Magnify the Lord with Me (Part 1)
Luke 1:46-48
Mary magnified the Lord.
A magnifying glass, binoculars, or telescope zooms in on an object so it becomes larger in our eyes. The result is that we see that object more closely and value it more highly.
How did Mary make the Lord large? Not with a magnifying glass, but with her words. Luke tells us what she said (Luke 1:46-55). He also tells us where her words came from, from in her spirit. “Her spirit rejoiced in God her Savior” (Luke 1:47). Mary magnified the Lord by revealing what God was doing within her spirit. If she hadn’t told us these things, we would never have known what was happening inside.
Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a magnifier. When she realized that God had chosen her to give birth to the Messiah, she magnified the Lord.
How do we know she did this? She said, “My soul magnifies the Lord” (Luke 1:46). Perhaps you’re familiar with the Latin version of this song called the Magnificat. This Latin title means “enlarge” and here it refers to Mary’s desire to enlarge the Lord. The Greek word means “to make large” or “to honor highly.”
Why did she do this? Why did she go public with her private feelings? For two reasons:
- First, she zoomed in on what God had done for her as an individual. “For he has regarded the lowly state of his maidservant” (Luke 1:48) and “for he who is mighty has done great things for me” (Luke 1:49). She magnified the Lord because he had focused on her and done great things for her. This fact overwhelmed her.
- Second, she zoomed in even further on what God had done for her nation and the world. Notice how she expands both of her reasons for magnifying the Lord with “all generations” (Luke 1:48) and “from generation to generation” (Luke 1:49). She magnified the big-picture, long-term results of God’s blessing in her personal life.
We’ve mentioned that magnify means “to make large,” but what does rejoice mean here? It’s not the general, regular word for joy or happiness but is a special word that means “to be extremely glad or overjoyed.” It refers to a kind of joy that springs up inside when you understand and embrace spiritual truth from God.
“To rejoice” here portrays the strong form of joy and elation you feel when you have a “lightbulb moment” about something pertaining to God. It’s not understanding something in an intellectual way like “now that makes sense,” but understanding the greater spiritual significance as well, seeing the truth from God’s perspective.
Luke magnified the Lord.
Let’s zoom out for a moment to consider the book of Luke which includes Mary’s song. By magnifying the Lord, Mary did what Luke intended to do with this entire gospel account. He intended to magnify Christ so well that anyone who reads this book would gain a more complete perspective of who Christ was and what he came to do.
At the start of this book, he tells us that intended to give a more complete and detailed perspective on Christ’s identity and mission as God’s Savior of mankind (Luke 1:3).
By zooming in on the details he records, Luke gave us more than a close up look at Christ’s life, teachings, and works. He gave us a wide lens view as well, zooming out far enough that we can see the full scope of Christ’s mission.
Christ had come into the world not only for a few individuals or the nation of Israel alone but for people from the entire world.
- That’s why he recorded how the angel told the shepherds that Christ’s coming was good news “for all people” (Luke 2:10-11).
- It’s also why he traced Christ’s genealogy back to Adam as the father of all people, not just to Abraham as the father of the Hebrew nation (Luke 3:38).
Speaking of science, magnification, history, and discovery, we should point out that Luke was not just an author, he was a kind of scientist, too. He was a medical doctor, a physician who had traveled with Paul on his missionary journeys (Col 4:14).
While he put his medical skills to use keeping Paul alive and supporting the health of the entire team, he also did something else. He familiarized himself with the documents people had written about the life of Christ and interviewed people who had known and served with Jesus (Luke 1:1-2).
I mention this because it gives us fascinating background on what the first chapter says:
- Luke recorded the birth and delivery accounts of two women, Elizabeth and Mary, from the perspective of a medical doctor. This gives credibility to what he wrote.
- Luke likely received this information from Mary herself. How else would he know the details of this private conversation between Mary and her cousin Elizabeth or the episodes of Christ’s childhood which Mary “kept [or treasured] privately in her heart” as a mother (Luke 2:51)?
From Acts, Luke’s sequel to this book, we discover that Luke had traveled with Paul. We also see he was with Paul for an extended stay in Ephesus. This is significant because John the apostle also lived and served in Ephesus and we also know that Christ had given John the duty of caring for his mother, Mary (John 19:26-27).
From this background information, we can reasonably conclude that Luke spent quality time with Mary in her older years, asking questions about what it was like to be Christ’s mother. As she talked, he wrote down what we read in this gospel with the accuracy and thoughtfulness of a caring, skilled physician.
Thanks to Luke’s painstaking efforts, we’re able to know things today that Mary experienced, felt, and knew as the mother of Jesus (cf. Luke 2:51). Little did he realize how greatly his efforts would magnify the Lord to the world for generations to come.
