A Mother's Song - God is Mindful of Us

Luke 1:46-49

A Mother’s Song: God is Mindful of Us

And Mary said:

“My soul glorifies the Lord

and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,

for he has been mindful

of the humble state of his servant.

From now on all generations will call me blessed,

for the Mighty One has done great things for me—

holy is his name.”

G

od is mindful of us. What does that thought mean to you? The words are drawn from the first strophe of Mary’s song recorded in Luke’s Gospel. Since it is the Advent Season, I wish to focus on this song in the coming several messages, discovering what this new mother sang as she delighted in the knowledge of God’s choosing. What would we sing if we were to permit ourselves to be lost in wonder and admiration of God’s goodness? Would we consider His gift to be good?

I was intrigued to discover that translators of Luke’s Gospel seemed to have struggled in their efforts to translate Mary’s words. The New International Version translates her words He has been mindful of the humble state of His servant. Other translators have endeavoured to translate the text in various other ways. Charles Williams renders the passage; He has smiled upon His slave in her lowly station.[1] Weymouth renders the clause, He has not turned from His maidservant in her lowly position.[2] More recently, Eugene Peterson gave us a paraphrase which reads, God took one good look at me, and look what happened![3] Whatever else may be true, we know that this young woman is astonished and amazed by what has happened. What did happen? Why should this teenage girl express such amazement?

Elizabeth, a cousin to the teenage Mary, was in her sixth month of pregnancy when we pick up the story. That Elizabeth should be expecting a child was itself a miracle. Menopausal women don’t become pregnant … spontaneously or otherwise. No doubt Mary rejoiced with her cousin for it was a tragedy beyond our comprehension for women to be childless in that day. We are so much more sophisticated today. Consequently, we have no idea what we have sacrificed by buying into the lie which is advanced by the prince of this world and which teaches us to regard children as a burden.

Mary, perhaps busy about her household work, was startled by the sudden appearance of an angel. We are led to conclude from the divine account that she was alone in her house because no one else was present to witness what transpired. Her parents appear to have been absent. The purpose of the angel’s visit was to announce that God had chosen her to bear the Messiah, the Anointed One of God, into the world.

Mary challenged the angelic announcement. After all, she was a virgin. Literally, the young girl states: a man I’ve never known! At the beginning of this account, Dr. Luke provides the information in medical terms, stating twice that she was a virgin (parqevnon) [Luke 1:27]. She did not reject his approach; she merely questioned how it could happen. Most of us would do no less were we challenged by a similar announcement. The entire conversation couldn’t have taken much more than three minutes, but what changes the angel’s words portended for this young girl! She would be exposed to vicious slander, her veracity and faithfulness even questioned by her fiancé. Her breast would be torn open and her raw emotions exposed for all the world to see ere this story should be complete [cf. Luke 2:35].

Hurrying to the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth after the angel had departed, Mary was again surprised by the greeting she received from her cousin. The infant John leapt in his mother’s womb at the sound of Mary’s voice [Luke 1:41] and Elizabeth burst out in a paean of praise: Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favoured, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished [Luke 1:42-45]! Spontaneously, Mary responds with her own hymn of praise to God.

As we study the first stanza of this glorious hymn, I ask you to note especially the joy … the exuberant, overwhelming, stunning joy which Mary expresses. Lost in wonder before the grace of God, she cannot help but sing. If I could but bring the people of God into the presence of the Living God I do not doubt that they would break forth in song. The only reason we are able to participate in the services of the church with an attitude approximating boredom is that we fail to realise the presence of our God with us. Were we, like Mary, to discover the joy of His presence, we could not help but sing His glory. What in particular gave Mary such joy? Could we also know that joy?

God Took Note of Me — Mary’s song, the song of a mother, glorifies the Lord and rejoices in God the Saviour, because He took note of her. He has been mindful… is the witness of this young girl. So very often we think that we are insignificant and of no great account in the eyes of the Lord. No Christian should ever think that way. Among the verses of the Bible is an exciting verse in Isaiah’s prophecy which is a source of richest encouragement. The people of God were lamenting that the Lord had forsaken them. The Lord has forgotten us, was their pitiful cry. God broke in on their mournful lament to remind them of His commitment to them.

