When Hope Sings

INTRODUCTION

Church, I want to talk to you today about a song. Not just any song, but the first Christmas carol ever sung. Before "Silent Night," before "O Come All Ye Faithful," before any of the carols we love to sing during this season, there was Mary's song. And I've got to tell you, when you really hear what this young woman was singing, it'll rock your world.

You see, we've domesticated this passage. We've made it pretty. We've made it safe. We sing it with organ music in our churches and call it the "Magnificat," which sounds so sophisticated, so religious, so tame. But let me tell you something: there was nothing tame about what Mary sang that day!

When Mary opened her mouth in Elizabeth's house, she didn't sing a lullaby. She sang a revolution. She didn't serenade with a gentle melody. She proclaimed a manifesto. This teenage girl, probably no more than thirteen or fourteen years old, stood up and declared war on every power structure, every social system, every proud empire that had ever existed.

The theologian William Barclay called this song "a bombshell." He said we've read it so often that we've forgotten its revolutionary terror. But today, church, we're going to remember. Today, we're going to hear this song the way Elizabeth heard it. The way the Roman Empire would have heard it. The way heaven heard it. Because when hope sings, everything changes.

I. THE SONG OF PERSONAL DELIVERANCE (vv. 46-48)

Let me paint the picture for you. Mary is in trouble, deep trouble. She's a peasant girl from Nazareth, which means she's nobody special in the world's eyes. She's betrothed to Joseph, but she's pregnant, and Joseph isn't the father.

Now, in our day and age, that's scandalous enough. But in Mary's world? Church, it was life-threatening. According to the law, she could be stoned. At the very least, she would be disgraced, abandoned, and shamed for the rest of her life. Women in her situation were sometimes pressured to abandon their babies because an illegitimate child humiliated the whole family.

Mary has every reason to despair. Every reason to be bitter. Every reason to question God. But instead, and this is what blows my mind, she opens her mouth and praise comes out!

Listen to her words: "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant."

Church, do you understand what she's saying? She's saying, "God sees me!" Not the priests. Not the religious leaders. Not the wealthy and powerful. God sees ME, a poor, pregnant, unmarried teenager from nowhere. And because God sees me, I'm going to praise Him!

This is where hope begins, beloved. Hope begins when you realize that no matter how low you've fallen, no matter how desperate your situation, no matter how much the world has counted you out—God sees you! God regards you! God has looked with favor upon you!

Mary says, "From now on, all generations will call me blessed." Now that takes some faith. Here she is, probably three months pregnant, unmarried, facing shame and scandal, and she's declaring that all generations will call her blessed! That is a prophetic vision! That is hope singing its first notes!

Then she says something powerful: "The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name."

Notice she doesn't say, "The Mighty One is GOING to do great things for me." No! She says, "has DONE." Past tense. Already accomplished. Even though she can't see it yet with her natural eyes, she knows by faith that God has already worked it out!

That's the kind of hope we need today! Not hope that says, "Maybe someday things will get better." But hope that declares, "God has already done it! God has already made a way! God has already turned my situation around!"

II. THE SONG OF DIVINE CHARACTER (vv. 49-50)

Mary doesn't stop with her personal testimony. She moves from "me" to "we." She says, "His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation." You see, Mary understood something we need to grasp today. What God did for her wasn't just about her. It was a demonstration of God's character. It was proof of how God has always operated and how God will always operate.

God's mercy isn't just for the religious elite. God's mercy isn't just for the wealthy and powerful. God's mercy is for anyone, ANYONE, who fears Him, who reverences Him, who puts their trust in Him. That means there's hope for you today, no matter who you are! Whether you're rich or poor, educated or uneducated, influential or invisible—if you fear the Lord, His mercy extends to you!

Mary calls God "the Mighty One" and declares, "Holy is his name." She understands that the God she's praising isn't some cosmic vending machine. He's not some genie in a bottle. He is the Holy One of Israel! He is the Almighty God! He is transcendent, pure, separate from all sin!

And yet, and this is the miracle, this holy God reaches down to a lowly servant girl. This mighty God chooses to work through the weak. This transcendent God comes near to those who are far off. Church, that's the God we serve! A God who is both high and lifted up AND close to the brokenhearted. A God who is both holy AND merciful. A God who is both mighty AND mindful of the humble.

When you understand who God is, His power, His holiness, His mercy, hope begins to sing in your soul!

III. THE SONG OF SOCIAL REVOLUTION (vv. 51-53)

Now here's where Mary's song gets radical. Listen carefully: "He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He 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."

Mary says God scatters the proud. Not just defeats them, SCATTERS them. Like chaff in the wind. Like dust in a storm. The proud are those who think they don't need God. The proud are those who worship themselves, their accomplishments, their power, their possessions. And God says, "I will scatter them in the thoughts of their hearts."

Before they ever fall externally, they fall internally. God confuses them. God disrupts them. God shows them that all their power, all their wealth, all their influence amounts to nothing when they stand before the Almighty.

Then Mary gets specific. God brings down the powerful from their thrones. God lifts up the lowly. God fills the hungry with good things. God sends the rich away empty.

Now, we like to spiritualize these verses. We want to make them comfortable. But church, these are concrete, radical statements! Mary declares that God is in the business of completely turning the world's value system upside down!

