39 In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, 40 and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, 42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”
46 And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, 48 for He has looked on the humble estate of His servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 49 for He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name. 50 And His mercy is for those who fear Him from generation to generation. 51 He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; 52 He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; 53 He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty. 54 He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy, 55 as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”
In Luke chapters 1 and 2 there are 4 songs or poems in which Mary, Zechariah, the shepherds, and Simeon praise God for His salvation, and more specifically for the promised Messiah who was about to come into the world. During the next 4 Sundays we will look at each of these, as we anticipate the blessing of Christmas once more.
These 4 songs of praise are also known by their Latin names - the Magnificat, Benedictus, Gloria in Excelsis Deo and Nunc Dimittis.
Today we begin with Mary’s song, the Magnificat.
Luke tells us that Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, and Mary were related. Here we have two women, one very old and the other very young, whose lives were dramatically impacted by God and His eternal plan of salvation. Elizabeth was six months pregnant, while Mary had only just conceived.
Still, no doubt, trying to process all that she had been told, Mary visited Elizabeth. What a remarkable this meeting was, because what they shared was unique. They had been chosen by God to bear two children of promise, and they were the first to know that after all these years of waiting, God had now put into motion the events which had been promised for thousands of years.
It was a joyful meeting, just like anyone who recognises that Jesus is the Christ is filled with joy. The virgin birth (or virgin conception, to put it more accurately), is quite naturally, the main supernatural event we focus on, but there was a lot more going on in this episode than first meets the eye.
John’s calling in life was to announce the coming of Jesus into the world, a calling he obediently accepted, as years later he cried, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)
The remarkable thing is that 3 months before he was born, John the Baptist recognised Jesus, and He had only just been conceived. Luke 1:41 tells us, “When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb.”
The 4th century theologian Maximus of Turin wrote, “Not yet born, already John prophesies, and while still in the enclosure of his mother’s womb, confesses the coming of Christ with movements of joy.” Elizabeth would have felt John move before. At six months it was only natural for her to feel him kicking, as babies do. But this was different, because her son was different.
The angel Gabriel had appeared to John’s father Zechariah. “There appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, ‘Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.’” (Luke 1:11-17)
The Holy Spirit was clearly at work. While still in the womb, John recognised the presence of the Saviour. Both of these sons of promise were still in their mothers’ wombs, yet John knew Him to be the Son of God.
The coming of Christ into the hearts of redeemed sinners is an event that makes us leap for joy. It was true for John, and it is true for all come to faith in Christ. By the inward witness of the Holy Spirit we recognise that Jesus is the Son of God and our Saviour from sin. When we recognise Him, we rejoice in Him, leaping for the joy of our salvation. Habakkuk 3:18 says, “I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.”
Elizabeth joined in the celebration too. When John leaped in her womb, verse 42 says, “She exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!’”
What was it that made her shout? The coming of Christ. Just like her son, Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and like him, she recognised that she was in the presence of the Messiah. She continued by saying, “Why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43)
For six months the great excitement for Elizabeth had been her own pregnancy, but now, rather than thinking about her own joy, she immediately praised God for what He had done for Mary. She was not jealous, but honoured Mary as the mother of her Lord, and just like Gabriel, she said that Mary was favoured by God’s grace.
The most important thing Elizabeth said was not about Mary however, but about Jesus. She referred to the child in Mary’s womb as her Lord. This is a title from the Psalms, where David refers to the Messiah as “my Lord,” and this could only have been revealed to Elizabeth by the Holy Spirit. She had been at home, going about the preparations for the birth of her son in a few months’ time.
The text does not tell us that she knew Mary was pregnant, yet as soon as she heard her cousin’s voice, she identified Mary’s child as her Lord and God. Elizabeth, by looking beyond Jesus’ humanity to see His deity, was the first to confess her faith in Jesus as her Lord.
This is how everyone should respond to Jesus Christ - by trusting in Him as Saviour and rejoicing in Him as Lord. We have even better reason to believe in Jesus than John and Elizabeth had. They rejoiced over His conception, but we also rejoice because of His crucifixion and resurrection. This is the witness we have in the Bible. We have this treasure of the Word of God to teach us and reveal to us that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and was raised again to give us eternal life. Now everyone who believes in Jesus leaps for joy and calls Him Lord.
Of course, Elizabeth and John were not the only ones who rejoiced in the coming of Christ. Mary rejoiced by breaking into song. Her song is called the Magnificat, a title taken from Latin, which means to magnify. Mary said at the beginning of her song, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.” (Luke 1:46–47)
This is the first of the four nativity hymns in Luke’s Gospel which we will be looking at the coming weeks, Mary’s Magnificat, Zechariah’s Benedictus, the angels’ Gloria, and Simeon’s Nunc Dimittis.
