Did you know that there are over 50,000 Christmas songs as recorded in the Blocker research database? So what’s your favorite Christmas song? A modern Christmas song that I have come to really like is called “Born is the King (It’s Christmas)”. Several artist have their renditions, but I like Philips, Craig, and Deans version the best. It’s a get your heart pumpin’ kick off to Christmas type of song. Take a listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlsMzzvbH3g
Christmas songs that focus on Jesus, are exclamations about the excitement that is Christmas. And it’s that exclamation that brings us into our Christmas series where we are going to look at four exclamations that come about because of Christmas.
The first of these is Mary’s Song, or as it is also known, the Magnificat. This first exclamation comes from Luke chapter 1, verse 46. Let’s read through this exclamation and then walk through why Mary sings what she does.
46 And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
50 His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
55 to Abraham and his descendants forever,
just as he promised our ancestors.”
This song comes after Mary experiences two events. First in verses 26-38, Mary is visited in the town of Nazareth by the angel Gabriel. It’s here that she is told that she is highly favored by God, and will conceive a boy who will be called Jesus.
She asked how could it happen since she’s a virgin. The angel Gabriel tells her, that the Holy Spirit will come upon her, the power of the Most High will overshadow her, therefore the child she conceives will be called holy and the Son of God.
It’s here that the angel then directs Mary to Elizabeth; an aunt of Marys’, who is much older and who was thought to be physically unable to have children. Through God’s power though, Elizabeth was now carrying a child herself.
At this, Mary makes a life changing step of faith when she says, “I am the Lord’s servant…May your word to me be fulfilled (v. 38).” At this Gabriel leaves Mary.
This leads into the second event that Mary experiences. After being told that she would conceive a child who would be called holy and the Son of God, Mary leaves to visit her aunt Elizabeth. Though Mary is trusting what the angel has said, it seems that she wants confirmation. There she finds her older, supposedly barren aunt, pregnant. And she is strongly greeted by her aunt, “42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!’”
And it’s from this greeting by Mary’s once barren aunt that the her song rings out. And the first words of that song are the Magnificat, “My soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
Her very being is erupting in magnified praise of God. She has seen with her own eyes that the angel’s words about her would come true, because they were confirmed by her own aunt.
Within her magnified praise, she recognizes how low she is. She’s not a queen, or an aristocrat. She has nothing to offer God Most High, yet through her, she recognizes that generation upon generation will call her blessed. Because she is. And though nothing has happened so far, she recognizes the work of God being already accomplished even before it is fully seen. And she calls God holy, because he does what he does for great purpose.
What comes next focuses on the un-yet seen fulfillment, but already accomplished reality. God’s mercy is for those who pay him reverent fear; who recognize his power and bow at his feet. Them and their children and their children are shown mercy when they also pay God the reverence he is deserving.
Then she sings of a dichotomy. God scatters the proud and brings rulers to nothing. Yet he lifts up those that are humble, those who acknowledge God as he is, greater than all. And those who are hungry, they are filled with the good things of God, while the rich lose it all.
Finally, Mary recognizes that what God is at work doing in her, is what he always does, fulfills his promises to his covenant people Israel. Though it has been over 400 years since God spoke through a prophet in Israel, God did not die; he was not defeated; he did not slumber. No, God was at work bringing about his mercy to his people. He was at work fulfilling his promise to Abraham’s descendants.
And that’s where the song ends, in the promise of God being fulfilled. In this child, who will be Jesus, who will be called holy, and the Son of God, the promises of the covenant with Israel will be realized. From that moment that God called Abraham away from his father, every step the nation of Israel took, through Egypt, past Sinai, into Canaan, and to and from Babylon, led to this moment. The promised prophet of Moses, the coming king of David, the long awaited Messiah is merely months away.
And everything in Mary sees that moment ahead and she exclaims that the promise is right before them, growing in her womb. This is Christmas, not the lights, the trees, the presents, or even the day; Christmas is the fulfillment of almost two thousand years of preparation by God through the covenant he made with Israel. Christmas is a promise fulfilled by God who is the Keeper of Promises.
As Christians, our very beings should be magnified in praise of God for what he has done. Because we stand on the other side of that first Christmas, we stand on the side of so many more promises of God fulfilled in the cross and the resurrection. We stand with one promise on the horizon, a second Christmas, one in which Jesus does come as a child to die, but as the universe’s King to bring his people to himself in eternity.
As we celebrate this Christmas, let us celebrate it whole-heartedly. Mary recognized it for the magnificent work of God that it was, let us do the same.
My challenge for you is this, for the next week, start your mornings off with Mary’s opening line to her song, "My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…” Recognize all that God has fulfilled, and look forward to what lies before us that is yet fulfilled.
Every worship song to Jesus is a Christmas song, it is an Easter song, and it his returning of the King song. Let those songs well up in us that our souls might magnify our praise to God our Savior. Amen
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