Mary’s Song

Welcome/Prayer/Intro

Good Morning Church! We are in the middle of Advent with Christmas just right around the corner.

The Power of a Song:

What is your favorite Song and Why?

For me, I dont have a favorite song, for me I there are songs that connect with different seasons or moments. I looked up my listening data this year and between January and Dec 1 I have spent over 31,000 minutes listening to music.

Songs are powerful, they have the power to change everything, they can bring you back in time to when you were little.

Music has such a strong influence on us that it can reverse the effects of a horrible disease like Alztimers or Dementia. Music can cause memories that were thought to be lost forever to resurface.

In 2 Chronicles 20, the Israelites use praise to defeat the armies of enemy nations. A song of praise accomplished the impossible.

This morning we are going to look at a special song in the Bible song by Mary the Mother of Jesus soon after she found out that she would give birth to God’s son.

Would you pause with me for a moment of prayer to prepare our hearts for what God has for us this morning.

Walking through the Text: Mary’s Song

Context:

Mary Begins to sing this song after encountering her cousin Elizabeth although she is in her “old age”, she and Zechariah are pregnant. This is an exciting time for both of these women, even the John as a fetus is jumping for Joy at the sound of Mary’s voice. Transition: This could have easily been a moment of sorrow and struggle for Mary.

If we look at What Mary has been through its complicated, heavy, and difficult

Mary is a young girl who is engaged to Joseph. An angel comes to her and says, you will have a baby. In this moment her life changed, for mary this was a unspeakable joy and blessing, but consider the community around her.

A woman mysteriously gets pregnant and her response is God did it, How many people do you think would believe her?

At this point the text doesn’t say anything about Joseph, but an angel had to come and visit him to convince him of the truth. Because Joseph is righteous he doesnt divorce Mary.

Think about how the community would have seen them. The whispers, the looks, we dont know if Joseph or Mary’s Parents believed them. What we can assume is that the community around Joseph and Mary could have viewed this situation very differently.

Mary Shertz notes, women were commonly regarded as the property of men! Serious social and even life-threatening consequences meet women caught in this situation. Even if later history has shown that Mary’s pregnancy was a gift of God, there was no way for those closest to her to know this at the time. Surely this pregnancy must have had its awkward, difficult, and even dangerous moments

I think it would be easy for mary to be discouraged in this situation, Her entire life has been uprooted. She receives unexpected news and perhaps there is only one other person that can understand her right now. It would be easy for Mary to focus on all that has gone wrong up until this point in her life.

Its the same way with us too, if we look around it is easy to point out the circumstances that are negative in our world today. Turn on the news and you will hear about wars, death, and corruption. Look at your life and I am sure that their are several things that have happened in the past week that went unexpectedly. Maybe a piece of equipment on the farm broke. You heard sad news. You looked in the mirror and were reminded that you were getting older. They can be small things, but they can cause us to view things a certain way.

BUT this is not the case, lets read Mary’s Song in the midst of all this going on in her life. I will be reading from the common english bible (Read Luke 1:46-55) As We walk through this text together I want to point out 3 things we can Glean from this text. Mary’s Focus, Mary’s Faith, and Mary’s Follow Through.

Mary’s Focus

As I said earlier, it would be easy for mary to focus on the negative aspects of her circumstances, but she does not.

In the First Stanza, Mary mentions herself several times, but the focus is not self pity, but her description of her relationship with Yahweh.

She says with all my heart I glorify the Lord.

In the depths of who I am I rejoice in God my Savior.

He has looked on me with favor. The greek here implies that God is not just seeing Mary, but looking at her in a special way.

Mary Reflects on the implications of what God is doing for her right now. She says from now on generations will consider me highly favored. Why? Because of what God has done for her.

Mary’s Focus is not on herself, but who she is in relationship to God, how she responds in relationship to who God is what He has done.

I think we have so much to learn from this. How much in our lives would change if we had mary’s focus in our lives. if we viewed everything all circumstances through the lens of our relationship with God, who He is and How he has looked favorably on us?

Mary’s Faith

In the next stanza, catch a glimpse of Mary’s Faith: Her understanding of God in the Past and Trust in Him for the Future.

Mary declares that God’s name is Holy, in the same way Jesus teaches us to pray the Lords prayer.

Mary reflects on God’s Mercy from Generation to Generation (Quotes Exodus 34:6-7. )

Mary reflects on God’s Strength. Strength that has scattered the proud and arrogant, Strength that has pulled down the powerful from their thrones. What does this look like? Well, Christianity is the death of pride. When we focus on put our faith in Christ, it destroys our pride.

