Songs for Christmas No.2 Mary's Song

So, for our reading, shall we turn again to Luke chapter 1, Luke chapter 1 and we'll begin at verse 39, reading through to verse 56. At that time, Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judah, where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaked in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

In a loud voice, she exclaimed, blessed are you among women and blessed is the child you will bear. But why am I so favored 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.

And Mary said, my soul praises the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 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. His mercy extends to those who fear him from generation to generation.

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm. He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers. Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.

207 in the supplement, all I once held dear, built my life upon, all this world reveres and wars to own, all I once thought gain, I have counted lost, spent and worthless now compared to knowing you. All I once held dear, built my life upon, all this world reveres and wars to own, all I once thought gain, I have counted lost, spent and worthless now compared to this Jesus. You're my joy, my righteousness, and my love's desire is to know you more, to be found in you, and known as yours to possess my faith.

For I'm forgotten of the passing gift of righteousness, knowing you Jesus, knowing you, there is no greater thing. You're my all, you're the best, you're my joy, my righteousness, and I love you more to know you, to become like you, in your death my Lord, so with you to live and die. Knowing you Jesus, knowing you, there is no greater thing.

You're my all, you're the best, you're my joy, my righteousness, and I love you more Jesus. You're my joy, my righteousness, and I love you more. Let's just come to the Lord again.

Father, we thank you for your Word, O Word of God incarnate, O wisdom from on high, O truth unchanged, unchanging, and light in our dark sky. Lord, speak to us. And as you brought Magi from the east and shepherds from nearby fields towards Bethlehem, so center our attention not just on the legendary Ecclesians that have grown up in some of the Christmas cards and some of the carols, but in the truth as set forth in your Word as to the momentous time when God came on this earth incarnate to reveal Himself, not in a sentimental fashion, but in a wondrous way, the Christ child of Bethlehem's manger, the heroic man of the cross, the mighty conquering Son of God raised again in the part of an endless life on the third day, the man in the glory, the glorified man who intercedes for us now at your right hand, having been lifted high above the heavens and given the name that is above every name.

We thank you for the lordship of the Christ, and we pray that now as we look into this old story that you will allow us to wring from it not just some of the truths that perhaps we've apprehended, but see afresh some further nuance, some further application of practical teaching from this story of two womenfolk, both miraculously used by God to bring great men into this world. So, hear our prayers for Jesus' sake. Amen.

Let's come into the Word of God and to the passage that Janet read from Luke's gospel. In the first chapter, let me say for those of you who are new here at the tab, and we're very glad to have your company, that it is our practice Sunday by Sunday to look into God's Word and to pray that He in His grace will speak to us and allow us to learn from what He has to say in terms of His message for us in the twentieth century. For we believe that God not only spoke yesteryear, but when He spoke yesteryear, the centuries as they go by pick up an echo and God's Word of yesterday becomes God's Word for today.

And so, we're looking at what in effect is a story of the first carolers. It occurred to me when I was reading and doing some preparation late last night and early this morning how apposite it would be to write a book on the first carolers. Going back to my early days in the north of England, my youth, my boyhood, along the streets where we lived and where my friends lived, around Christmastime, the days leading up to it, you'd find groups of boys and girls going around with lanterns and singing carols, and there I was not evangelistic, it was quite financial, I come from the north of England, but nonetheless they were the carolers and they did add a dimension to Christmas, especially if it was the occasion when snow had fallen on the ground and the scenery seemed just right.

Well, the first carolers, they were a group of men and women who responded to what was happening in Bethlehem, and I showed you last week as we focused our attention on Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, I showed you something of her reaction to the news that she too, an old woman, at least relatively so compared with Mary, was going to have a child. Now, Mary, on whom the spotlight falls this morning, has this as a common denominator with Elizabeth, she is her relative, and Mary too has an ancestry which if you trace it back, takes her to King David himself. But the years, the generations have gone by, and Mary is in the most humble of circumstances.