The Baptist minister William Graham Scroggie, who lived in the first half of the 20th century said of these Biblical Christmas carols that they are “the last of the Hebrew Psalms, and the first of the Christian hymns.”
What God has done in Christ should not only be understood and believed, but it must be celebrated and praised. Singing hymns and psalms of praise is part of what we do on a regular basis as God’s people. Mary’s poem is a psalm that should lead us into praise.
It’s easy to forget that Mary was no more than a teenager, yet she wrote such a theologically rich poem, which proves the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. When she spoke about her soul and spirit magnifying and rejoicing in God her Saviour, Mary was referring to the very centre of her being. This song came from her heart. She worshipped God with all she was and everything she had, praising Him with mind, soul, heart, and strength.
In fact, the Magnificat is similar to many songs from the Old Testament. It sounds like something from King David, or like something Hannah might have written. Hannah, after being told she was finally going to have a child after years of crying out to the Lord wrote, “My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in the Lord. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and He exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; He lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honour.” (1 Samuel 2:1, 7–8)
There are echoes from Hannah in Mary’s song, but not just from Hannah. The Magnificat either quotes from or refers to verses from Genesis, Deuteronomy, 1 and 2 Samuel, Job, Psalms, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Micah, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah.
Mary was able to do this because the psalms and poems of the Bible were written on her heart. She had been raised on the Scriptures. As a little girl she would have sung these psalms at home and heard them at the synagogue. So when the plan of salvation intersected with her life, she was able to offer God the right kind of praise. This is such an important lesson for us. The way to exalt and magnify the Lord is to use Scripture as our guide.
The best way to teach our children and grandchildren to glorify God is by studying and singing God’s Word. When we know the Bible, it becomes the song of our hearts, and we are able to join Mary in saying, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.”
Mary had many good reasons to magnify the Lord. She had been promised a son - not just any son, but the Son of God, conceived by the Spirit of God. Her Magnificat is a song of Gospel joy. Yet, when you read her song of praise, in it Mary says nothing specific about her son. This is the reason for her praise, but she does not mention it explicitly. The question is, why?
Part of the answer is that Mary, despite her youth, had the spiritual maturity to look beyond her gift and praise the God who gave it. To magnify means to enlarge, and what Mary wanted to enlarge was her worship of God. Her goal was to show His greatness. She wanted to magnify God, not her own position as the mother of the Son of God. She knew that she was blessed because of who God was, not because of who she was.
Mary wanted God to be seen to be great, not herself. The way to show this was not by thinking only about what God was doing in her life, but by enlarging her vision to see the majesty of God.
In her song Mary praised God for many of His divine attributes. She worshipped His mighty power - the power that made the virgin birth possible, she worshipped His perfect holiness, she magnified His mercy for sinners, which, contrary to the heresy taught by the Roman Catholic religion, included the mercy she needed to cover her own sin, and Mary praised His everlasting faithfulness in keeping His promises. True worship raises and magnifies God. As wonderful and as joyful as her own circumstances were, Mary magnified the being and character of God.
Now it is right for us to praise God for what He has done, just as Mary did, but there are times when even our worship of God can be a bit self-centred, as if the really important thing is what God has done for us. We need to look beyond this to see God as He is in Himself, and to praise Him for being God. It is no coincidence that in the prayer Jesus taught us, we begin by praising the nature of God, before we pray for ourselves.
As Mary praised the Lord in the Magnificat, there were two major themes to her praise. Why did God deserve her worship? Because He lifts the humble and humbles the proud. The first half of Mary’s song is about God lifting the humble.
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for He has looked on the humble estate of His servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is for those who fear Him from generation to generation.” (Luke 1:46–50)
This almighty, all-powerful God reaches down to us in His mercy, lifting the humble to greatness. Mary herself was the perfect example. No one was lower than she was. She was nothing more than a poor, young peasant girl from Nazareth. She was a nobody from nowhere, and she knew it. She was also a sinner, which is why she praised God as her Saviour. The Saviour is one of Luke’s favourite titles for Jesus.
Mary used it because she needed to be saved as much as anyone else. And by His grace, God saved her. He saw her lowly condition. He did great things for her, not least of which was choosing her to bring His own Son into our world. God reached down and saved her. This is why all generations call Mary blessed. She was blessed by the undeserved favour of a merciful God.
Have you received the underserved favour of God? Then you too are blessed!
The way God worked in Mary’s life is the way He always works. Not that anyone else could ever bear the Son of God, of course, but God always exalts the humble. He does great things for people who honour Him. He shows mercy to those who fear Him, which simply means to worship Him with reverence and awe. God-fearing people like Mary will be lifted up, no matter how low their situation in life.
We all need to come to the understanding that wherever we fit on the social scale - from the select few rich and famous at the very top, to the lowest of the low, and every point between those two extremes, we are all spiritually bankrupt in the eyes of a holy God because of our sin.
