Have we ever thought about the Advent season without Christmas carols? Praising the Lord and listening to Christmas music is one way to prepare our hearts for the birth of Christ, our Saviour and Lord.

During these unprecedented past times, we had been advised to sing hymns at in-person worship gatherings while wearing a mask or hum melodies due to the safety of others and ourselves. Now many of us can feel comfortable singing Advent songs to the Lord here in this sanctuary without any restrictions.

We continue to study the first Christmas songs in the Bible. Last week, we looked at Zechariah’s psalm called “Benedictus” in Latin. Today we will explore Mary’s piece titled “Magnificat” in the classic term and examine some contents of this Advent chant.

Before we go any further, I want to read the first line of Mary’s beautiful hymn again: “My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…” (Luke 1:46-47). According to this scripture, Mary praised God by using her physical voice and inviting her soul and spirit to this holy melody. In other words, she sang to the Lord physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Through Mary’s initiated proclamation in this hymn, we can learn about the true meaning of worship. As I’ve stated before, the word for worship consists of the following two divisions: worth-ship. The prefix or affix of this word means “worthy or honourable,” and its suffix or the root word implies “the state of being of whatever comes before it.” The term for worship can indicate our loving attribute toward someone/something worthy. As Christ’s followers, we are here this morning to worship the Lord with all our existence. We believe God is the One who is only worthy of our complete adoration and praise. In this divine assembly, we all are required to place everything we have in God’s hand. After service, we might say we had good worship because we felt emotional in our gathering, whether at church or via Zoom. In a way, experiencing something while singing hymns and listening to sermons can be part of worshipping the Lord.

That being said, we need to recognize how Jesus told a Samaritan woman about her question of who true worshippers could be. He replied, “God is spirit, and worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). What I am saying here is that our worship does not depend on our emotions, but our worship needs to build on the intimate relationship between God and our spirit. Sometimes we can sense some things feelingly and/or physically in our sacred assemblies; sometimes, we do not. The matter is whether our spirit needs to be entirely focused on the Lord, who is spirit through the Word of God that is the Truth (John 4:24). Please understand this. Again, I am not underestimating the experience of our emotions. When God’s people in the Bible worshipped the Lord, they had various feelings. I am emphasizing today that God wants us as His people to love Him with all our strength, soul, and spirit, in other words, worshipping Him with all our total beings.

Let us go back to the primary part of Mary’s song. She worshipped God with joyful praises since her spirit was connected with God as her Savior. One notable fact I have learned from her melody is the number of scriptures she quoted from the Old Testament in that hymn. According to Bible scholars, Mary’s carol was based on more than 15 holy texted lyrics. That statement describes how much she loved the Word of God. Knowing God through the Holy Bible is the best way to please God our Lord in our faith journey. Someone made some interesting observations regarding this truth. I am only paraphrasing it based on what I recall. The difference between worship and worry is the direction of our minds. Depending on where our heart is paid attention to, we can either worship God or worry about some things.

Once again, let us look at the first line of Mary’s psalm: “My soul glorifies the Lord” (Luke 1:46). In other English Bible translations, the word for glorify is replaced with the term for magnify. This substituted verb can help us better understand why Mary was so joyful even in her challenging situation. At this point, let us pause for a moment and put ourselves in her shoes. Mary, who had been engaged with Joseph, received from the Angel named Gabriel the following shocking news: “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus” (Luke 1:31). We can imagine some implications of this report in her life. Of course, she might have been misunderstood by her fiancé, Joseph, and their loved ones. She would have been falsely accused of immoral behaviour due to that unknown pregnancy. If Mary had only amplified some circumstances she had been under, she would have worried a lot. However, she magnified the Lord, her Saviour. Mary kept focusing her heart on what God had done in the past, whom she belonged to then, and what He could do in the coming days, regardless of her challenges.

We use a magnifying glass to look at things in bigger images. We need a more advanced device like a telescope when we want to inspect large objects, for example, stars and planets in the sky, located far away from us. We also operate a microscope when we examine very tiny materials. Those types of glasses help us have a better ability to see items. Spiritually speaking, when we view things with the divine lens of the Lord, we can consider some other things beyond the elements. When Joshua and Caleb observed the land called Canaan through God’s magnifying glasses in the Bible, they confidently and courageously kept moving forward into God’s Promised Land despite the challenging situations they had seen. Unlike the other ten spies, Caleb and Joshua were not afraid of those obstacles because they believed in the Immanuel God, who had been with them and would continuously fight for them. When Mary put her soul and spirit on God only, she began to acknowledge more and more of God’s incredible attributes.

During Advent, we may encounter things coming down to us from a short or long distance. We need to ask ourselves whether we look at these situations while wearing God’s microscopes and telescopes. We need to ask God to help us view them through His magnifying lens.

After Mary paid attention to only God, she discovered many of His beautiful characters and described them in her hymn. Did we notice how many times Mary started with the pronoun of God in this melody when Dave shared with us this morning? Most of the lyrics she wrote began with what God had done for her, the people of Israel and all of those who would trust the Lord. In this sermon, I want to categorize those declarations into the two kinds of God. I want to call the Lord our Mighty God as well as our Merciful God. These names of God could explain why Mary praised the Lord through her pregnancy over Christ.