Sometimes something happens to us which with a vivid, revealing light shames us. The American writer O. Henry has a short story about a boy who was brought up in a village. In school he used to sit beside a girl and they were fond of each other. He went to the city and fell into evil ways. He became a pickpocket and a petty thief. One day he snatched an old lady’s purse. It was clever work and he was pleased. And then he saw coming down the street the girl whom he used to know, still sweet with the radiance of innocence. Suddenly he saw himself for the cheap, vile thing he was. Burning with shame, he leaned his head against the cool iron of a lamp standard. ‘God,’ he said, ‘I wish I could die.’ He saw himself. But, let us remember, when we humble ourselves, God will exalt us. Mary says this.

Mary says that lowly will be lifted up.

Mary sings that God has filled the hungry with good things and the rich will walk away empty handed. Mary is proclaiming the upsidown kingdom.

She says that God has come to the aid of his servant israel, remembering his Mercy.

Just as he promised to our ancestors, to Abraham and Abraham’s decendants forever.

These statements about what God has done are powerful on their own. Take a moment to reread verses Lk 1:50-55

Luke 1:50–55 CEB

He shows mercy to everyone, from one generation to the next, who honors him as God. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations. He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones and lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty-handed. He has come to the aid of his servant Israel, remembering his mercy, just as he promised to our ancestors, to Abraham and to Abraham’s descendants forever.”

Yet, there’s something going on here that you cant pick up on in the english translation. In english, we generally talk about actions as past, present, or future. In greek there are multiple tenses for the past tense in particular. All of the verbs in mary’s song are in the Aorist Tense. The aorist is a past tense action that emphasizes the completedness of the action rather than the timing. In other words, timing is secondary the emphasis is on the action.

What this mean is that Mary is focusing on God’s Work, not on his timing. This is quite different than how we often look at faith. I tend to view my faith in terms of how God has working in my life in the past, is working in the present, and will work in the present. We tend to put the emphasis on the timing, but Mary is putting the emphasis on the action.

I wonder what would change if we adopted this kind of Faith? What would change if when we talked about God we emphasized God’s action over the timing? What does this look like?

Consider the story of Joseph: Can someone help me with a summary of his story?

Joseph sees a vision of his brothers and family bowing down to him and then what happens?

What happens after Joseph is put in charge of Potiphar’s house hold?

Then Joseph interprets the cup bearer and bakers dreams, but does the cupbearer remember Joseph? No

Joseph then interprets pharoh’s dreams and is placed in charge of the whole of israel.

Later when Joseph confronts his bothers he says in Genesis 50: 20 (slide)

Notice how Joseph focuses on the action of God rather than the timing. He couldve said, I went through all this stuff, in the past this happened and that happened, but now look at me, but He doesnt! He focuses on the action of God. Again, what would change if we had faith like this?

The last thing I want to draw from Mary’s song is Her Follow Through!

Mary’s Follow through!

Mary’s song isnt just a beautiful hymn that becomes a greatest hit. Mary’s life isnt like a musical where she spontaneously breaks into song , sings a catchy tune and life moves on. Mary not only focuses on God, Believes in God, but she follows through.

Mary’s life is an example of following through on what we believe and say.

Mary spends her life raising Jesus. At some point she becomes a single mother.

When Jesus is all grown up and a typical mother would sit back and watch their son go live their life, Mary follows through, she continues to be God’s servant in Jesus’ ministry.

We see her in the background in several places: the wedding at Cana, At the foot of the cross, in the upper room in Acts. In essence, we see mary living the very faith that she proclaims in this powerful Hymn.

Mary Followed Through, Will we?

We can be tempted to focus on the circumstances around us, rather than the God who calls us.

Think of the story of Peter walking on Water. Where will our focus be?

We can think of faith in terms of Time: What God has done, is doing, and will do. What if we set the timing aside and focused on God’s actions?

Last night Tim shared a song on Facebook called “Four Days Late” the last lines read:

When he's four days late

And all hope is gone

Lord, we don't understand

Why You've waited so long

But His way is God's way

Not yours or mine

And isn't it great

When He's four days late

He's still on time

Faith like Mary’s doesn't focus on the Timing of the situation, but the God who is always on time!

Finally, We can believe things in our head, We can sing the most beautiful hymns and songs, but thoughts and words are meaningless unless we live them. if we think we believe something or even say we believe it, but we dont act on it, do we really beleive it? Action is always evidence of belief!

How will you live your faith this week church?

Would you pray with me?