Luke 1:46-55 And Mary said, My soul does magnify the Lord,… The events in Mary's life which lead to this burst of joy. I. The first event to be noticed in her life, IS THE HIGH HONOUR GOD UNEXPECTEDLY PUTS ON HER. We find her, in an earlier part of this chapter, living at Nazareth, a city or town of Galilee. Little, however, is said of her rank or condition there. But suddenly comes down an angel from heaven to her, salutes her as the highly favoured of Jehovah, and announces to her that she is the destined mother of the world's Saviour. We often tell you, brethren, that there may be many an unexpected affliction and sorrow awaiting you in the future; we may tell you now that there may be too in that future many unlooked for joys and honours awaiting you. These things, like all others, are in the hands of a sovereign God, and in His wise and holy sovereignty He often pours them out abundantly where they are the least expected. "He hath regarded the lowliness of His handmaiden," says Mary, as though recognizing the pleasure He takes in exalting the humble, and surprising them with manifestations of His love. II. We see next in Mary's life THE PAINFUL TRIAL WITH WHICH THIS HIGH HONOUR WAS ACCOMPANIED. One moment's thought, brethren, will bring this to your minds. The angel appeared to her privately. None saw or heard him but herself. When she tells of his visit and message, who will believe her? and if she is not believed, what in a short time will be her situation: Her character ruined, the world scorning her, her friends mourning over her, and worse — her betrothed husband, the object perhaps of her warmest youthful affections, lost to her, loving her still but casting her off may, her very life endangered, for she will be charged with an offence which, by a Jewish law, is death. Dearly, some would say, will she pay for the honour intended her. But when does God bestow honour on any one without calling on him to pay something for it? We could not bear the Divine mercies, were it not for the afflictions, the sorrows and mortifications, which generally accompany them. III. Observe next in Mary HER SUBMISSIVE ACQUIESCENCE BOTH IN THE HONOUR AND IN THE TRIAL ALLOTTED HER. Moses, when God Himself appears to him at Horeb, and makes known to him that He has chosen him to be the deliverer of His people, begins to debate the matter with God, telling Him He has made a mistake, and chosen a wrong instrument for the accomplishment of His purpose. "Who am I," he asks, "that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? " Mary rises above it all. The angel delivers his message to her. There is no bidding him pass her by and go elsewhere, no telling him of her unworthiness, no obtruding of herself or her own feelings in any way. "Behold the handmaid of the Lord," she says: "be it unto me according to thy word." And that is real humility, which leads us to regard ourselves as God's servants. But Mary was a thoughtful as well as an humble woman. It is more than probable, therefore, that all the consequences which must naturally follow the honour designed for her, rushed at this moment into her mind. The tone of her answer seems to intimate this. And a word from her, we are ready to say, would have averted these consequences. "Go," she might have said to the angel, "to my parents, or go to some of my neighbours and friends, or go to Joseph and tell him what is to happen to me. Save those kind hearts from sorrow, and me from shame." But not a word of the kind comes from her. She looks on honour and dishonour, evil report and good report, with the same calmness. "Come what will," she seems to say, "be it unto me according to thy word." We must now look at her joy. 1. It is clear that it was a joy ACCOMPANIED WITH BOTH AFFLICTION AND SUBMISSION. At Nazareth, Mary's home, all was still dark as before. Ye! Mary is happy; she magnifies the Lord and her spirit rejoices. But what is the promised joy of the gospel? It is abounding joy in abounding tribulation. You must wait, therefore, for your tribulation to abound, before you are warranted to complain or wonder that your spiritual joy does not overflow. But are your trials severe? Then you have to learn that there is no abounding joy for you, till you are perfectly content to have them severe; till your minds are completely reconciled to them; till all murmuring, and rebellion, and impatient struggling to get rid of them, are come to an end. The soul often keeps up a long effort in affliction to make terms with its God. Tribulation must work patience before it can work joy, or hope, or anything pleasant. 2. And this joy before us is A DEEPLY SEATED JOY. "My soul doth magnify the Lord; my spirit hath rejoiced." It was no superficial, transient pleasure, excited in her by Elisabeth's words or kindness; it was a joy lodged deeply within her, filling her heart and soul; quickened and called into outward expression indeed by the sympathy she had experienced, but existing in perfect independence of that sympathy and of all outward things. It is evident that, young as she was, she had a mind and feelings of unusual strength. Her joy partook, therefore, of the character of her mind and feelings. It was a powerful joy. Light minds will have light joys They are not spacious enough for the joy of the Holy Ghost to dwell largely in them. A child must not wonder that it can take little or no share in the pleasures of a man. 3. This joy again IS A SINNER'S JOY IS A SINNER'S GOD. It is joy in a Saviour. Holy as she was, she felt herself a sinner; and her highest joy was not in Elisabeth's kindness, though that must have been at this time a balm indeed to her; nor in the honour the Lord had put on her, though in that she exults; it was in this — that she had found for her guilty soul a mighty, a Divine Saviour. And was there anything wonderful or peculiar in this? Nothing peculiar, for the saints of God in all ages have felt the same. "My heart shall be joyful in the Lord; it shall rejoice in His salvation;" had said her father David long before. The reason is, the Lord in all His dispensations with us deals with us as sinners. There is a peculiarity in His dispensations towards us. He will have a corresponding peculiarity therefore in our conduct and in our feelings towards Him. The worship that He requires of us, is a sinner's worship; the praise we offer Him, must be a sinner's praise; and the joy too we feel in Him, will be a sinner's joy. Nor is this wonderful. Consider what salvation is. It is the restoration of a ruined soul. It is the taking of us from the very gates of hell to heaven. "I would not forget God as my Preserver, my Benefactor, my Comforter, the sole Author and Giver of all my blessings; but if I magnify Him, my soul must magnify Him the most, and if I rejoice in Him, my spirit must rejoice in Him the most, as God my Saviour." 4. And this also we must notice in this joy — it was A JOY THAT WAS THE FRUIT AND EFFECT OF FAITH. It is as a Saviour that we must chiefly rejoice in Him, and His salvation is a future thing, not one of us has received more than an earnest and foretaste of it. Faith therefore becomes a necessary pre-requisite to joy. It is the eye of the soul, which enables it to discern the beauty, and excellency, and glory, of its unseen God; and the reality, greatness, and certainty, of the salvation and blessings He has promised us. We turn to Mary, and in her we see this faith exemplified. As we repeat her words in our service, we are ready to imagine that they must have come from her with the infant Jesus in her arms, that they were a young mother's first words of joy over her new-born babe. But that Jesus is as yet unborn. She is singing here a song of almost pure faith. She is placing God's promises before her mind, and in them she is exulting. And here, brethren, lies the great secret of almost all a Christian's joy — he is living, not a life of sense, but a life of faith. Many of you look to what you have for comfort and happiness; he looks to what he is to have, to what God has promised him, to what the rolling years are to bring him ages and ages hence. This is no delusion, brethren. It is not, as you may suppose, an ideal thing. It is a real thing. There are those now around you, who could tell you that it is a real thing. The joy of Mary's soul in God her Saviour, is a joy they can understand as well as you can understand a parent's joy in his children, or a friend's joy in his friend, or a thirsty man's joy in a fountain, or a weary traveller's joy in his home. It is a joy they have known and felt. (C. Bradley, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, |
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