Magnifying God: Humility and Joy in Praise
Magnifying God: Humility and Joy in Praise
Luke 1:26 – 56
Since the days of creation the sky has captured the imagination of mankind. God Himself hung the sun, moon, and stars for signs and seasons, to mark days and years. When promising Abram how numerous his descendants would be, he told Abram to look up at the stars. From Genesis to Revelation, the stars in the sky, in space, holds a relevant place in God’s creation. It’s no wonder that mankind has been drawn to them since.
Names like Copernicus, Brahe, and Kepler studied planetary motion from the 15th to the 17th century. During that same time period, you had Galileo Galilei, Sir Isaac Newton, and Christiaan Huygens creating telescopes and studying the skies. Today, we have two massive telescopes in space, the Hubble telescope orbiting earth, and the James Webb telescope orbiting around the sun.
Together, these two marvels of modern engineering, ambition, and human curiosity provide us with images far beyond what our minds could have imagined. One such image, first taken by Hubble in 1995 and retaken with a better quality camera in 2014, is called “Pillars of Creation.” In them scientists say new stars are being born, hence the name.
The reality is that mankind has always been trying to explain God’s creation in terms they could understand. Many medieval astronomers faced the ire of the Roman Catholic church, though they were devout believers. Galileo himself was arrested for his work, even though he felt that he was only revealing God’s work by showing the true nature of the universe. “The heavens declare the glory of God;” (Psalm 19:1).
I know when I look things like these pillars, I can’t help but see God and His power on display. The God of the universe who created that, thought to create me. That’s moving, and more than that, that’s humbling. Telescopes were created to magnify images, but when viewed through the Christian lens what is truly magnified… is God.
Today we continue in the Gospel of Luke, with the introduction of Mary, and the miraculous birth of Jesus foretold. We see how this young woman receives this news, and responds. Let’s read Luke 1:26 – 33.
It’s been six months since the angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah and foretold the birth of John the Baptist. Zechariah went home to his wife Elizabeth and miraculously in her barrenness and their old age they conceived, just like the angel had told them. Six months later, Gabriel is on the move again. This time, he’s sent from God to a city in Galilee, Nazareth.
More specifically, Gabriel was sent Mary, a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, who was a descendant of king David. If Elizabeth was exceptionally old and barren, well beyond childbearing years, Mary was exceptionally young. In those days, women were betrothed to be married in their teenage years, as young as fifteen.
The angel appears to her and greets her in quite an intriguing way. He says, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” Mary was probably wondering, “who me?” Unlike with Zechariah and Elizabeth, Luke doesn’t give any background about Mary’s character or her righteousness.
This greeting greatly troubled her. She wasn’t just afraid, she was surprised. If it was shocking to Zechariah to encounter the angel in the temple, how much more shocking is it to this young girl encountering Gabriel in her hometown, probably in her house.
Not only is that not where you expect a divine encounter, but this was no customary greeting. Mary’s shock wasn’t just because it wasn’t customary for a man to greet a woman, rather it wasn’t customary for an angel to greet a woman. Greatly troubled is an understatement.
But following the same pattern as other angelic birth announcements, including JtB’s earlier in the chapter, Gabriel tells Mary to not be afraid, for she has found favor with God. Who is Mary and what has she done to be told that she has found favor with God and is the favored one?
While Zechariah and Elizabeth were pious picture of OT righteousness, Mary is unknown, really a bit of a nobody. And here she is being called, O favored one and told that she has found favor with God. Mary was favored, not because she was special or more righteous or more worthy than anyone else, Mary was favored simply because she was chosen by God for the task that was about to be placed before her.
This is entirely about God’s gracious choice and not Mary’s righteousness or piety. Nothing is made of Mary’s personal piety either before this passage, or after. The emphasis here is entirely on God’s sovereign choice, not on human acceptability.
If God’s choices were based at all on human acceptability, everyone would be doomed, because as Paul cites in Romans 3:10, “There is no one righteous, not even one.” Mary was just a young girl whom God chose to fulfill her part in His sovereign plan for the redemption of humanity. Gabriel, goes on to elaborate on her part.
He tells her, that she will conceive and bear a son, and she shall call him Jesus. While Luke doesn’t elaborate on His name, Matthew does when he says, “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” This young virgin is going to conceive and deliver the Savior into the world. Before she even has time to process and respond Gabriel keeps going. Through the words of the angel, Luke describes who Jesus is.
Jesus is the GREATEST. The state of humanity when Jesus took on human flesh was not great, yet he would be great. Though the angel said that JtB would be great, his greatness was not absolute, it was qualified with in the sight of the Lord. Jesus’ greatness is unqualified, meaning his greatness is absolute, and greater than that of JtB’s.