Can a mother forget the baby at her breast

and have no compassion on the child she has borne?

Though she may forget,

I will not forget you!

See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands

[Isaiah 49:15,16].

In similar manner the child of God can draw encouragement from the knowledge that God, having invested His very life in that one, can never forget His child. Christmas is a testament of God’s knowledge of us as a people.

Have you ever noticed how we tend to sterilise the doctrines of the Word? Instead of seizing on the intimacy resident in the truths which God has revealed to us, we reduce those truths to insipid statements which are remote and distant from our hearts. For instance, when I say that God takes note of His own, our normal response is to sagely nod our head and say, “Well, yes, of course, God is omniscient; He knows everything.” Then we continue to struggle in lonely battle against the evil of the day which threatens to overwhelm us.

The worst offenders are too often those who consider themselves to be the most spiritual among us! We keep our masks on so that no one will suspect our fraudulent spirituality. Instead of love we exude tolerance. Instead of joy we exhibit forced acceptance. Instead of peace we invite fellow worshippers to focus on our busyness. Anxiety replaces patience, abruptness is exalted over kindness, faithfulness is jettisoned for authority, brusqueness replaces gentleness and spontaneity replaces self-control. Thus worship becomes a sterile activity in which we perform by rote certain motions and congratulate one another on another time of enjoying the presence of God.

One of the sweet truths of the Word of God is that God knows us. One of the sweetest of the Psalms must surely be the 139th Psalm. Listen to a portion of that song.

O LORD, you have searched me

and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise;

you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down;

you are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue

you know it completely, O LORD.

You hem me in—behind and before;

you have laid your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

[Psalm 139:1-7]

God knew what you are when He called you to salvation. We would like to think that God knew our strengths and that which is honourable in our lives and that He can employ that good to His glory. However, always offsetting that good is the weakness and the evil which characterises our lives; and God also knew those aspects of our lives which are less than honourable. God knew your weaknesses and He knew your proclivities to evil when He redeemed you. God knew the points at which you would fail before you even knew of the conflict. The marvel is not that God knew those aspects of our lives which we would rather keep hidden, but that God chose us and called us … despite our weakness, despite our failure, despite our tendency to evil. Our God is a God of grace and we can only dimly perceive the impact of that thought.

Peter had a pretty high opinion of himself. Jesus cautioned him that Satan had asked to sift him as wheat. Jesus did not stop there but continued with a statement which should encourage anyone, But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers [Luke 22:31,32]. Despite knowing Peter’s coming failure, Jesus accepted him. I am not trying to give you license to fail, but I am trying to remind you what a gracious and wonderful God we serve. Our God chose you despite knowing your coming failures and despite knowing your weakness. His love never wavered. Such knowledge of His grace should cause unrestrained rejoicing among the people of God.

You see, that is something like what Mary is rejoicing in as she begins her song. God has been mindful of the humble state of His servant. It wasn’t simply that God knew Mary, but that He knew her condition. She was a child, without voice in a world of adults. She was a Jewess, without power in a Roman world. She was part of a lineage of deposed kings in a world which despised the weak. She was impoverished in a world which exalted the wealthy. Mary had absolutely nothing to offer God from the human point of view, much less from the divine perspective … and God took note of her.

It is the Advent Season and we again celebrate the incarnation. God became man. God took note of us. Despite our fallen condition, God was mindful of us. Despite our lack of spiritual cleanliness as a race, God was mindful of us. Despite our rebellion against all righteousness, God was mindful of us. Well might we rejoice in God our Saviour. Well might we rejoice that God took note of us.

There are among us certain pathetic creatures who inveigh against the observance of Christmas. “A pagan holiday,” they mutter as they focus on the tree, the tinsel and the trimmings. I do not disparage anyone who in conscience refrains from observing the season. There may come a day when Christians must in conscience refrain from all observance. It will not be that we refrain because the day has pagan roots, however; it will be because the day has become a pagan festival … a celebration of excess and an exaltation of the god of materialism. Even should that day come, I would contend that Christians should nevertheless so live that they are marked by joy arising from the knowledge that God has been mindful of us in our humble condition. That infectious joy should mark our worship and be characteristic of our lives.

