All Generations Shall Call Her Blessed: A Meditation on Luke 1, for the fourth Sunday in Advent

And Mary said,

My soul doth magnify the Lord,

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.  

For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden:

for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

For he that is mighty hath done to me great things;

and holy is his name.  And his mercy is on them

that fear him from generation to generation.

He hath showed strength with his arm;

he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.  

He hath put down the mighty from their seats,

and exalted them of low degree.

He hath filled the hungry with good things;

and the rich he hath sent empty away.  

He hath helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy;  

As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.

Mary, the Mother of Our Lord, is probably one of the most abused personalities in all of Holy Scripture.  From the excesses of some of our Roman friends who want to make of her a Co-Mediatrix (a co-mediator) of our salvation with Christ and the primary object of intercessory prayer for the faithful, to our various Protestant friends who are afraid to grant her any dignity at all or perhaps even to mention her in a salutary light, Mary has often received less than proper remembrance.  In our Gospel reading for this Sunday, however, we have recorded a beautiful and inspired song of Mary which helps us to keep things in their proper perspective.  This lovely little song is often called The Magnificat.

What we first learn from Mary’s lips, is that she has been blessed by God entirely apart from her own righteousness or worthiness.  She freely acknowledged even as she magnified and rejoiced in God her Savior, that it is He who had regarded her lowly estate only then to lift her up.  Mary knew that she could not earn what God had done through her, and nor could she earn the honor that every successive generation of Christians would bestow upon her by calling her blessed.  She was not worthy to bear the Son of God, the Savior of the world; to give to Jesus of her own humanity, that God would be incarnate among His people; to be the bearer of God Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.  Indeed, as the wood and gold of the first Ark of the Covenant given at Sinai was unworthy to hold the divine Law carved by the finger of God upon stone tablets, so too was this daughter of Eve unworthy to hold the Lamb of God in whose Body and Blood the New Covenant of salvation would be written at Calvary.  Mary was not worthy in herself to be the Mother of God, but it is God who lifted her up and made her worthy of His work by His grace.

What we learn most centrally from blessed Mary the Theotokos (an early Greek title given to Mary, meaning “God bearer” or “Mother of God”) is that God’s salvation always comes to His people by grace through faith in His Word.  From the Old Testament into the New, God came to His people by His Law and Gospel—His Commands and His Promises—offering the free gift of forgiveness, life, and salvation to all who would repent, believe, and live in Him by faith.  No earthly measures of holiness or grandeur amount to anything before God, who is Himself the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings.  No one who stands before God in pride to justify himself receives anything but condemnation and judgment from His hand.  But to all who humble themselves before Him, acknowledging their own unworthiness, turning from their evil and clinging to His Word by faith, He gives honor and blessing that can never be taken away.

If the Word of God finds you today, thinking that you deserve the Son of God and that you are worthy of His presence in your life, beware and repent—for there is no person since the fall of our first parents who could stand worthy and holy before Almighty God.  You are certainly not worthy in yourself to receive the King of the Universe under your roof, for the Law declares your sin and judgment even in your own heart.

But if the Word of God finds you today, thinking that you are unworthy to receive the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the whole world, be of good cheer—for the King of the Universe is the One who regards the lowly and the downtrodden, and His mercy is upon those who fear Him in every generation.  You are no less worthy to receive the Great and Mighty King under your roof, than the humble Mary Theotokos whom God raised up to bear the Word of God Made Flesh.  And just as Jesus gave Himself to blessed Mary to be both her Son and her Savior, so He gives Himself to you by the Word of His Gospel Promise—washing you in the sacred waters of Holy Baptism, feeding you on His sacrificed Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist, and forgiving your daily sins by His Holy Absolution.  There, in Word and Sacrament, at the hands and by the mouth of unworthy servants, the Lord of Glory condescends to come to you that you might live by His grace through faith in His Only Begotten Son… just as blessed Mary lived, and yet still lives, glorified in her Son forever.

We are right, on this day and on all days, to follow the injunction of Holy Scripture to call Saint Mary, Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Theotokos, blessed.  We are right to honor blessed Mary because it is God who has blessed and honored her to be the bearer of the Word Made Flesh; and as the mother of Jesus, by extension, the mother of all the faithful who are joined to Jesus Christ by grace through faith in Him alone.  Blessed Mary is to be honored not because she herself is worthy of praise, but because God our Savior has honored her by lifting her up in His grace.  And in honoring blessed Mary, the whole household of faith looks to Christ our Savior, knowing that it is He who lifts up the humble and the unworthy, giving to all His saints the crown of life and victory over sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil.  Blessed Mary becomes a sign of Christ’s love and mercy to the whole world, and so we declare the Lord’s salvation to the humble and the faithful of every generation when we give thanks to God for the gift of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  For the same Christ who saved her, comes also to save us all.  Amen.