Jesus is the SON OF GOD. Whereas JtB is described later in the chapter as a prophet of the Most High, Jesus is greater than John because he is the Son of God. Before establishing Jesus as the Messiah, the angel is proclaiming His divinity as the Son of God.
Jesus is the MESSIAH. Jesus will sit on the throne of his father of David. Jesus’ human descent from David was alluded to back where Joseph was described as a descendant of David. Jesus’ messiahship is grounded in Jesus’ sonship. He will deliver his people from oppression and death, though not in the way the people had hoped the Messiah would. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will never end.
If what the angel said about JtB was lofty, these things about Mary’s son are unbelievable. She has no response except to ask a question, but unlike Zechariah its not unbelief. Let’s read Luke 1:34 – 38.
The popular song, “Mary, did you know?” asks Mary many questions about the baby boy she was going to give birth to, but before she could wrap her head around all that she had to wrap her head around having a baby in the first place. She must’ve had a thousand questions swirling around in her head, but only one came to the surface. How is this possible, I am a virgin. Literally, since I know no man.
Mary was betrothed to Joseph, and betrothals were contractual agreements as binding as marriage. Even though they weren’t officially married, Mary was essentially Joseph’s husband but their union wasn’t yet consummated. There’s only one way humans reproduce, and Mary had not been with a man in that way, ever, period.
And the angel made no mention of Joseph in what he said to Mary. Mary understood that the angel meant that she would get pregnant, without a man, so of course her question is about how. Her question doesn’t reflect the same doubt as Zechariah’s did, since she doesn’t get rebuked like he did. Rather it should be viewed as genuine awe and wonder at how this could be.
Since Jesus is greater than JtB, so then his birth had to be greater than JtB’s. If it was a heavenly miracle that JtB was conceived by two elderly human parents in the natural way, then it was necessary that Jesus be conceived in a supernatural way, born of a virgin, as Gabriel is about to explain.
He says that the Holy Spirit will come upon her, and the power of God will overshadow her. It’s that simple. Mary asked how she, a virgin, would conceive a child and the angel answered with, because God wills it and makes it so. And because God does it, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.
It was customary for the firstborn to be dedicated to the Lord; God had a special claim on the firstborn. In a similar way, the Son of God through his conception by the Holy Spirit was set apart by God for a divine purpose, holy and set apart.
What’s most important about to understand about the virgin birth is not the way that God sent his Son, but the fact that he even sent him. What’s most important is not the virgin birth, but the incarnation of Christ, not the how but the what of Christmas is most important.
To add some weight and credibility to his message, the angel Gabriel tells Mary that Elizabeth is already six months along. Mary would have known that her cousin Elizabeth was well past childbearing age. Elizabeth’s conception of JtB when she was past childbearing age reveals to Mary God’s miraculous power and confirms the angelic message she received.
God had already done the impossible in Elizabeth, so the problem Mary pointed out about her virginity is no problem at all for God. Because, as the angel says, nothing will be impossible with God.
That’s enough for Mary; she responds to Gabriel’s message by submitting herself to God’s will. She was just told she would carry, give birth to, and raise the very Son of God, and she demonstrates so much humility when she says, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
Here we see Mary’s character. Whereas Zechariah and Elizabeth give readers and example of true discipleship in their obedience to the commandments and statutes of the OT, Mary is exemplary because of her submission to God’s will. And then the angel leaves her.
After 400 years of silence, God speaks through his angel Gabriel twice in six months, and both times with powerful miracles, two miraculous births promised. Luke then brings together those stories with what comes next. Let’s read Luke 1:39 – 45.
After being told by the angel that her cousin Elizabeth was pregnant and that she herself would conceive in an even more miraculous way, Mary decides to get up and go pay Elizabeth a visit. She goes from Nazareth in the north, up to the hills of Judah in the south. That’s not a walk in the park; that’s not even a walk across town. That’s a walk across her country.
As soon as she gets there, as soon as she goes inside and as soon as her voice reaches the ears of her cousin Elizabeth, the baby in her womb, JtB, leaps with joy. The angel had said that her child would be filled with the Spirit, even in the womb, and that he would prepare the way. Even before he was born he was already fulfilling his calling, because by leaping in his mother’s womb John announced the presence of the Messiah in Mary’s womb.
And Elizabeth, realizing what that meant, and herself being filled with the Spirit in that moment, breaks out in a Spirit inspired hymn with a loud cry.
“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb” Elizabeth says. This is Jewish way of saying “most blessed.” In Jewish tradition of the time, women’s greatness was measured by the greatness of the children they bore.
