Sermon Tone Analysis

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.)

Mary's Song - A Call to Unselfish Service

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