“My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.”
These words begin the New King James Version of the Magnificant – the magnification song of Mary.
Such a beautiful song.
Mary, a girl in her mid-teens, has become pregnant through the action of the Holy Spirit – the breath of God has breathed upon her and quickened an egg inside her.
There is no illicit union, no passionate attack by a god or angel as in the Greek stories, no runaway desire which has attracted her to a bad-boy god.
No, the Holy Spirit – the Greek uses the same word pneuma for breath or wind – the Holy breath of God has done something to her and she will now have God’s child, God’s only child, God’s Son – and she will name him after His Father: Yeshua, Joshua, Iesous in Greek, Jesu in Latin, Jesus in English. A new Yeshua – the name means “Yahweh is salvation”. Yeshua ben Yahweh. Yeshua, the Son of Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Yeshua will be the fulfillment of the prophecy, “And you shall call him Emanu-el – God with us.” A new Yeshua – the first Joshua took over leadership of the Israelites after Moses gave them the law and then died, Joshua led the people into the Promised Land. The new Yeshua would lead all people into the Promised Land, all people who would follow, all people who would choose to follow this new leader, the “God with us”.
It would have been easy for Mary to turn inward and speak of her own goodness – for she WAS good, a virgin, a faithful girl toward her fiancée, a man named Joseph. But Mary doesn’t do that.
Mary speaks of the goodness of God, what God has done for her, what God has done for Mary’s people, what God does – and not what she has done, for Mary knows that she has done nothing special. She was offered a gift and she said “whatever God wants is ok with me”. And because of that open obedience, Mary will become known throughout history as the Theo tokos – the bearer of God.
We often make a big deal out of the holiness of Mary, assuming that there was something extra special about Mary. Some denominations have gone so far as to declare that Mary’s own conception was something extraordinary, that she was conceived without sin, and that she remained a virgin for her entire life. That may be so – but that does not have to be so.
For God had and has the power to step into anyone’s life. There was no need for Mary to be particularly pure and holy to carry Jesus – look at the unsanitary and downright dirty location of His birth in a manger, surrounded by livestock and what livestock leave lying around. Look at the normal mingling with friends and enemies of all moral character of His life, the fact that He ate and spoke and spent the night at homes of people who were far, far, far from holy.
No. Mary did not need to particularly pure and holy to carry Jesus. We want her that way so we can emphasize the special natures of Jesus, for that gives us more of an excuse when we don’t act very much like Jesus – “Well, Jesus had the advantage of having God for a Father and Holy Mary for a mother.” It allows us to blame our father and our mother for our faults, doesn’t it?
No, Mary didn’t have to be holy to carry Jesus – in fact, it is the carrying of God’s Son in her womb that made her holy to us. And so it is with all people.
We have a mistaken impression that we must be holy to come to God. Deep down, we feel that we must be someone special to come forward to God. Different people have told Saundra and I that they aren’t good enough for communion, good enough to be baptized, good enough to become a Christian. They feel that somehow they must work harder and harder and longer before they will be good enough for God. I’ve asked people to serve communion, to read scripture, to teach classes, to do various functions and many people are amazed that they’ve been selected, because they thought they weren’ t good enough for God to use them in that way.
Yet, we become holy when we walk with God. Mary became holy because she carried God's Son, she did not carry God's Son because she was holy. Pastors become holy because we walk with God daily and speak with Him and read of Him. Gradually God’s holiness wears off on us, pastors do not begin holy – and it takes a very long time for pastors to become holy. And so it is with all people. Have you ever noticed that holy people tend to have white hair? It takes time to become holy.
If you desire holiness, walk with God, speak to God, read God’s Word, do God’s work, talk to people about God, represent God to your friends, pray to God with sick people, take homebound people Christ's body and blood, point people to God.
Have you ever gone on a walk with God? Do you ever just take a walk and speak with God as you walk around your house, in the woods, down the street, at the mall?
Do you speak to God? Not a formal prayer, but just a talk, the way you do to your closest friend when you have something to talk about that you are really passionate about? Do you speak with God as you would a close friend?
Do you read God’s Word – do you sit down in the morning or the evening and just read through the New Testament until the wee hours of the night? Have you ever read any of the Gospels at one sitting, ever sat down and read a half-dozen Psalms out loud? Do you read God’s Word?
When do you do God’s work? Is it something you do once a year, once a decade, once in a while or do you regularly do chores for God? Do you serve at the mission, work the food pantry, teach a Bible study in your home or at McDonalds? I know you work hard, but do you do God’s work?
Do you talk to people about God? Who was the last person outside of the church that you talked to about God? Or, for that matter, do you even talk to people inside this church about God or do you prefer to talk about the weather, the Mountaineers, or politics? Which people in your life do you talk to about God, who is supposed to be your first love, but is often more often treated like your crazy uncle that you never mention?