In a total of four studies, we’ll take a closer look at how Mary’s song magnifies the Lord. Doing this will prepare our hearts to comprehend the significance of Christ’s birth to a greater degree. As a result, we’ll get a more close-up, in-depth view of God that makes him larger in our eyes – and isn’t that what Christ came to do?
Mary magnified the Lord as her master.
She said, “My soul magnifies the Lord” (Luke 1:46). While this title carries over profound significance from the Old Testament (OT) by its connection to God’s personal name, Yahweh, Mary seems to have a more specific idea in view here.
Mary’s song follows a similar pattern to OT psalms and poetry which we call Hebrew parallelism. This pattern often pairs two lines together as a couplet to express a complete idea, then it strings these couplets together one after another to paint a larger idea.
In the first line, Mary calls God “the Lord” (Luke 1:46), then in the first line of the next couplet she calls herself “his maidservant” (Luke 1:47). The word Lord here means “master” and the word maidservant refers to a female slave.
Mary considered herself to be a committed servant of God. This was her mindset from the moment the angel explained God’s plan to her. Once she learned that she would be the mother of the Messiah, she said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).
Do you view God as your master?
Though we recoil today at the thought of being a slave, we should make at least one exception in our minds. We should never recoil at the thought of being God’s slave. As our master, he never treats us with cruelty or contempt. As Mary will say later in her song, he is a master who “does great things” for his servants, “shows mercy” to his servants, “exalts the lowly,” and “fills the hungry with food.”
To live as a servant of God does not mean that you’ll live a comfortable or easy life. Mary, for instance, faced many hardships.
- She married a lower-class carpenter
- She was widowed as a young mother with four sons and at least two daughters to care for, maybe more (Mark 6:3).
- She carried the reputation of an immoral woman since people who didn’t comprehend the virgin birth wrongly believed that she and Joseph had improper relations before they were married (John 8:41).
- She watched the brutal execution of her oldest son as a heinous criminal (John 19:26-27).
Did she know she would endure all these things? Probably not, but neither did any of this suffering erase her exemplary position.
I like how the Apache Indian language translates this as: “‘I the-one-who-works-for-him who-am-not-great’”[1] When we comprehend the greatness of God, we will understand his right to be our master and we will submit ourselves to do whatever he wants us to do.
Our greatest honor and meaning in life comes not from material and social advancement but from understanding our place in God’s plan for bringing Christ to the world and then participating in that plan wholeheartedly.
Are you doing what God expects you to do to bring his salvation to the world? If so, what have you suffered for doing so?
Mary magnified God as her Savior.
Mary not only magnified God as her master, but she magnified him as her Savior. In what way did she experience the salvation of God? She said it was “because he has regarded [her] lowly estate” (Luke 1:48).
To “look upon” means to more than to see or notice something. It means to look closely at something and pay careful, focused attention to it. That’s what Mary said God had done for her, he had not only noticed her situation, but he intervened.
Here Mary refers to her “lowly estate” (Luke 1:48). We can’t be sure what this means because she doesn’t explain her misfortune in detail, but it does refer to some kind of unfortunate position in life. Perhaps it refers to how the Roman Empire was ruling over her nation, Israel, or perhaps it refers to her place in a lower-class layer of society.
Whatever the case, God had noticed her life on the fringe and in the shadows of this world and he took action to rescue her for something greater. As the angel had said, she would give birth to a son who would be acknowledged not only as king over the nation of Israel but as High King over all – “the Son of the Highest” (Luke 1:32-33).
Mary was not the first to call God her Savior. Throughout the OT, the word “Savior” describes God 35 times and people only five times (e.g., Psa 24:5; 25:5; 95:1; Mic 7:7; Hab 3:18).[2] God did not become the Savior of his people in the New Testament (NT), he has always been the Savior of his people and continues to be so today.
Now, up until this song of Mary Luke hasn’t specifically described Jesus as our Savior from sin and death. He has focused instead on Christ’s role as the Savior of his people as a king who triumphs over ungodly rulers and places his people in a position of authority and blessing beside him. Even here, Mary is referring more to God the Father or God in general than she is to Jesus Christ and she is referring to God as her Savior for giving her the privilege of being Christ’s mother.
I say this to point out how Luke seems to be building up to a more specific focus on Christ’s role as our Savior from sins later in the book. It’s not until the end of a speech by John the Baptist’s father, Zacharias, that we learn how Christ’s salvation will include “remission of sins,” (Luke 1:77) a theme that John the Baptist would continue in his preaching ministry years later (Luke 3:3).
I say all that to say that the salvation Mary focuses on in her song is how God had rescued her from a difficult, low-lying position in the world. Though she trusted in the Lord by faith, she had been overlooked by society and lived what seemed to be an insignificant life. But now her fortunes had changed forever (literally for “all generations,” Luke 1:48).
