Amy C Walters

Mary Visits Elizabeth – Luke 1:39-56

Luke gives us very few details about Mary. But in this story of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, we encounter “The Magnificat,” an incredible worship song that reveals a lot about Mary’s view of God and of herself. 

So far, in our stories through Luke, we know very little about Mary. In the previous story, we learned that she is a virgin who is pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, who’s a descendant of David. We know that she lives in Nazareth in Galilee, and we know that she considers herself God’s servant. When the angel delivers this overwhelming message to her, her response was, “Yes, may it be to me as you have said, I’m the Lord’s servant.” But other than that, we don’t know much about her.

In this week’s story, Mary bursts out in worship and song, praising God. This song is called “The Magnificat,” and I think it can reveal to us a lot about Mary, who she is, and her attitude toward God.

Starting off, Mary says, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.”

There it is again, that term “servant.” This is the second time Mary has referred to herself that way.

What does it mean, then, when somebody sees themselves as God’s servant? What does that reveal about them and their view of God?

I think it says that Mary recognizes that her life does not belong to her. She sees her role as being available to her God for him to direct her life, to direct her path, even if it goes in places that she would not have expected. This virgin birth deal is not what she expected, but she sees herself as a servant, available to God.

Now, Mary very well could have started to get a big head about herself, started to grow prideful about herself because she was chosen to be the mother of the Messiah. She very well could have been impressed with herself and with this opportunity. In fact, she says, “All generations will call me blessed.”

Uh oh. Is she getting prideful here? I don’t think so because  she follows that up by saying, “All generations will call me blessed because the mighty one has done great things for me, and his name is holy.”

She acknowledges that the generations will honor her, but it’s not because of anything that she has done–it’s because the mighty God has done great things for her.

We see this very humble attitude for Mary. And throughout the rest of the song, she identifies with the humble. She talks a lot about humility and hunger and “lowly estate” people throughout her song.

She says that God “has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts and brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the humble.” Mary is associating herself with the humble, acknowledging that God exalts them.

“He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.” He knows the thoughts of human hearts and when pride is present.

That is a sobering thing to think about, isn’t it? It’s very easy to say that you are humble and try to put on a veneer of humility. But God sees the thoughts of the hearts, and he knows when there is pride. That’s an important reminder to me to bring my heart before God and ask him to uproot any pride that is there.

But again, Mary is associating with the humble that God exalts, recognizing that the humble do not exalt themselves, it is God who does it for them.

She talks too about how “he fills the hungry with good things but sends the rich away empty.”

Now is Mary saying in her song that rich people are automatically far from God? Powerful people who are rulers and in positions of authority are far from God, while the hungry people, the poor people are closer to him?

In Hebrew poetry, there’s something called parallelism, an idea of restating something with slightly different words, but along the same idea. And I think we see parallelism going on in Mary’s song, because toward the beginning of her song, she talks about how the Lord’s mercy is on “those who fear him from generation to generation.” “Those who fear him,” I believe, is parallel with “those of humble estate,” and parallel with “the hungry.” So we’re seeing different synonyms for the same group of people here. “Those who fear the Lord,” “those who are hungry,” “those of humble estate.”

Mary is not talking here just about physical poverty, physical hunger. There’s a relation to the fear of the Lord in here. So I believe this is referring to people who acknowledge their spiritual poverty before the Lord, their spiritual hunger, their inability to feed themselves spiritually, to do enough good things to earn righteousness.

These people have a fear of the Lord, recognizing that he alone is righteous, he alone is holy, he alone is sinless and perfect.

That’s the group that Mary is associating with here. Those who are spiritually hungry. Those who fear the Lord, who are dependent upon him and his mercy.

You see, Mary has a high view of God and a humble view of herself.

A high view of God, who is mighty and has done great things for her.

A high view of God, who has the power and authority to scatter the proud and the thoughts of their hearts.

Who has the power and the authority to take down the mighty from their thrones and to establish the humble in their place.

You see this same attitude also from Elizabeth. When the Holy Spirit comes upon her after Mary’s greeting and she says, “Who am I that the mother of my Lord should visit me?” She is saying, “Who am I? I don’t deserve such a visit!”

Elizabeth even refers to the baby in Mary’s womb as her “Lord.” “The mother of my Lord should visit me.”  She is saying that this unborn child still in the womb has authority over her life. That she owes that baby loyalty and honor as her Lord.

So that is our key truth for today.

That just like Mary, just like Elizabeth, we need to have a high view of God and a humble view of ourselves.

Now, as we noted above, it’s really easy to pay lip service to that, to say we are humble and yet have pride in our hearts. So what does it look like if someone truly has a high view of God, a humble view of themselves?

I think first of all, we see worship of God, acknowledging God’s greatness, standing in awe of who he is and what he has done. That’s what Mary does at the very beginning of her song. “My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.”

I think this attitude is also revealed in people who are grateful. Because when we recognize our humble estate, we realize that we don’t deserve any of the blessings that we have. That each one is a precious gift from God that is undeserved.

This idea of, “I deserve it,” is a very poisonous idea in our culture. We hear it all the time. But a high view of God and a humble view of yourself recognizes that we don’t deserve these good things from God, but he gives it to us anyway. And that develops in us a great sense of gratitude and an acknowledgement of our dependence upon him.

This attitude also helps us to see ourselves as God’s servant. So someone who has the attitude of a high view of God, a humble view of themself, sees themself as God’s servant. Just like Mary has said twice now, “I am the Lord’s servant.” “He has looked on the humble estate of his servant.”

You and I are not our own. We have been bought with a price. We are God’s servants.

Now, in our culture, again, this is an icky idea, right? We want to be in control. We want to be in charge of our lives.

But those who have a high view of God realize that being his servant is the best thing possible because he is a good God and a powerful God and a God who has an incredible plan at work in this world. And it is a privilege to be a part of that plan. And someone who has that attitude approaches life as God’s servant, ready to do what he calls them to do.