And when things come up in conversation, do you represent God to your friends, do you defend God and the church, or do you quietly look for the exits, avoiding letting people know that you are proud of the God you serve and will not allow your God to be bad-mouthed?
And when your friends and relatives are sick, do you say, “Let’s pray to God and ask for healing?” Do you pray for sick people? Do you pray in their presence? Or do you let that happen in church, in Sunday school, and when the pastor comes to visit?
Have you ever taken a homebound person the body and blood of Christ? Have you ever thought that perhaps that spiritual food might be just what they need? Or have you just considered that one day, when - and if - they return to church, they’ll be able to enjoy Communion? Is it because you are afraid that you are not holy enough to act as a pallbearer for Christ? Or is it because you never thought about it because, after all, it isn’t that important for you?
Have you ever simply talked to someone who is hurting or lost or confused or down in the dumps and pointed them to the God who is there, the God you claim to worship, the God who is watching you at this very moment as you try to avoid God’s eyes? When did you last point someone to Christ?
For you see, each of these actions are the things you do if you desire to become holy, to become closer to God, to become more like Christ. We actually have to walk with our Lord each day as the disciples did for three years, talking with Him, asking Him questions, listening to Him, doing what He asks. This is the path to holiness.
And yet…you can do all these things and never, ever become holy.
"What? Pastor, why can’t I become holy?"
Because all of these things require God in the persons of the Holy Spirit, and God’s son to be with you. To walk with God requires God to walk with you. Speaking to God requires God to listen to you. Reading God’s Word requires God to first speak that Word. Doing God’s work requires God to first give us work, talking to people about God means that God must first do something worth talking about, representing God to our friends means that God must first exist and give us friends, praying to God with sick people means that God must first lead us to sick people and give them the hope that God will heal them, taking homebound people God’s body and blood means that God’s Son Jesus Christ must first have had His body broken and bled that blood, pointing people to God means that God must become visible, and thus becoming holy means that God must choose to allow you to become holy, for you cannot become the least bit holy until God acts in your life as God has acted in every other person’s life since God created the first person!
Mary did not become Jesus’ mother because she was holy. Mary became holy because she was Jesus’ mother.
But there was something that Mary did which few women would have done. And doing that one thing was probably why Mary was chosen. She agreed to let God do whatever God thought best in her life. She was open to God working in her life. And she did what God asked her.
Yet even here, God did not need her agreement. God, who created the Universe, destroyed entire cities, raised volcanoes and leveled land with earthquakes could have forced Mary to have God’s child. But that is not the character of God.
God is polite, and never forces. And this is what makes God’s character so high. This is one reason we love God – because God gave us the choice to sin or not in the Garden of Eden, and God gave Mary the choice to bear Jesus or not in Nazareth, and God even gave Jesus the choice of death on Good Friday.
God gives us the choice. He gives us the choice to follow the path of holiness – or not. What is your choice?
What does it mean to have a God who so much wants us to develop wisdom that God gives our race the opportunity to experience famine and death and sickness and warfare for thousands of years rather than to take away our ability to say “God, I won’t follow You today?”
What does it mean to have a God who picks a young girl who is helpless, yet gives her the choice to bring part of God directly into this world, when the Creator of the Universe voluntarily gives up all of that power and instead choose to put Himself into the body and the arms of a teenage girl to feed Him, to protect Him, to teach Him what it means to be human?
What does it mean to have a God that allows His created creatures to kill Him one day by the most painful, terrible method known, and yet says just before His death – “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing?”
It means a deep, deep love, a love that is ready to endure any hardship, any torture, even death itself for the sake of those who are loved. Even for those who choose to ignore Him six days a week, or even seven days a week.
St Augustine, the great bishop of the church around 400 AD, tried to understand that mystery that we call the Holy Trinity – God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. He finally concluded that what makes these three persona a single God is that they have the same will.
The writer of Hebrews wrote: [Jesus] said, “Here I am, I have come to do [the Father’s ]will.” … 10 And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
What Mary did not realize at first was that God’s will was that her body should bring God onto the earth as a human, growing, walking, talking, and preaching, and ultimately dying a sacrificial death so that God’s will would make us all holy through that “sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all.”
Look around – there are people here who have become holy, there are people who are becoming holy, and there are people who have just a touch of holiness. Almost everyone here has been set aside for God – not by their own works, not by their own goodness, not because they’ve worked hard to understand their Bible and not because they’ve prayed long hours.
Each of us has become holy because Jesus Christ, the Son of God, declared that we would be free from the chains that bind us to the world, the chains called sin, addiction, fear, death, and hatred. Instead, we have become caught up in a cloud of glory that follows God wherever Jesus and the Holy Spirit choose to go – a cloud called holiness, a cloud called righteousness, a cloud called peace, a cloud called life, a cloud called love.