By a change of fortunes, I don’t mean that she became an immediate success by the world’s standards. As we’ve already noted, her life actually became more difficult instead. Yet because of what God had chosen her to be and do, her life moved from insignificant to significant, meaningless to meaningful.
That’s what God does and not just for Mary. He gives everlasting meaning and purpose to meaningless and purposeless lives. He rescues us from meaningless, purposeless lives that are limited by material and temporal boundaries. Though no one but Mary would become the mother of the Messiah, God continues to place people like us into his plan for bringing the message of that Messiah and God’s coming kingdom to the world.
Let’s glance back at two occasions in the OT when God “looked upon” (same terminology that Mary used here) the misfortune of his people.
God delivered the Hebrew people from slavery.
The descendants of Abraham, to whom God had promised the land of Palestine, were forced into lives of painful, excruciating slavery.
“The Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor [violence]. And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage—in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them serve was with rigor [violence].”
Exodus 1:13-14
“The children of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage. So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God acknowledged them.”
Exodus 2:23-25
“We cried out to the LORD God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice and looked on our affliction and our labor and our oppression. So the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders.”
Deuteronomy 26:7
God paid close attention to his people’s misfortune and delivered them so that they could participate in his plan to bring redemption and establish his kingdom in the world (just as he will do on a worldwide scale in the future, per Revelation).
Mary identified with this deliverance using similar language in her song and believed that God choosing her to be the mother of the Messiah was just as astounding.
God delivered Hannah from a barren womb.
Later in Israel’s history, similar language of God having “looked upon” a godly woman named Hannah. Her husband had two wives the other gave birth to children, but Hannah was unable to conceive. So, she prayed to the Lord fervently that he would intervene in her natural condition and give her a child.
“She was in bitterness of soul and prayed to the LORD and wept in anguish. Then she made a vow and said, “O LORD of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your maidservant and remember me, and not forget your maidservant, but will give your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head”
1 Samuel 1:11
In answer to Hannah’s prayer, God gave her a son named Samuel who would go on to be his prophet to the nation of Israel whose most significant achievement would be anointing David to be the king of Israel. In answer to this prayer, Hannah responded in a similar way to Mary centuries later.
See if you can notice the similarities. The similarities are so strong that it would be reasonable to conclude that Mary was so familiar with this prayer that she quoted words from it in her own song of praise.
“My heart rejoices in the LORD; My horn is exalted in the LORD. I smile at my enemies because I rejoice in your salvation. No one is holy like the LORD, for there is none besides you, nor is there any rock like our God. Talk no more so very proudly; let no arrogance come from your mouth, for the LORD is the God of knowledge; and by him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty men are broken, and those who stumbled are girded with strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, and the hungry have ceased to hunger. Even the barren has borne seven, and she who has many children has become feeble. The LORD kills and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and brings up. The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and lifts up. He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the beggar from the ash heap, to set them among princes and make them inherit the throne of glory. For the pillars of the earth are the LORD’s, and he has set the world upon them.”
1 Samuel 2:1-8
From what misfortunes has God delivered you?
As we consider how Mary magnified the Lord when he delivered her from misfortune, it is appropriate to examine our own lives. From what misfortunes as God delivered us?
Has God delivered you from physical or social misfortune?
Abandonment. Abuse. Addiction. Confusion. Debt. Depression. Disease. Failure. False accusations. False religion. Fear. Homelessness. Hopelessness. Hunger. Ignorance. Illness. Isolation. Rejection. Poverty. Violence.
Whatever your misfortune may have been, don’t fail to magnify the Lord through your words. Tell people what God has done. Let them know where you came from and what he did to give your life real meaning.
Most importantly, be sure that you are recognizing him as your Lord and embracing your obligation to be his servant. Be like Mary and say, “Yes, Lord, I will do whatever you want me to do no matter what.”
Has God delivered you from spiritual misfortune?
Has God delivered you from your sins? Have you placed full faith and trust in Jesus as your God and Savior? After all, God didn’t send Christ into the world to deliver us *only* from physical and social misfortune. He sent him to deliver us from the *spiritual* misfortune of our sin.
To receive this deliverance – God’s greatest gift – you must turn away from your sin, other religious beliefs, and your tendency to trust in yourself. You must acknowledge your arrogance and pride and confess your sinfulness before God. You must trust in Christ alone as God and Savior. If you will respond to God in this way, then he will forgive your sins entirely and place you into his kingdom eternally.
[1] J. Reiling and J. L. Swellengrebel, A Handbook on the Gospel of Luke, UBS Handbook Series (New York: United Bible Societies, 1993), 72.
[2] Robert H. Stein, Luke, vol. 24, New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1992), 91.
