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THE MAGNIFICAT - MARY’S SONG OF PRAISE by Herman Riffel As a Protestant I rejoiced with Mary at God’s great gift to be chosen to bring forth the Messiah and Savior of the world. It was great but far off to me. However the song became personally relevant and challenging when I placed myself in Mary’s place. I, too, have Jesus born in me and He wants to live out his life through me in my circumstances. Then this all becomes relevant. The sudden appearance of the angel greatly troubled Mary, as God’s word does when it comes suddenly interrupting our planned life. What will it mean to Mary who was filled the hopes and dreams of marriage? What will Joseph say? All her great hopes for the future lay in the proposed marriage to him. So the word that comes from the Lord may trouble us, for am I willing to let God interrupt the treasured dream of my life with a very strange proposal. Mary was hearing a voice, not a quote from the Bible, but a very personal voice. It was spoken by an angel, but who would believe that an angel of God had spoken to this young “hill-billy girl” as the Jewish council would have thought of her coming from the hills of Nazareth. So comes the voice of God to us in our hidden places who have our own dreams for the future. But it is as Philips Brooks says in his song, “O Little Town of Bethlehem”: How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given! So God imparts to human hearts, the blessings of His heaven.No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin, Where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in. We make many excuses saying that God does not speak that way today, or if He does how can we be sure it is the voice of God. Yet what would your boss say if you failed to obey his order and said, “I was not sure that it was really you speaking, or whether you really meant it.” We wouldn’t be long in his employ, yet that is what we say to God’s voice. Yet Jesus said, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). And Elizabeth said concerning Mary and that voice, “Blessed is she who believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished” (Luke 1:45). But it is well to measure the cost, as Jesus himself said, if we want to follow him. The cost to Mary would be that her hopes would be dashed and how could she explain that to Joseph. It was not only Joseph who would question her voice, and did, but how could the parents explain that to their neighbors. And then, of course, the law of Israel would condemn her. But Jesus had said that his disciples would be misunderstood and falsely accused and hated. That is our cost too if we will follow the voice of the Holy Spirit who speaks to us contrary to our plans and the tradition of the world, even the Christian world around us. But Mary’s response to the angel’s word is amazing. Though at first she was troubled at the angel’s appearance, yet now she knew what he said was the voice of God. Her soul glorifies God with her emotions, and her spirit, in the deep heart or unconscious, rejoices. That is the heritage of the one who has the Spirit of God living within because she is born of God. So, as strange as it seems to the unbelieving, yet the believer can recognize the voice of God, just as a child recognizes the voice of its mother. Unfortunately many have been told that it is dangerous to follow a voice, as I was told when I first heard the voice of God. Then we have to learn to hear and recognize it again in order to enter into the great promise God has for us. If not, we live on the plain of the mind, reason and philosophy of the world. If Mary and Joseph had not listened to the voice they heard, the Christmas story would not be about Mary and Joseph, but perhaps about Suzanne and Thomas who obeyed God voice. God’s desire will be accomplished but only through those that hear and obey His voice at any cost. As soon as Mary recognized the voice of God and said “yes” to it, her heart rejoices and the Holy Spirit within her knows that instead of disgrace, “all generations will call me blessed”. She even knows that “rulers will be brought down from their thrones” and the proud will be scattered. That is the assurance that comes to the believer who will risk obedience to the word that comes from God. My experience is small but I know that God has taken us around the world more than once as Lillie and I risked obedience to the call that came from God through the missionaries.
Herman Riffel - copyright 2007 |
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