Luke 1:46-47
In our watching and waiting this Advent, we have looked at the way in which we go about the waiting, and what happens in us and through us when we truly wait on the Lord, like a vine waits on its tree.
What happens when we wait like this is we demonstrate (or show) the fruits of repentance we have looked at this Advent; hope, peace, and joy, in fact the whole orchard of the fruit of the Spirit.
This week we look at love, which binds all these things together. Now it isn’t that love is the greatest of the fruits of the Spirit. The fruit is indivisible and referred to in Scripture always as the Fruit of the Spirit, not fruits.
In the New Testament love is the fullest expression of the fruit of the Spirit, which is nothing less than the character and nature of God. It is love that brings to full ripeness the purposes of our lives.
It is in love that our hope, peace, and joy is seen and expressed in its fullest form. The Apostle John, in his first letter to the church twice summarises the fullness and complexity of the Lord God Almighty as: God is love.
John also explains why Jesus came in the first place – because God who is love, so loved the world.
This morning, let’s briefly look at what happens to us, soul and spirit, as we wait in this great enveloping love of God. Because of this Christ for whom we wait, we too are enabled to love by and through love itself!
Now Christmas Carols are wonderful for many reasons – they help make Christmas unique and special. They remind us of timeless truths and teach us new ones, and if we have been fortunate, bring back holy memories of Christmases past.
Such carols or songs proclaiming the Saviour’s coming, his birth, and prophesying what he will do in the future have always been always part of this great celebration from the very beginning.
Today we heard two songs or carols from Scripture, the best known of them the Song of Mary (Luke 1:46-66)
All up there are five of these praise-filled prophetic carols sung about Christ from the very first Christmas As well as Mary’s song, last week we heard Zacharias’ prophetic song, today our gospel recorded Elizabeth’s prophetic blessing of Mary and the unborn Jesus whom she already calls “Lord.”
[We also have the song of Simeon (“Now Lord you let your servant go in peace, your word has been fulfilled...” Luke 2:29) and, of course, the great song of the whole host of heaven sung to the Shepherds (“Glory to God in the highest, and peace to God’s people on earth...” Luke 2:14).]
Just as the carols we sing serve a holy purpose, so too do these biblical songs. They serve to invite us, to call us, to prepare us to meet God. We are beckoned by Luke from the very beginning into the gospel of Jesus with beautiful music that calls us to worship God.
Now all of these songs just erupt on the page. A nice bit of narrative storytelling, then out of nowhere, these songs truly burst into our consciousness.
Mary’s song is sometimes called the Magnificat which is Latin for ‘to magnify.’ Mary’s song is all about magnifying Jesus Christ as Lord. Though he has not yet been born, she wants to sing his praises and magnify His name.
This is where all such songs begin – with praise to God for what he has done. Mary sings
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.”
Mary reveals something here very significant about praising and worshipping God and ties together what we have been talking about this advent. Hope, Peace and Joy are fruiting here though the powerful work of the great love of God.
V.46 is in the present tense (My soul magnifies the Lord), yet v.47 is in the past tense (And my Spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour). Is this important? You bet!
Mary is saying that her soul magnifies God, because her spirit has already rejoiced in God. Because she is filled with joy, which as we saw last week is protected by the peace of God, her soul can’t help but magnify the Lord.
Last week we used the metaphor that Jesus uses to describe the action of this fruit of the Spirit; that of water welling up from our soul and out to all around us, like a river (John 4).
This week the metaphor describes the same action of the Spirit but this time in terms of enabling unchurched people to see the Lord loom so largely in a believer’s life, it is as if the Lord himself were under a microscope and seen for the first time by an unredeemed eye.
Its probably a good time to briefly mention the difference between our spirit and our soul. Does it matter? In terms of salvation, not at all. But every spiritual truth we learn is blessed deeply into us by the Lord and will bear fruit.
We are spirit and soul. A spirit that rejoices in God leads to a soul that magnifies God. Biblically, the soul is the root and seat of our emotions. It refers to our inner self, our emotional centre (Psa. 6:3; 10:3).
It is through our souls that we relate personally and emotionally with other people and why we talk about our souls being saved. It is our soul that is so beloved by God, and why all of heaven rejoices when one soul repents.
At the risk of being overly grossly simple – our soul is our human side, created in the image of God.
But the spirit is altogether different. The spirit is not our emotional side, it is our God side. It is the side of us that relates to and knows God.
Paul says in Romans that what happens is that the Holy Spirit confirms to and with our Spirit that Jesus is Lord, and it is this knowledge, now deep in our spirit, that enables us to believe and call God Abba.
We can now call the great and terrifying Lord God of the whole host of heaven, ‘dear father’.
It is the part of us that knows who God is, and what he is like, and what he wants from us. It is the part of us that understands what God has done for us, and all that he has given to us.
When Mary says that her spirit has rejoiced in God, she is saying that she has understood who God is. She knows what he has said in his Word. She prophetically believes in the truths he has revealed before he is even born.
Now God is looking for people who will worship in spirit and truth (John 4) and this is the beginning point of all true worship of God—an understanding of the facts about God deep in our spirit. Emotions and feelings are not necessarily part of true worship.
There are a lot of people who think they have not worshipped God unless they get goosebumps and chills, or break out in tears, or end up shouting with excitement.
That is soulish worship, and it might also be spiritual worship, but equally may not, it doesn’t signify anything.
Mary reveals that true worship of God begins with the spirit. It begins with an understanding of who God is, and what he has done, and all that he has given to us. If we do not understand the truths of Scripture, we cannot truly worship God in our spirit.
It is the truth of this little baby, born amidst animals with a feed trough as his cot, that is blessed into our spirits enabling our soul to love, bringing these same souls into full ripeness and maturity – perfect channels for the marvellous and mysterious works of God.
Let me pray...