Firstly, Mary sang to the Lord because she experienced the Mightiness of God. She praised the Almighty God for the great things He had done for her. What would be God’s remarkable deeds for Mary? Of course, conceiving the Son of God, Jesus, was a marvellous event in her faith journey. When Mary was told that she would give birth to a son, she asked the angel, “How will this be since I am a virgin” (Luke 1:34). Gabriel explained to her that everything, including Mary’s pregnancy and her cousin, Elizabeth’s, had been done by the power of the Holy Spirit. After that, Mary responded to the angel with the following statement: “For no word from God will ever fail” (Luke 1:37). In other translations, she said, “Nothing is impossible with God.” Mary believed in the supernatural power of God and thanked the Lord for His magnificent fulfillment. When she paused for a while and counted one by one what God had done for her, she could not help but sing to the Lord.

Spiritually speaking, the season of Advent is a time for us to think about what God has done and thank the Lord for all the marvellous acts he has accomplished. These great things do not have to be somewhat dramatic or enormous. They can be small and mundane in our faith journey. Let us reflect on God’s presence, protection and provision over our country, community and church. We are so thankful to God for the hard-working public workers making our place safer and better than before, particularly during the Covid period. What if this pandemic occurred some years ago, especially before the Internet era or the development of online meeting platforms, such as Facetime and Zoom? We thank God for this upgraded modern invention before, during, and after the Covid and for faithfully helping us have in-person and/or virtual worship assemblies before the Lord. Let us consider God’s blessings over our loved ones and us. When we look back on our previous paths and focus our souls on the Lord our Mighty God, we can praise the Lord who knows best and has provided the best for our loved ones and us. We cannot fully comprehend the Mightiness of God with the limited capacity of our brain but sing to the Lord, who accomplishes our God-given dreams and visions and makes our loved ones and us happy in His presence. We thank God, who works on all His abundant blessings for our loved ones and us. We can be grateful in advance to the Lord by faith for the great things we have been praying will come true in our faith journey in God’s time and way.

Secondly, Mary sang to the Lord because she experienced the Mercy of God. She knew God’s grace did all the great things God had done for her. Before she was called to be Mother Mary, she was simply a pageant girl. However, God’s merciful act lifted her from the humble state of God’s servant to the Mother of the Son of God. She also knew God’s grace had been extended to those who feared the Lord. From generation to generation in Israel, those who revered God would have been exalted with His authority. However, those who would be proud in their thoughts would have been scattered and brought down from their thrones (Luke 1:51-52). Those divine principles could be applied to all worldwide today.

We not only remember God’s mighty deeds for us but also recognize God’s mercifulness over us. As a matter of fact, none of us would be righteous in God’s sight (Romans 3:10). We “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). When we examine our journey before the Lord in the past, we may find that we have failed in the same area of weakness. We have tripped into that again and again. According to Rick Warren, there are three different options when people fail. The first option is to ignore the fact that the mistakes they have made were wrong. They compare themselves with others who would have done more bad things than they did and justify themselves. The second choice to handle their past wrongdoings is to condemn themselves constantly. They keep reminding themselves of their former matters and put themselves down day after day. The third method is the one the Bible is teaching us today. Like Mary, we need to focus our minds not on the shortcomings we have made but on God’s mercy He has done through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

By faith in the Merciful God, we need to kneel before the Holy Lord and accept His forgiveness while not only repenting of our sins but also remembering our true identity as precious children of God. The Lord, our God, is graceful. This morning, Christ asks all of us to come to Him as we are. He invites each of us to this abundant sacred banquet and wants us to experience His hope, peace, joy and love at this holy table. Before we do, we need to humbly and honestly confess that we do not deserve any of God’s blessings in our faith journey; however, God’s incredible mercy has helped us be what we are. Due to God’s profound grace, we are justified and freely praise the Lord our Merciful God.

Friends, did we realize that Mary’s chant did not have a proper ending? For some reason, her Christmas psalm faded away slowly. According to many biblical scholars, the primary reason for this is for us as Christ’s followers to continue to fill the rest verses of Mary’s Advent melody. We are the ones to compose the second, third, fourth, and many more different lyrics. That task is one of the things we have been encouraged to do for the Christmas party for Baby Jesus.

Christ, as the Creator God, has everything. What may He want to have more from us for His birthday present? The best gift we can give to Him may be our praises. Jesus wants us to sing to Him like Mary, Zechariah, Hanna, and other Bible characters with all our hearts, minds and strength.

Sometimes we may excuse ourselves for not praising the Lord since we are out of tune. Do we know the most beautiful sound in God’s world? The answer I have for you is our voices. As parents, hearing Mom or Dad from our children is one of the happiest moments. Our Everlasting Father God is delighted in having our hearts focused on Him while we praise God, whether in tune or out of tune. He wants to hear our songs by our lips, souls, and spirits. He desires to receive our Christmas hymns related to His Mighty and Merciful attributes.

Can we make one melody like Mary for Christ during this Christmas season?

*In this sermon, I have been inspired by the various messages based on the following text,  Luke 1:46-55.