God Has Blessed Me with a Name — From now on all generations will call me blessed was the second reason Mary rejoiced before the Lord. Mary received a name … notoriety arising from God’s choosing. Without doubt she could rejoice in the manner in which God had exalted her. Jewish women longed to be the mother of Messiah. They knew the promise of God that He would send a redeemer. First to Eve and then to Abram and on through Isaac and Jacob and down to Judah, God had continued to promise His Anointed One to the world. Then tracing that descent through David the lineage narrowed. C. S. Lewis has written about God’s plan: The whole thing narrows and narrows, until at last it comes down to a little point, small as the point of a spear — a Jewish girl at her prayers.

God gave Mary a name … an exalted position within the history of redemption. She was divinely chosen to bear the Son of God into the world. She was sovereignly chosen to mother the Lord Christ throughout His childhood years. We honour her memory, in no small measure because when the angel confronted her she responded in faith, saying, I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said [Luke 1:38].

God has given His people a name and on a day known only to Him Jesus will come on the clouds and with great glory. When He comes He will call out His church and the people of God, all who have trusted Him, will be changed into His likeness. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the dead in Christ will be raised and then we who remain will be caught up together with them to meet Him in the sky.

I cannot make mention of this truth without thinking of those words which the Risen Christ spoke to John while the aged saint was in exile on Patmos. I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the New Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches [Revelation 3:11-13].

Dear people, Mary is called blessed because of her obedience to the will of God. She embraced the divine will, submitted to God as Master worthy of her obedience, and ever since all generations have called her blessed. Do you imagine that He shall do less for us? Our God has promised that all who obey Him faithfully will be counted among those who overcome sin and opposition to righteousness. Those who overcome are the ones who shall receive a new name, the name of God Himself.

God Has Blessed Me with His Presence — More than for any other reason, Mary rejoiced because of the presence of the Lord. The Mighty One has done great things for me… Indeed, God is ever with me. In another of the Gospel accounts, the child whom Mary bears is given the Name Immanuel, citing the prophecy of Isaiah [Matthew 1:23; cf. Isaiah 7:4]. Immanuel, loosely translated, means God [is] with us. On the surface we might question Mary’s assessment. Speaking of God as the Mighty One, the young girl claimed that He had done great things for her, but there can be sorrow in obedience.

How many times must Mary have gone over the angel’s words as she felt the Son of God kicking against the walls of her uterus? How many times must Joseph have second-guessed his own encounter with an angel — just a dream? — as he endured the hot shame of living among neighbours who could plainly see the changing shape of the woman he planned to marry?

We know nothing of Jesus’ grandparents, the mother and father of Mary and even the mother and father of Joseph. What must they have felt? Did they respond like so many parents of unmarried teenagers today when it is discovered that they are with child? Do you suppose that they responded to the evidence of Mary’s pregnancy with an outburst of fury and moral lectures and then perhaps a period of sullen silence until at last the bright-eyed new-born arrived to melt the ice and arrange a fragile family truce? God didn’t intervene at every juncture to smooth the way for Mary.

Nine months of awkward explanations, the lingering scent of scandal — it seems almost as if God arranged the most humiliating circumstances possible for His entrance, as if to avoid any accusation of favouritism. I am impressed that when the Son of God became a human being He played by the rules … harsh rules; small towns do not treat kindly young boys who grow up with questionable paternity. Malcolm Muggeridge observed that in modern times, with family-planning clinics offering ways to correct “mistakes” that might disgrace a family name,

It is, in point of fact, extremely improbable . . . that Jesus would have been permitted to be born at all. Mary’s pregnancy, in poor circumstances, and with the father unknown, would have been an obvious case for an abortion; and her talk of having conceived as a result of the intervention of the Holy Ghost would have pointed to the need for psychiatric treatment, and made the case for terminating her pregnancy even stronger. Thus our generation, needing a Saviour more, perhaps, than any that has ever existed, would be too human to allow one to be born.

The Virgin Mary, though, whose family was not planned by human mind had a different response. She heard the angel out, pondered the enormous consequences of obedience and then solemnly replied I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said. Every work of God comes with two edges … great joy and great pain, and within that matter-of-fact response, Mary embraced both. She was the first to accept Jesus on His own terms, regardless of the personal cost.