She is probably not much more than a teenager, and as a result of some miraculous intervention in her life, she makes her way from the obscurity of Nazareth, and she comes to her older cousin and together they share notes. They have a realization that in a very remarkably similar fashion, God is achieving something in their lives which actually will count for all eternity. Men and women will look back bemused as they read of God's dealings with these ordinary people.

Elizabeth, a southerner, an older woman, Mary, a northerner, a younger woman, both brought together because not only of the common denominator of being relatives, but both are, to use the wondrous language of the authorized version, both are with child. If you could grant me one thing in terms of the vocabulary that is commonly used in our society today, I would get rid of the word pregnant, and I would reinstate it with the phrase or the twin word with child, because it seems to me that not only is that gynecologically correct, but spiritually it gives the force of the wonder and the miracle of conception, the development within the womb, and then the mystery and the marvel of birth. So what do two women with child do when they come together? They swap notes.

This is, as I was saying last week, the legitimacy of our Cameo fellowship, giving an opportunity for womenfolk who've just had children and some who are having children to come together. Well, here is Mary, and here is Elizabeth, and can you believe it that these ordinary people are so clothed with the Holy Spirit that the two of them become prophetesses? Moreover, the two of them become poetesses. They speak as they're prompted by the third person of the Trinity, and what they have to say is of incredible importance.

Elizabeth, I showed you last week, has no tinge of envy in her as she realizes that though her circumstance is wonderful and the child that she bears will be special, Mary, her younger, simple relative from northern Israel is uniquely singled out by God to the extent that it is said of her, blessed is Mary above all womenfolk. As Elizabeth puts it in verse 45, blessed is she who has believed what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished. So you have the two of them, and this is a very charismatic experience.

You see, the ministry of the Holy Spirit did not commence on the day of Pentecost. It's there in the Old Testament. It's here at the beginning of the Christian story.

Here are these women, if you please, ordinary women, with the temple just a little distance away for the meeting in one of the small villages, maybe one of the small cities, possibly Hebron, which is not that far from the temple from Jerusalem. But God bypasses the temple. He's going to do something absolutely spectacular, and He takes these womenfolk, and He clothes them with His Spirit, and He makes them to be prophetesses, His own mouthpiece.

And remember, He hasn't spoken to the world for some 400 years, for that period has elapsed since the completion of the Old Testament. God seems to be so silent, but now He speaks, and He speaks with these two women who are with child. And Elizabeth, who seems to be more emotional than Mary, she cries with a loud voice, verse 42, as she exclaims, "'Blessed are you, my cousin Mary, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear.'" You know, sometimes one gift leads on to another.

One person's experience triggers off another person's desire to extol and praise God. And it seems that this was the case here. Elizabeth has lifted her thanks to the Lord and acknowledged that the child that she has will be blessed.

But she says even greater things about Mary and her child. And as a result of that, verse 46, hinged to what has gone before, Mary speaks. This wondrous passage of Scripture, which is often repeated in the Anglican service and it's there dominant in the Book of Common Prayer.

From the Latin, we get the expression, magnificent. And here is the magnificat, this woman, this ordinary woman extolling the Lord who has exalted her. My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

Someone has said that the Christian faith can be reduced to personal pronouns. What do they mean? Well, you see, here is this lady and she's recognizing that what has happened has not just happened generally. I mean, God is going to bless Israel in an unprecedented fashion, but you see, Christianity will always move from the general to the particular.

At least it does in the evangelical pulpit. That's what makes this pulpit perhaps not so popular. It doesn't speak about the mass of people.

It speaks about the individual, not just what God is doing for Israel, what God is doing for this woman. My spirit, my soul rejoices in God my Savior. And she recognizes that in a most remarkable way, God has remembered her.

He has been mindful of the humble state of His servants. You see, this is the way with God. He exalts the humble.

He exalts the humble. I think that the legitimacy, if you like, the veracity, the convincing aspect of the nativity story is its incredible presentation. You see, no author would have written it like this.

You don't start with two obscure women, one coming from the backwoods of Galilee and the other the wife of some priest who has been fairly anonymous during his span as a preacher, fairly unknown. You don't start there. No, your novel always starts with your great person, with your great personality.

