Joy unspeakable (Luke 1:46-55)
It’s easy for us as Christians to heave a sigh when we think about Christmas. As well as all the preparations at home, we have to fit in loads of extra commitments at church. It’s a pretty punishing time. So, how do you really feel about Christmas?
The Magnificat is one of the most famous songs in the Christian repertoire. It has been chanted in cathedrals, recited in churches and set to music with trumpets and kettledrums by Johann Sebastian Bach. It’s a great song. But what prompts Mary to burst into the sound of music like this? It’s simple: she cherishes a dream. It is the ancient dream of Israel that one day God will do everything he promised to Abraham. That is why Mary is singing – because God is just about to keep his word.
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 (Luke 1:35). We are not talking here about a pagan god interfering in rough and inappropriate ways in the affairs of mortals. No – when God the mighty Creator steps into the life of one of his chosen people, it is always a matter of love. And the child to be born through this incredibly gracious intervention is bound to be special. He will be the Messiah himself… God’s promised king who comes to rescue people… the anointed One who will reign over Caesar’s world forever.
Pull it all together – the conception of a baby, the miraculous power of God, the overturning of the world order, and we can see why this story is so explosive. The Magnificat isn’t a quiet polished reflection on a deeply significant experience, it’s a song bursting from the heart.
Look up
This is where Mary starts…
My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.
Yuri Gagarin, the Russian cosmonaut, returned from the first ever manned space flight and announced to a waiting world that he had been to heaven and hadn’t spotted God. Is that what you see? An empty heaven? Maybe God is there – somewhere. Who knows? Who cares?
When Mary looks up, she sees a heaven that is filled with glory. Not just planets and galaxies and a seemingly infinite universe, but the signature of a God who cares, who gets involved, who has got something to say.
Mary is using language that is jubilant, unrestrained, euphoric. The Magnificat is a bit like a bottle of fizzy lemonade – it bubbles out with praise and thanksgiving as the Holy Spirit, who loves the Father and the Son, finds a willing heart in which to move.
See how Mary speaks about God as God my Saviour. She certainly isn’t putting herself on a pedestal here, is she? Yes, Mary is in a position of special honour, but she does not let it go to her head. Even in this moment of intense spiritual exhilaration, she has no illusions. She needs a Saviour. And so do we. That is who Mary sees when she looks up – a God who is holy, awesomely holy, utterly holy, and yet willing to get involved in the affairs of human beings who are sinful and screwed up and badly needing to be rescued.
Look forward
Remember, Mary isn’t a child of liberal western democracy. For centuries, her people have known what it is to have foreign troops tramping through their beloved homeland. She herself is living in the dark days of Herod the Great, and his casual brutality is backed up with the ominous threat of the Roman Empire. Yet she sees the Lord turning everything upside down – the weak dethroning the mighty… the humble scattering the proud… the nobodies being exalted… the hungry being filled… and the rich and powerful getting their comeuppance at last.
‘But hang on,’ you say, ‘that’s too good to be true. That’s heaven.’ Precisely! That is why Mary gets so excited. As she looks forward, she sees eternity breaking into time. Isn’t this something we all dream of? As we watch the news day by day, isn’t there this deep yearning in our hearts for a better world? Well, here it is – not a utopian dream invented by men, but a heavenly blueprint designed by God.
But for the revolution to succeed, the powers that have kept the world in slavery since the Fall must be toppled. God must have the last word over the bullies, the power brokers, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
And it is going to hurt like mad. A sword will pierce Mary’s own soul. She will lose Jesus for three days when he is twelve while he is on his Father’s business in Jerusalem. She will lose him completely for three more days while he is on his Father’s business outside Jerusalem. There, he is going to face public shame and ridicule on a cross. But more than that, he is going to experience the wrath of his Father as he takes the sins of the world upon his own shoulders. If God is going to drive out sin and vanquish Satan forever, then Jesus must absorb the pain, he must endure the wrath of God himself. But the story doesn’t end at the cross. The note of triumph will return with Easter and Pentecost, and this time it will never be taken away.
Look back
How can a simple country girl make sense of these cosmic realities? If you are familiar with your Bible, you will know that almost every line in Mary’s song is drawn in one way or another from the Old Testament. It is the Old Testament that helps her to make sense of what’s happening here. Look at verse 54: He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers. She can make sense of this because she looks back to God’s promise.
Yes, life is going to get pretty complicated for Mary in the next nine months and over the next thirty years. It does for us at times too. The last year has been pretty tough for Planet Earth. So, what do we see this Christmas? A world that is empty and silent? If we are willing to put our trust in the Lord Jesus, we can look back to the cross and see what God has done; we can look forward to heaven and see what God is going to do; we can look up with gratitude and realise all over again that it is going to be OK.
Look lively
Here in this song we have the gospel before the gospel – thirty weeks before Bethlehem and thirty years before Calvary. It’s a great song. It’s a song about God and the revolution he is going to bring into our world. And it is all because of Jesus – Jesus, who has just been conceived but not yet born, who makes Elizabeth’s baby turn somersaults in her womb, who makes Mary sing with excitement, joy and hope. What a singer! What a song! Thank you, Mary, for urging us to sing a song of joy unspeakable this Christmas!