If Jesus had not died upon the cross, few people would be speaking of Him today, for He would be just another philosopher and teacher in a long line that includes Confucius, Plato, and Aristotle. But because Jesus died upon that cross, we have become holy, set apart for God, our lives changed, and our future certain of eternal life. Will you remember this and act as holy people, a holy priesthood of God representing God upon this earth?
So Thursday Evening or Friday, as you gather with family and friends to celebrate the birth of Christ, remember that it is Jesus who made Mary holy, it is Jesus who made Peter and Paul holy saints, and it is Jesus who has given you holiness and given you hope for the future. Tell your friends and family this as we remember the God that so trusted us that He emptied Himself of all power so that He could be born as a human, live as a human, and die as a human. Thankfully, He did what no other human could do by Himself – He came back to life once again. And this is how we know that Jesus was exactly who He said He was – the Almighty God, the Creator of the Universe, God walking upon earth, Emanu-el – God with us.
And so, please join with me as we-who-have-been-made-holy recite together Mary’s Song, the Magnifi-cant.
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced 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,
just as he promised our ancestors.”
Just as Mary was open to God working in her life, are you open to God working in your life? Or are you holding back, with part of your mind saying “God, come in” and part of your mind saying, “God, stay out?”
As people whom God has made holy, you have nothing to fear from God. And so I encourage you to be as Mary and as Jesus and as many people throughout the ages– open to the Holy Spirit, and open to doing the Father’s will. Ask God to tell you His will for you this Christmas!
God gives us the choice. He gives us the choice to follow the path of holiness – or not. What is your choice?
What does it mean to have a God who so much wants us to develop wisdom that God gives our race the opportunity to experience famine and death and sickness and warfare for thousands of years rather than to take away our ability to say “God, I won’t follow You today?”
What does it mean to have a God who picks a young girl who is helpless, yet gives her the choice to bring part of God directly into this world, when the Creator of the Universe voluntarily gives up all of that power and instead choose to put Himself into the body and the arms of a teenage girl to feed Him, to protect Him, to teach Him what it means to be human?
What does it mean to have a God that allows His created creatures to kill Him one day by the most painful, terrible method known, and yet says just before His death – “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing?”
It means a deep, deep love, a love that is ready to endure any hardship, any torture, even death itself for the sake of those who are loved. Even for those who choose to ignore Him six days a week, or even seven days a week.
St Augustine, the great bishop of the church around 400 AD, tried to understand that mystery that we call the Holy Trinity – God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. He finally concluded that what makes these three persona a single God is that they have the same will.
The writer of Hebrews wrote: [Jesus] said, “Here I am, I have come to do [the Father’s ]will.” … 10 And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
What Mary did not realize at first was that God’s will was that her body should bring God onto the earth as a human, growing, walking, talking, and preaching, and ultimately dying a sacrificial death so that God’s will would make us all holy through that “sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all.”
Look around – there are people here who have become holy, there are people who are becoming holy, and there are people who have just a touch of holiness. Almost everyone here has been set aside for God – not by their own works, not by their own goodness, not because they’ve worked hard to understand their Bible and not because they’ve prayed long hours.
Each of us has become holy because Jesus Christ, the Son of God, declared that we would be free from the chains that bind us to the world, the chains called sin, addiction, fear, death, and hatred. Instead, we have become caught up in a cloud of glory that follows God wherever Jesus and the Holy Spirit choose to go – a cloud called holiness, a cloud called righteousness, a cloud called peace, a cloud called life, a cloud called love.
If Jesus had not died upon the cross, few people would be speaking of Him today, for He would be just another philosopher and teacher in a long line that includes Confucius, Plato, and Aristotle. But because Jesus died upon that cross, we have become holy, set apart for God, our lives changed, and our future certain of eternal life. Will you remember this and act as holy people, a holy priesthood of God representing God upon this earth?
So Thursday Evening or Friday, as you gather with family and friends to celebrate the birth of Christ, remember that it is Jesus who made Mary holy, it is Jesus who made Peter and Paul holy saints, and it is Jesus who has given you holiness and given you hope for the future. Tell your friends and family this as we remember the God that so trusted us that He emptied Himself of all power so that He could be born as a human, live as a human, and die as a human. Thankfully, He did what no other human could do by Himself – He came back to life once again. And this is how we know that Jesus was exactly who He said He was – the Almighty God, the Creator of the Universe, God walking upon earth, Emanu-el – God with us.
And so, please join with me as we-who-have-been-made-holy recite together Mary’s Song, the Magnifi-cant.
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced 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,
just as he promised our ancestors.”
Just as Mary was open to God working in her life, are you open to God working in your life? Or are you holding back, with part of your mind saying “God, come in” and part of your mind saying, “God, stay out?”
As people whom God has made holy, you have nothing to fear from God. And so I encourage you to be as Mary and as Jesus and as many people throughout the ages– open to the Holy Spirit, and open to doing the Father’s will. Ask God to tell you His will for you this Christmas!
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