We need to humble ourselves before Him, and He will save us and raise us up to a new life in Christ. James 4:10 says, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.”
The same God who lifts the humble also humbles the proud, and in the second half of her song Mary praises God for humbling the nations. “He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty. He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to His offspring forever. (Luke 1:51–55)
Mary now moves beyond what God has done for her to rejoice in what God will do for Israel and the world. You might have noticed that these verses were spoken in the past tense. Why did Mary do this? She was praising God for the gift of her son, but at the time He was still only a child in the womb. No proud armies had been scattered; no thrones had been overturned, yet Mary refers to these things in the past tense.
Part of the reason is that God had shown His strength in the past. The Old Testament is full of accounts of God destroying the enemies of Israel. He had humbled the proud to show mercy to Israel, as He promised Abraham. “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonours you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:2–3)
Mary though, was also praising God for what He would do in Christ. She was speaking in the past tense, but she was making prophecies about the future. When God says that He will do something, it is as good as already done. His promises come with the guarantee of fulfilment.
With the conception of Jesus Christ, the great reversal of the curse of sin began. God was lifting the humble, and soon He would humble the proud. So her song spanned the past, the present, and the future. It was about what God had done, what God was doing, and what God would do in days to come. This is what we celebrate at Christmas - the advent of the Saviour of the world.
In Christ, God will overthrow every proud nation and humble every proud heart, and this is why He alone deserves the power and the glory. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, one of the great expository preachers of the 20th century said, “He must subdue everything and everyone who opposes His will. To be specific, He must humble the pride of intellect, the pride of position, and the pride of wealth. Can you not see that everything that man boasts in, his intellect, his understanding, his power, his social status, his influence, his righteousness, his morality, his ethics, his code - every one of them is utterly demolished by this Son of God?”
Mary understood that the coming of Christ would turn the world upside down. He would be the exact opposite of anything anyone ever expected, because in Christ, God takes the conventional standards of greatness and significance and stands them on their heads. The person He exalts is the humble servant who does His will. The person He humbles is the proud and arrogant who refuses to acknowledge his need for God. We see this happening all through the Gospel of Luke. In chapter 16 the rich man goes to hell, while the poor man is carried into God’s presence. In chapter 18 the prayers of the self-righteous Pharisee are denied, but the sinful tax collector goes home justified. As Jesus said in Luke 14:11 and 18:14, “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
At Calvary came the greatest reversal of all. God the Son, who humbled Himself to become a man and then to endure the painful, shameful death of the cross, was raised from the dead in triumph. Having humbled Himself, He was exalted.
Lloyd-Jones said, “When the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords came into this world, He came into a stable. Thank God, this is Gospel, this is salvation. God turning upside down, reversing everything we have ever thought, everything we have taken pride in. The mighty? Why, He will pull them down from their seats. He has been doing so. He is still doing so. Let any man arise and say he is going to govern, to be the god of the whole world; you need not be afraid - he will be put down. Every dictator has gone down; they all do. Finally, the devil and all that belong to him will go down to the lake of fire and will be destroyed for ever. The Son of God has come into the world to do that.”
This is how God works. The humble are shown mercy, while the proud receive justice. The lowly are lifted and the lofty are brought low. God will not rest until Christ alone is Lord, and then He will see to it that justice is done, putting all wrongs to right.
This was the God that Mary magnified - the God who saves His own. This is the God we are to worship and magnify. Martin Luther said that Mary’s song was about “the great works and deeds of God, for the strengthening of our faith, for the comforting of all those of low degree, and for the terrifying of all the mighty ones of earth. We are to let the hymn serve this threefold purpose; for she sang it not for herself alone but for us all, to sing it after her.”
The words of Mary’s song strengthen our faith in Jesus Christ. They comfort us with the promise that God will lift us when we are low. They also chasten our pride, destroying the proud thoughts of our hearts.
As Mary’s words do this sanctifying work, they teach us to sing a Magnificat of our own. God has done great things for us. So we magnify Him for the mighty deeds of our salvation - the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And we magnify Him for the gracious work of the Holy Spirit, who humbles our pride so that God can lift us up to glory.
Homegroup Study Notes
Read Luke 1:39-45
This happened 3 months before John the Baptist was born.
Discuss the significance of John recognising the presence of Christ, before either of them were born.
How was this possible, and what does this teach us about when human life begins?
Discuss Elizabeth’s remarkable confession of faith.
Read Luke 1:46-55
The Latin word Magnificat means to magnify.
How does Mary’s song of praise magnify the Lord, and what can we learn about how to worship the Lord from Mary?
Discuss the many attributes of God which Mary highlights.
Two main themes of the Magnificat is how God lifts up the humble and humbles the proud.
What is the spiritual message to sinners here?