But not God. He is going to do something wonderful, and what does He do? Well, He takes these two womenfolk, and He uses them in a most remarkable fashion. Now you can pause there, because you see, this is a common principle with God.

You say, I'm not much, you know, I'm not a regular church attender. I find myself here just by accident this morning. Well, I'm glad.

I think you may discover that the accident was not quite as accidental as you thought, and the idea that you are not special may be your conviction at the moment, but God doesn't share it with you. God takes not the more notorious, charismatic, influential people as though they are a cut above everybody else. God looks into the nooks and crannies of human life, and He sees there people to serve Him.

You see, I repeat, Hebron, where probably this meeting took place, is not that far from Jerusalem. Jerusalem has a temple. The temple has the priests.

The priests have the high priests. There's Annas. There's Caiaphas.

There's the whole bang shoot of the theologians, but when God wants to speak to this world, He bypasses the theologians, and He takes just an ordinary woman, two ordinary womenfolk, and He clothes them with His Spirit, and He causes something to happen to them. In the former is Elizabeth at a natural, procreative level. As far as Mary is concerned, in the most wondrous, unique fashion, He causes them to be with child, for He has been mindful of the humble estate of His servant, for the Mighty One has done great things for me.

He has performed mighty deeds with His arm. Now, remember, although you're dealing with a simple little lady, well, perhaps not so little, I don't know, certainly a young woman, you're not dealing with someone who's unsophisticated as far as the knowledge of Scripture is concerned. You see, one of the problems with us moderns is that we are so ignorant of the teaching of God's Word.

That's by and large the truth. There are some exceptions, of course, but this didn't apply for these two people. You see, they are godly women who in their anonymous backgrounds have nonetheless pored over Scripture, with the net result that Mary's Magnificat is a lacing together of disparate texts throughout the whole of the Old Testament.

And what she is realizing is that God in His grace has laid bare His mighty arm towards her. You say, does God have an arm? Well, when you look into the Old Testament, you'll find that they use anthropomorphic language to speak of God. You say, that's a big word.

What does it mean? It means this. Well, let me put it this way. How do you think of God? If you talked of God in terms of some metaphysical being, you talk of God in abstractions, you'll lose most of us.

The only way that we can think of God is in terms of our own faculties, but heightened to infinity. So the Old Testament speaks in metaphorical language of the eyes of God, and the ears of God, and the mouth of God, and the hands of God, and the heart of God. And Mary says He's extended, He's extended His hand towards me.

He's done it in a most remarkable way. And of course, she has every right to say this, because she of all women will not only be blessed because of her spirituality, but she of all women will be recognized because uniquely she has conceived. You see, what has happened in Mary is something quiet out of this world.

Again, I love the language of the Authorized Version, don't you? When it speaks about the conception of our Lord Jesus. The angel says to Mary, verse 39, the incident or verse 30, the incident prior to her coming to see Elizabeth, indeed, what stimulates her coming to see Elizabeth, don't be afraid, you found favor with God, you will be with child and give birth to a son, he will be great and so on and so forth. And she says, well, how can this be, verse 34, since I'm a virgin? And the answer comes, and here I say the language is exquisite.

The language gives you all the accuracy of biology and gynecology and what have you. But it does it in such a wonderful way, there's no crude expressions here. This is not Hollywood coming along with a perversion of sexual activity in its description.

Here is God Almighty expressing by His ambassador, an angel, what's going to happen to this young slip of a woman. The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.

Isn't that a most glorious way of describing the most intimate of experiences? God overshadowed her and born within her the Child, the Lord Jesus, wrought within her to be born from her womb. No wonder, therefore, in the 49th verse when Mary is summarizing all this, she uses a name for God which you find in the Old Testament, but is so applicable to her situation, the Mighty One. This is God to whom she's referring, the Mighty One.

And then she talks about me and He and His holy name. You see, this woman who has such a common background has a most deep spirituality. All nations will call me blessed.

This, however, doesn't go to her head. Her being singled out to bring God's own Son into this world, it's not going to in any way despoil this woman. There is a common God and humility that God aspires within her personality that perhaps was the reason why she attracted Him in the first instance.

