going to spend most of our time this morning because there are some great practical lessons we can learn from that part of the song that we can apply in our daily lives.

The second stanza – verses 50-55 – focuses on what God is doing for the entire world through the birth of Jesus. And the pronouns there are third person – those and their. But from beginning to end the focus of the song is on the greatness of God, not on Mary’s greatness. Since we’ve talked about his already with Elizabeth’s words about Mary, we won’t spend much more time here.

With that structure and background in mind, let’s go back to our main idea and develop it further:

Mary’s song is a call to unselfish service

Returning to that first stanza of the song, we see that Mary acknowledges that God’s decision to choose her to bear His Son is completely an act of His grace. When God sent His Son into the world, He picked the most unlikely girl He could find to be the mother. He chose a young, unmarried girl from the despised area of Nazareth, to bear His Son alone in a stable in Bethlehem where that Son would take his first nap in a feeding trough. Mary knew God hadn’t chosen her because of her education, or background, or social status. Reminds me of another one of those popular Christmas songs … yes, Mary did know! So, Mary is praising God because God chose her in spite of all the things that made the world overlook her.

That is why all future generations would call her blessed. She was blessed, not because of her own goodness, but because of God’s greatness and the mercy He had exhibited in her life.

So Mary “magnifies” Jesus, which means He is going to become larger and larger and her role is going to become less and less important. But in my opinion the most important phrase in the entire song is “God my Savior”. Mary is acknowledging here that she who will gave birth to the Savior needs a Savior herself. Mary clearly recognizes that she is a sinner who needs a Savior just like everyone else.

We talked earlier about some in our culture over emphasize the importance of Mary and give her a place of worship and veneration that she doesn’t deserve. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some important things we can learn from Mary about how to be used by God to unselfishly serve the needs of others. So let’s use our remaining time to see what Mary’s song teaches us about how we can follow her example, especially during this Christmas season. We’ll do this by discussing …

HOW TO SELFLESSLY SERVE OTHERS THIS CHRISTMAS

First step is to …

• Know God through His Word

Even though Mary is a teenager, there is evidence here that she is intimately familiar with who God is and that she has developed that knowledge from the Scriptures. There are at least 15 quotes or allusions to the Old Testament Scriptures in this song, mainly from the Psalms and from Hannah’s song of praise in 1 Samuel 2. So when we read the words of Mary’s song, we are essentially reading God’s Word through the eyes of Mary. Some of you may have been here last week during our Lord’s Supper and family meal. At our table, Jon mentioned that gathering together over a meal in observance of the Lord’s Supper made him feel as though he was at the table with Christ and the twelve. In other words, experiencing the Lord’s Supper like that was like experiencing it like one of the twelve. Mary did the same thing with her song, shared her understanding of God’s Word in direct context of the birth of the Savior. We too, are to do the same. Doing so will help us to …

• Recognize that all I have comes from the hand of God

Mary not only acknowledges that God has done great things for her personally, but she also sings about the great things He has done for others, both Jews and Gentiles, through the ages. A week or two ago, I finished reading the classic work from Josh McDowell, “More Than a Carpenter.” In that book, he used the example of the life change from Saul to Paul as evidence of God’s work. Have you ever met someone who literally became a new person in Christ? When we look around and see the work of God, it is lifechanging, and this should cause us to want to share Christ with others. Next, we are too …

• Allow God to use me as He desires

We have every reason to believe that Mary was a godly young woman who desired to be used by God. But we see some evidence that when the angel Gabriel came to her and revealed how God was going to use her, she was certainly caught off guard. And with good reason. As we’ve already talked about, Jesus came into this world in a way that nobody expected and certainly no one could have ever foreseen that the Savior of the world would be born to an unwed teenager.

But once she got over her initial shock, Mary said this in …

LUKE 1:38

...“BEHOLD, I AM THE SERVANT OF THE LORD; LET IT BE TO ME ACCORDING TO YOUR WORD.”...

You see, Mary said, “use me, Lord!” Some of you might be ready to be used by God, but don’t know where. Many of us who serve, begin where there is a need – big or small – and in doing so, not only can you possibly discover where the Lord wants you to serve, but it also may allow others to see the potential in you and come along side you. If you’re ready to serve somewhere, see one of the elders, we’d be happy to get you plugged in somewhere. Finally, we are to …

• Act as I have opportunity

Mary was not actively seeking to bear the Savior of the world. But I do believe that one of the reasons that God chose to use her is that He knew her heart. He knew that she had a desire to serve God as the opportunity arose. And by her actions she proved that God’s confidence in her was well placed.

I know that there are some of you who have already started preparing for Christmas. Maybe you’ve put up your tree and started decorating the house. Some of you overachievers have already started your Christmas shopping, or maybe even finished it. The air waves are already filled with some of those songs on the Spotify list we mentioned earlier as well as some more traditional Christmas music. And I think sometimes as Christians we’ve been made to feel guilty about those things. After all, we’re constantly reminded “Let’s Keep Christ in Christmas”, or even “Let’s Put Christ Back in Christmas”.

But there is nothing inherently wrong with any of those things as long as they don’t keep us from doing the really important things that each of the Biblical songs we’re looking at this year call us to do.

We’ve seen this morning that...

Mary’s song is a call to unselfish service

So between now and Christmas will you look for ways to follow Mary’s example and selflessly serve the needs of others? That is going to look different for each of us because God has entrusted all of us with different resources, gifts and abilities. But I’m convinced that there is something that every one of us can do if we’ll focus on the principles we’ve learned this morning and actively look for opportunities to put them into practice. There are certainly needs all around us that God wants to meet through us.

So here’s what I want to ask all of us to do. This week, both individually and as a family will you take a few moments each day to pray and ask God to reveal how He wants to use you? Will you ask Him to open your eyes to the opportunities He places before you? Will you ask Him to humble you and help you to be unselfish with whatever resources He has entrusted to you? I’m confident that if you’ll do that, you will heed the call of Mary’s song.

Obviously there are so many needs around us, especially at this time of year, than none of us can meet them all. But all of us can meet some of them. And that means that together as a church family we can make a difference here in our community that will magnify Jesus and help draw people to Him.

Let’s pray