And no one has borne or will ever bear anyone greater than Jesus, so yeah, most blessed among women is Mary because of whom God chose her to bear. Mary’s blessedness here had nothing to do with her, it was entirely dependent on her blessed son in her womb.
And through the Spirit filling Elizabeth, she recognized precisely who Mary was growing inside of her when she refers to her cousin as the mother of my Lord. The focus of the moment is more on Mary’s child than Mary herself. Elizabeth calling Jesus Lord reveals his greatness long before his birth. Jesus, like God, is deserving of the title Lord because he is God.
Elizabeth knows this because the baby in her womb leaped for joy, because she believed what the angel told Zechariah about her own son she knew who walked in her door the moment Mary said hello. But it’s not her who she says is blessed, it is Mary who believed that what was spoken to her from the Lord would be fulfilled.
The blessedness of Mary’s faith stands in contrast to Zechariah’s lack of faith. Her blessedness is a present state, and his silence is his present state. Mary again serves as an example to the believer. But this story is about Jesus, not Mary. Mary is called blessed here for her faith, but she is called most blessed for the privilege of the mother of the Son of God.
One thing is for certain, what Mary did know, is that the story was never about her, rather she knew it was about God, His Power through His Holy Spirit, and His Son Jesus Christ, who was growing within her. She knew that she found herself in a moment of greatness in her life, but that was only a part of the much larger greatness the birth of her son meant for the world. Let’s read her song of praise in Luke 1:46 – 56.
Mary praised God for what He was about to do and for the part she was privileged to play. Her soul magnifies the Lord, and her spirit rejoices in God her Savior. Through this miracle, the privilege God has given her to bear His Son, Mary’s praise is that her soul magnifies the Lord. Don’t look at me she says, look at God. All of this is for the glory of God.
And her joy is found in knowing that she too is saved. Here is the first grounds for her praise. She understood her humble condition, she knew she was a mere servant, a nobody in the eyes of the world, a pregnant unwed woman. She recognized her own need for a savior, and she knew she had the privilege of bringing Him into the world and raising Him up into adulthood.
She knew that her lot in eternity was going to change because she sang out that all generations would call her blessed. She knew that her baby boy was going to reverse her status in life, though she didn’t know that He too would be a servant in order to do so, sharing her humble condition, being born in a manger and of poor, insignificant parents.
And she gives all glory to God because he who is mighty has done great things for her, and holy is his name. But she recognizes that his mighty work extends beyond herself. She spends more time in her praise song singing about what God is doing for His people. She sings about God giving mercy to those who fear Him, from generation to generation.
She says that he has shown His strength with his arm, and here is the second ground for her praise in this song. She describes with the certainty of a past event the future work that God’s Son was going to do. Mary saw already accomplished what God would do through her son.
He would scatter the proud, those who don’t fear God, the haughty rich, and He would bring down rulers and in the great reversal that Luke highlights throughout his Gospel, God exalt the humble, fill the hungry and needy with good things while sending away the rich empty.
And above all, God has fulfilled His promise, He has remembered His people because He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy as He promised to the fathers of Israel, to Abraham and his offspring forever. Such a beautiful song, full of emotion and joy at the witnessing and being a part of the realization of God’s faithfulness in keeping His promise to redeem His people.
Because of whom Jesus is, you can live your life in humble and joyful submission to Him, magnifying and glorifying God in doing so.
In this passage, Christ is revealed as the promised Messiah, fulfilling God’s covenant with Israel, and Mary humble response illustrates so beautifully the anticipation of God’s redemptive work through Jesus. Her song captures the essence of the gospel’s arrival through Christ.
Responding to God’s grace, the gospel, requires a posture of humility, joy, and glorifying God which Mary exemplified.
Humility, because choosing yourself and the world over God makes you an enemy of God, so humility is necessary to respond to and receive God’s gospel grace. James 4:6.
True joy is rooted in obedience to God, and His gospel, which requires a humble heart. Like Mary, you are called to respond to God with trust and submission, giving up control and finding joy in His grace to lead you. Proverbs 3:5 – 6.
When you embrace God’s plan for your life, remember that all glory belongs to God. It’s not about who you are, but about who God is, His love for us, and His faithfulness in keeping His promises. Psalms 115:1.
Remember that God’s plans often unfold in unexpected ways, so when you experience the true joy that comes from humility and trust in God’s promises, you magnify the greatness of God from the depths of your soul.
You have no reason to be slow of heart to believe all that God has said through His Holy Word. If you believe, live life like you believe. If you haven’t yet believed, I’d love to talk to you and help you understand the gospel so that you may also believe.
Let’s pray.