Maybe this is something that none of the priests taken together in the temple had. You see, when God has extended His hand towards you, you can easily determine whether or not it's a figment of your imagination, interpreting God unnecessarily by this litmus test. How does it leave you? You see, the man, the woman who has been blessed by God conversely recognizes their own utter unworthiness.

He, me, holy is His name. The reaction to a woman knowing the blessing of God upon her is that of recognizing how holy, how other God is. One of the things that I feel that we have lost most in the twentieth century is our sense of the fear of God, our sense of the fear of God.

And I was listening to someone tell me about a film, a new film on marriage and funerals and what have you. I forget its title, but I understand it's been screened before more people than most films ever have. And yet it leads off, I understand, with at least ten obscenities in the first few minutes.

And now obscenities don't hurt me so much as blasphemies. And so, I make this point, one of the things that Mary and her generation seem to appreciate that we don't, is that this God is to be feared. That when you blaspheme the name of this God, He has on record your blasphemy.

Here is Mary speaking not only to her generation but to our generation. Holy is His name. And as God has extended His mercy towards this undeserving woman, for that is her confession, so He is prepared to extend His grace towards us.

His mercy extends to those who fear Him from generation to generation. Here is human history as a ladder. And from one rung to another rung to another rung, from one generation to another generation to another generation, the same thing applies.

He extends His mercy to those who fear Him. Now isn't it interesting that when Mary is first accosted by an ambassador of God, in fact it's a common denominator throughout the whole of the Old Testament, you can check up at your leisure on me, whenever God speaks to a man or to a woman in biblical times, He invariably leads off with the expression, fear not. Why? Well you see the immediate reaction to the concept of God by and large in those days was fear.

Now this is the distinction I'm drawing. See that's not the case now. The sense of our fear of God has gone.

Obviously I'm generalizing but by and large this is true, this is the reason behind what comes on some of the media. You see the media is controlled by just a few men and women in London or what have you, and they determine what's put on BBC, ITV and so on and so forth, and many of them couldn't care a fig about God, and the net result is that the media has been taken over by secularists and things which would have been unacceptable and by the average person in the country today is not really welcome. They are placarded around and as a result there is a distinction between our generation and the generation of Mary, and I say it's in terms of us failing to fear God.

And yet you know the mercy of God can only be extended towards those who have a respect for Him from generation to generation. You see here again I must rudely remind you of something, and it is this, that there is a particular aspect of the blessings of Christmas which must once again be recognized and proclaimed by the church. You see what you mean? Well quite frankly it pains me to go down to Woolworths, well not just Woolworths, name any of the shops.

Not shopping itself, I mean you men appreciate how much I enjoy along with you going down to the shops and engaging in a sort of Ben Hur chariot race as you push your trolley around trying to keep your wife happy and yourself interested. The problem is that when these carols come along, and man shall live forevermore because of Christmas day, who says so? The generations that call me blessed, oh sorry, the generations that acknowledge the holiness of God, to those generations His mercy extends. To those who fear Him, what you have in that little cameo meeting of yesteryear is the huddle of two women folk together who enjoy God, who fear the Lord, and who speak often about Him.

And that's the genius of the nativity scene as you lead up to the birth of our Lord. Now you see, this great God who can exalt the most unlikely person can also dethrone the most mighty. Look at verse 52, He has brought down the rulers from their thrones.

This is the way of God, whether it's a Nebuchadnezzar or whether it's a Maxwell, sooner or later those who set themselves on the highest pinnacle will discover that God climbs that mountain. You cannot hide from Him. You are answerable to Him, whether you are a king in Mesopotamia of centuries ago or whether you are a tycoon, one of the jet set in the twentieth century.

God extends His offers of mercy to those who recognize their utter lack of qualification to be in His presence. He's mindful of the humble. You see, God knows all about Mary, as He knows all about Caiaphas and Annas and Herod.

In terms of influence, they've got it. In terms of opportunity, it seems as though the dice is loaded on their side. But no, God will bring them all to book.