Before the revolution, we were impressed with money. After God's revolution, we're impressed with faith. Before the revolution, we celebrated power. After God's revolution, we celebrate servanthood. Before the revolution, we exalted the beautiful and the brilliant. After God's revolution, we exalt the humble and the hungry.

This isn't just about heaven someday. This is about how God operates NOW! This is about what happens when God's kingdom breaks into human history!

Now listen carefully, this isn't about simply swapping places. It's not that God takes the poor and makes them rich and arrogant and takes the rich and makes them poor and bitter. No! As one commentary beautifully put it, this is about social leveling, not social reversal.

God strips the rich of their arrogance and teaches them to love their neighbors. God empowers the poor and bestows dignity and honor upon them. The result is that everyone has enough, and no one has too much. Everyone is treated with respect, and no one uses power to harm.

That's the world Jesus came to establish! That's the revolution Mary was singing about! That's the hope of Christmas!

IV. THE SONG OF COVENANT FAITHFULNESS (vv. 54-55)

Mary concludes her song by connecting the dots. She says, "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 forever."

You see, what God was doing in Mary's womb wasn't new. It was the fulfillment of an ancient promise. All the way back to Abraham, God had been promising that through his descendants, all the nations of the earth would be blessed.

Generation after generation, God's people waited. Through slavery in Egypt. Through exile in Babylon. Through oppression by foreign powers. They waited for God to remember His promise. And now, Mary declares, "God has remembered! God is faithful! What God promised to Abraham, God is now fulfilling in me!"

Church, this is where our hope stands firm. Not on circumstances. Not on feelings. Not on what we can see with our natural eyes. Our hope stands on the faithfulness of God!

If God said it, God will do it! If God promised it, God will perform it! If God started it, God will finish it!

Mary looked back at centuries of God's faithfulness and had confidence for her future. We look back at two thousand years of God's faithfulness and have even more reason to hope!

V. HAS THE REVOLUTION HAPPENED IN YOU?

Now let me bring this home. Let me make this personal. The question isn't "Do you understand Magnificat?" The question is: "Has God's revolution happened in YOUR life?" Has God turned YOUR values upside down? When God gets hold of you, God changes everything! You can't be the same! You can't think the same! You can't act the same!

Before the revolution, maybe you were impressed with wealth and status. After the revolution, you're impressed with faithfulness and humility. Before the revolution, maybe you only cared about your own comfort. After the revolution, you care about the poor, the hungry, the lowly, the outcast.

It's possible, church, hear me now, it's possible to be part of the church and not be part of God's revolution. It's possible to celebrate Advent and Christmas, to sing all the carols, to do all the religious activities, and still not have God's revolution take place within you.

But when God really gets inside of you? When the Holy Spirit really takes over, everything changes! Your priorities change! Your compassions change! Your checkbook changes! Your calendar changes!

You start regarding the poor the way God regards them. You start exalting the lowly the way God exalts them. You start feeding the hungry the way God feeds them. You start helping the oppressed the way God helps them.

And let me tell you something else: This hope Mary sang about? It's not cheap hope. It's not easy hope. It's not #blessed-on-Instagram hope. As T.S. Eliot said, it's "a condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything." Mary's blessing was cross-shaped. Her son would be rejected, shamed, crucified. A sword would pierce her own soul.

Real hope always involves sacrifice. Real hope always costs something. Real hope always requires dying to yourself so that God's revolution can live in you. But church, it's worth it! Because this hope brings true freedom! This hope brings real transformation! This hope brings the priceless gift of God's salvation!

CONCLUSION: WHEN HOPE SINGS

Scientists tell us that babies can hear in the womb. When a mother sings the same song over and over to her unborn child, that song imprints on the baby's mind. That baby will recognize that song throughout his childhood.

Mary sang this song while Jesus was in her womb. Can you imagine? The Son of God, forming in Mary's womb, hearing his mother sing about revolution, about lifting up the lowly, about bringing down the proud, about filling the hungry with good things.

Is it any wonder that thirty years later, Jesus would launch a ministry that embodied every word of this song? Is it any wonder that He would say, "Blessed are the poor," and "The first shall be last, and the last shall be first," and "Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me"?

Jesus lived out the revolution His mother sang about. And now He calls us to join that revolution!

So today, I'm asking you: Will you let God's revolution happen in your life? Will you let God turn your values upside down? Will you let God transform your heart to care about what He cares about?

This Christmas season, will you move beyond the shopping and the decorating and the parties—as good as those things might be—and embrace the radical, revolutionary hope that Mary sang about?

When hope sings, the proud are scattered. When hope sings, the lowly are lifted up. When hope sings, the hungry are filled. When hope sings, everything changes.

Church, it's time for hope to sing in YOUR life!

Let us pray: Father, we thank You for Mary's song. We thank You for her courage, her faith, her vision. Lord, we ask that You would work that same revolution in our hearts. Turn us upside down. Transform our values. Give us Your heart for the poor, the lowly, the hungry, the oppressed. May we not just sing about hope—may we live it, may we embody it, may we BE the revolution that Mary sang about. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is the fulfillment of every promise, the answer to every hope, we pray. Amen.