Glorified in us
Readings: Luke 1. 39-56
Mary’s song, the Magnificat, as the church calls it after the first word of it in Latin, is said every day at evening prayer or evensong, it’s one of the key parts of our liturgy, much like the song of Zechariah, the Benedictus, which we said a few moments ago and is said at every morning prayer. We can become so used to it it becomes mundane, ordinary, boring. And yet in this song we see both the shape of praise and the reason for praise as Mary expertly weaves together the Scriptures in worship to God.
Mary is often held up as a wonderful example of faith and obedience, and with good reason. The Archangel Gabriel comes to her and tells her God’s plan and she responds openly, ‘let it be to me as you say’. And in that brief conversation with Gabriel, where she asks how this might happen as she’s a virgin, where she responds to his words with faith, we get a glimpse of her faith, her trust in God. And now here we see it on full display.
She’s well versed in the Scriptures, her words echo those of Hannah in 1 Samuel but also expand them, build upon them, drawing on all sorts of other passages. She hasn’t just read the Scriptures, they’ve shaped her, soaked into her, become a part of who she is. And she has taken the words she finds there not simply into her head as knowledge, but into her heart in deep faith and trust.
And so as Elizabeth greets her, as the unborn John the Baptist in her womb recognises in the womb of Mary the one for whom he will prepare the way, the one for whom all God’s people have waited so long, as Elizabeth exclaims how blessed Mary is, what does Mary do? She bursts into song, not about herself, but about the God who has blessed her.
‘My soul glorifies (or in many translations magnifies) the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour’. Mary is glorifying God, magnifying him, but how can she do this? Because her spirit rejoices in God her Saviour. Soul and spirit here are interchangeable, as in most Hebrew poetry, they’re not referring to different things. She magnifies God, because she rejoices in who He is and what He does.
The American Baptist Pastor John Piper coined the term ‘Christian hedonism’, the idea of it being a counter to the wider culture’s hedonism – pleasure seeking. And the core idea of Christian hedonism is that ‘God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in him’. It’s a wonderful truth, one which we find right here at the opening of Mary’s song. She glorifies God wonderfully, precisely because she is satisfied in him, and not merely satisfied as though just about content, but overflowing joyfully in this God who has blessed her.
This is the true shape of praise, a heart which overflows in the joy of the God we worship, a heart which truly finds satisfaction, ultimate fulfilment in and through God. And it’s this heart which means when God sends an angel to explain God’s plan, her response isn’t one of fear, ‘what will Joseph think, what will the neighbours think, what will my family think?’ Instead the answer is yes, so caught up in the praise of the God she rejoices in, she is almost self-forgetful, and in being self-forgetful is able to give herself more fully to God. Mary is fully satisfied in God, she isn’t concerned with anything else, they may come across her mind, of course they might, but her actions, her words, reveal one who is truly satisfied in God, truly knowing that she has all that she needs in him.
‘God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him’, I wonder what keeps you from being truly satisfied in God, what steals away your contentment? What if God asked you to give it up would make you pause and think; perhaps not. Mary risks everything, her marriage and future life with Joseph, her social standing, she even risks her life as under the law those found to have committed adultery, as would be presumed of her, can be stoned to death. Yet her soul magnifies the Lord and her spirit really does rejoice in God her Saviour. What would it take to grow a heart like Mary?
Well the reason for her praise is a good start. Notice how once she moves past rejoicing in the favour God has shown her, and that’s only brief, the rest focusses on God, and not on who God is or what He is like, but on what He does. Have you ever noticed that? It’s not about character traits or promises, important as they are, it’s about what God does.
Her reasons for praise are concrete, things you can point to. She doesn’t say he is just, she tells of what that justice looks like, she doesn’t say he has compassion, she tells what that compassion looks like in action. A God who casts down those who are proud, high and mighty and self occupied, and raises up the lowly, the powerless and the weak. Here is a God who doesn’t show his strength by recruiting the mighty to enhance His glory and prestige, but who lifts up the weak and lowly, scattering the proud and boastful. Here is a God who isn’t just just, but ensures true justice, a God who isn’t just compassionate, but whose compassion means he intervenes and acts, a God who isn’t just powerful, but uses that power on behalf of the powerless and helpless.
In our present climate I think everyone is a bit sick of words, whether it’s in politics or the church or the wider world or our own lives, people who say they’ll do something, or sort something out, or fix something, but never actually do anything about it. Talk is cheap, and the wider world is rather done with it, what are you actually going to do? And yet here, in the words of Mary, is a God who doesn’t talk, he acts, decisively and perfectly, intervenes and acts in the cause of justice and compassion, who comes as Saviour to rescue and redeem. This God isn’t all just words, His actions back it up.
Mary knows who this God is from being soaked in Scripture as I referenced at the start. And so a good place to start if we want to grow in praise, grow in our satisfaction with God, is to discover him for ourselves in the pages of Scripture, to read of the actions of this God who turns the world upside down in the cause of the powerless. To discover in the pages of our Bible’s the one who has come as Saviour and rescuer in the person of Jesus Christ, who comes in humility and weakness even to death, all for our sake. The Scriptures are to be the bedrock for our praise, here is the concrete and reliable evidence of who God is, what He has done.
And yet Mary’s song also takes in what God has done for her, ‘he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant’. It’s not just that God is all those things to other people, it’s not just that God has proven what He is like in the past, God is those things to me, look at how he has blessed me in the here and now in my life.
If we want to glorify God, be more satisfied in him, we need to be that much more aware of what He is doing in our lives, what He has done for us. Because Jesus is born for you, He has come to die and rise again to rescue and deliver you. And if your faith is in Him, His Spirit is at work in you. And that same Spirit will bring to completion the work He has begun in you, in readiness for when you meet him face to face. In accordance with his promises long ago, He has been merciful to you.
And that’s the big stuff, God is good to us and blesses us day by day in so many ways if we have eyes to notice his hand at work around us. If you’re struggling with contentment a good discipline might be to sit down at the end of each day and look back over it for those moments where God was at work, and to make a note of them, over the coming months and year you’ll build a collection of moments which reveals the God who can be trusted, who you can be content in, who your soul can magnify and rejoice in.
My brothers and sisters, if we want souls that magnify God, that rejoice in Him, we need to cultivate patterns of recognising His handiwork, recognise in His works His immense goodness, mercy and love. Through the words of Scripture, through his saving of us through Jesus, and through those daily moments of grace which he gives to us. If God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him, may we daily, like Mary, cultivate a heart which see’s this God who acts, and in response rejoices in Him.
Amen.