And those priests who strut across the temple area who have little understanding of the spirit behind the law, they will be humiliated. And there is a difference between being humiliated and being humble. Humble is an attitude that you cultivate.

Humiliation is something impressed upon you as a judgment. Mary says in this Magnificat, He, this great God, has brought down rulers from the thrones, but in contradistinction, He has lifted up the humble. He fills the hungry with good things, but the rich He has sent empty away.

And this happens, of course, time and time again. I think the main implication is more spiritual than physical, though in the bairn that is inside Mary when He is born, He shall show that God also has a concern for the literal hunger of men and women, thus His feeding of 10,000 and His ministering to many who are in desperate situations. You say I'm not a Christian, all right.

You say I'm not a Christian because I don't deserve to be a Christian. I'm not too sure that I can agree with that. In fact, what I would like to tell you from Scripture is that if you feel that you don't deserve to become one of God's special people, that actually is a basic qualification.

You see, this is the paradox of Christianity, not the righteous, not the righteous, sinners Jesus came to save. This is the thing, you see, it's encapsulated in this nativity story. You've got Elizabeth, you've got Mary, I've told you so many times, commoner God and people, and when Christ is born into this world, He will bring into His entourage not the mighty but the ordinary person, and He will always deal gently with the penitent sinner.

He'll bring the leper into social intercourse with Himself, He'll touch the leper. He'll bring the woman caught in adultery and send her detractors away knowing that their crimes are far more heinous than her crime. This is it, you see.

She didn't feel she had any right to be in His company. The fisherman says, depart from me, I'm a sinful man. And those are the words that Jesus wanted to hear.

Those who are healthy don't call for a physician, says Jesus, it's only those who are sick. And here is Mary, absolutely flabbergasted when she hears as to what is going to happen, and yet she believes, and so she leaves Nazareth and she goes to the only person who she can share this and get help from, she goes to Elizabeth, and between them God sends His Spirit upon them and He makes these the prophetesses who in one sense commence the Christian era. And it's all summarized in that 53rd verse, He fills the hungry with good things, but the priests and the politicians, the rich, they go empty as they leave.

God helps His inadequate servant Israel, Mary is speaking now of her nation, occasionally in the Old Testament it's little Israel, but the spiritual implication of this, and there is a national one too, but the spiritual implication of this is that when there is need and a sense of dependence, God will respond to that need, and in your dependence on Him, He will minister to you. He did it for Abraham, verse 55, He does it to His descendants, therefore He will do it for us. Do you know, and with this I conclude, do you know what the word Elizabeth means? Well, basically if you examine it etymologically, that word means the history of words.

If you track it to its root meaning, it means God on oath, God on oath. Elizabeth has proved the faithfulness of God, and as she responds to that, she triggers this charismatic peon of praise from the lips of her younger cousin, Mary, blessed are you, you believe what the Lord has said, and Mary's own praise is triggered off, my soul glorifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. Can you do the same? You say, what's the Magnificat got to do with me? The Magnificat is simply a response to what God has done in the life of a woman.

But not yesterday alone, all generations, you're further up on the ladder of history in terms of time, not in terms of spiritual achievement. But here's the possibility, God doing something for you, born in Mary is His Son. There is a sense in which a Christian has Christ born within them.

They confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, they acknowledge who He is, born of a virgin, yes, but born in my heart, for Christians are the born again people. And when you are born again, you sing the praise of this great God who has done so many wondrous things for you. So, enter into the second carol of the Christmas story and make Mary's reaction in terms of what she sang also your own.

Let's listen to the Magnificat being sung and then we'll sing a final hymn ourselves. My soul doth magnify the Lord, my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour, for he that is mighty hath done great things, and holy is his name. My soul doth magnify the Lord, my soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour, for he that is mighty hath done great things, and holy is his name.

My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour, for he that is mighty hath done great things, and holy is his name. Now we look at the third carol next week and Pastor Tim will bring the exposition of that. Let's go to 697 in mission praise, traditional hymn.

Some of you with children may need to slip out to get the kiddies as we've overshot a little bit in this service. 697 thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly crown when thou camest to earth for me. Thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly crown when thou camest to earth for me.