What great things had God done for Mary? The question remains unanswered. In the lingering scent of scandal, in light of painful questions which could never be answered satisfactorily, in light of the ridicule which the child would experience until the day He died in a hail of derisive ridicule, Mary was one of the first to experience the fellowship of sharing in the suffering of Christ. Paul speaks of that strange fellowship in Philippians 3:10, 11. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Strange, isn’t it, that I should speak of suffering during a message on joy? Somehow it seems rather incongruous to speak in the same breath of joy and suffering. I am convinced that one of the great things which God did for Mary was to reveal Himself to her in power. I want to know Christ. I would suppose that every one of us present this day would express a yearning for this to be accomplished. I rather suspect that we would go so far as to confess, I want to know … the power of His resurrection (though I wonder if we know what that entails). I daresay that few of us can say with equal conviction that we long to know the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings.

How virile and manly is that Faith which is presented in the Word of God! The Apostle Paul would invite a young minister of God to join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God [2 Timothy 1:8b]. Perhaps you will recall the stunning words of Philippians 1:27-29. Conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved — and that by God. For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.

That last statement must humble us because whenever we hear it a chill comes over our hearts: It has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him. To walk with Christ is to invite opposition from the world. How else shall we understand those words found in the last letter the Apostle to the Gentiles wrote? Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted [2 Timothy 3:12]. Writing those words, the Apostle was but iterating that which the Master Himself had spoken before His death.

If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: “No servant is greater than his master.” If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfil what is written in their Law: “They hated me without reason” [John 15:18-25].

Neither should we imagine that the Apostle came only lately to this position of warning that hardships attend the path of that one who seeks to do the will of God. From his earliest missionary endeavour his message was one of warning that the will of God entailed a willingness to suffer for His cause. The missionaries returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said [Acts 14:21b, 22]. What a message of comfort! Were the minister of God in this day to invite you to come and die you would soon fire him and seek someone with a gentle message of encouragement.

What would happen were we to embrace the will of God without regard to the rewards? What would it be were you and I to again fall in love with the giver without regard to the gifts? I do not say that we Canadians are a weak people, our history demonstrates otherwise. I do say that the churches of this day would benefit from emulating the faith of a young teenage girl who embraced the will of God one day some two millennia past.

I do not wish to close on a note which may leave you confused and fearful. Indeed you may suffer for the sake of the Master if you truly embrace His will. That suffering will be real, but there is in the midst of suffering something which shall be obtained in no other way, for Christ Himself will be with you in your sorrow. How powerful is the promise given to God’s people. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age [Matthew 28:18b-20].

Mary could not know the sorrow which would attend her obedience. She only knew that God was worthy of her highest devotion and that He merited her obedience. Neither need we long dwell on sorrows associated with this life. We need but recall those comforting words found in Romans 8:18-25. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

I need not focus too strongly on the painful results which were visited on Mary as result of embracing the will of God. There was joy in the certain knowledge that God never confers His gift without conferring His blessing. The entire race considers Mary to have been blessed and the thought of sorrow seldom enters our minds except as we read and ponder the account of Christ’s birth. If we think of Mary at all we think of a young girl who was blessed because she was chosen by God. Nor need we slip into the sin of Mariolatry in order to honour God’s choice. Our Catholic friends invented the doctrine of Mariology, but though we refuse to worship her we nevertheless glorify God and honour her for her role in bearing the Son of God into this life. We call her blessed.

This, then, is the message I would ask you to carry away today. There is joy in the events we commemorate during this Advent Season. It is not the gaiety of the holiday as it has evolved in this day, but it is the settled joy of the knowledge that God is with us. The joy which is ours is that joy arising from the knowledge that whatever may occur, our God has not forgotten us. The evidence is clear that Christ has come to bear away the sin of the world.

Are you a Christian? I do not ask whether you are a member of the church or whether you partake of the Lord’s Table or whether you have kept an ancient ritual. I only ask whether you know the Living Son of God. This is the Word to which we are called. If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile — the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” [Romans 10:9-13].

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