And Mary said, “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. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. 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. 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.” And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.
(Luke 1:46-56)
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It’s called “cutting off your nose to spite your face,” or perhaps “throwing out the baby with the bath water.” Those are ways of referring to over-reactions. There’s some problem that we’ve identified; something that isn’t quite right - but instead of just fixing the problem we end up doing so much to compensate for it that we cause more damage than the original problem had created. Protestants should be able to understand that. The Reformation might have been necessary corrections to some aspects of the theology of the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th and 17th centuries, but in some ways it really did throw the baby out with the bath water. If you want a classic example of that, well - I give you Mary: Mother of Jesus and - yes - Mother of God. The great reformers of the church believed that Mary had been elevated as a figure of veneration (and almost worship) that nothing in the Bible entitles her to, but in response they went too far, and Mary virtually disappeared from the Protestant horizon; trotted out as part of a nativity scene every December, or played by a young girl in a Sunday School play at Christmas, but she’s rarely given a voice, and she’s not thought of in Protestant churches as much more than a sideshow to the main event. I think she deserves more; I think she deserves better. I think Protestants need to reclaim Mary.
Aside from the fact that she was Jesus’ mother, the words we read today might be the most well known thing about Mary. They’re called “The Magnificat” - or, “The Song of Mary.” They’re recorded as the response that Mary gave to the angel when she was told that she would become the mother of the Son of God. They’re some of the most beautiful words that we find in Scripture: they are comforting, they are faith-filled, they are passionate, they are humble and they are revolutionary. They are all those things at the same time. There are few other expressions of faith in the Bible that come even close to capturing what we find in those 11 verses.
That might make it sound strange when you hear me say that at first glance I was a little put off by Mary’s words in this passage. I don’t know how many times I’ve read the Song of Mary over the years, but for some reason it suddenly struck me that Mary seemed to say that her reason for glorifying the Lord and rejoicing in God was simply because of what God had done for her - because all generations would call her blessed and God had done great things for her. That sounded on the surface just a little bit selfish. Should we really be glorifying the Lord and rejoicing in God just because of what God does for us? I started to think that Mary was getting into some dangerous territory: so God can be glorified and we can rejoice when we’re blessed - but otherwise? Does that give us license to not glorify and rejoice in God if we don’t seem to get the blessings? But then, of course, I remembered the most important thing to remember about any passage in the Bible: context.
To really appreciate what Mary is saying and why this is such a powerful statement of faith, we have to dig into the question of what it is that God has actually done for Mary. First - this puts her at risk. She’s unmarried, and she’s going to have a baby. Under the Law, that’s an offence worthy of stoning! But Mary looks beyond the immediate risk and realizes that she has been blessed. She has been chosen to be the mother of Jesus. So she’s glorifying the Lord and rejoicing in God not because God has set her aside for great material blessings, but because God has chosen her to be a servant - and a servant whose servanthood would carry a huge price. Maybe that’s what we’re supposed to be holding up as an example here. It’s not just that it’s a beautiful passage - but it tells us that we are to glorify the Lord and rejoice in God because God calls us to be servants. Now - that has bite! That’s counter-cultural! We don’t want to be servants. We want to be in charge. We don’t want to be at the bottom of the barrel - we want to work our way to the top of the heap! Not everyone can make it, but that’s the goal. But Mary (and later Jesus) was content being a servant. More than just content, Mary saw being called to be a servant as a great blessing. That tells us something hugely important about our faith and gives us something to ponder about what our faith does for us: we glorify the Lord and rejoice in God not because we are called to greatness, but because we are called to service. That is radically counter-cultural. That goes against everything our culture tells us we should aim for. These 11 verses highlight for us the difference that faith in God makes in our lives. It gives us a radically different perspective on what greatness really is. I wonder if those who translated the Bible even really know what to make of it.
I don’t talk a lot about translation issues, but this one is interesting. In v.49 most translations of the Bible have Mary saying that the Lord has done great things “for” her. But there are a few translations that have Mary saying that the Lord has done something “to” her - and that actually seems to be more accurate. Maybe it’s just a semantic issue but this seems to make a difference - which translation you choose gives a different feel to the whole story. “To her” sounds as if God has done something unpleasant; “for her” sounds as if God has done something wonderful. Knowing, of course, how the story ultimately ends, I think I could easily understand Mary saying that God had done something “to her.”
And what does this say to us? It seems to me that Mary - even more than Jesus in some ways - becomes our example. Mary is our example of how to live a humble life and still glorify God through it. Mary is our example of how to live a life of service that is also a life of blessing. Mary - yes, the Mother of God - reminds us that we - each and every one of us - are called to incarnate the divine each and every day. In the 13th century, Meister Eckhart - a German Dominican theologian - wrote that “we are all meant to be mothers of God … for God is always needing to be born.” We do that by living as an example of how God wants all of his children to live: humbly, with courage and without pretension, with a steadfast faith and a steely resolve to follow whatever path God has laid out for us, even if at times it’s unpleasant and hard. And as we contemplate this divine call upon our lives, perhaps we can also say with Mary, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.”
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