Mary's Song and God's Glory

Friday, December 23, 2022

Mary responded, “Oh, how my soul praises the Lord.  How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!  For he took notice of his lowly servant girl, and from now on all generations will call me blessed.  For the Mighty One is holy, and he has done great things for me.  He shows mercy from generation to generation to all who fear him.  His mighty arm has done tremendous things!  He has scattered the proud and haughty ones.  He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble.  He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands.  He has helped his servant Israel and remembered to be merciful.  For he made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever.”  Luke 1:46-55

There is something of an idyllic impression which persists about Mary, the teen virgin;  she is untouched, and therefore “perfect”.  That is not supported in Scripture.  In fact, Scripture goes to great lengths to debunk that notion.  Old Testament prophet, Isaiah pointed to the universality of human sin:

We are all infected and impure with sin.  When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags.  Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind.  Isaiah 64:6

New Testament apostle Paul reaffirmed total human depravity:

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:  For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Romans 3:10, 23

If all that falls short of convincing, even Jesus said it plainly:

“Only God is truly good.  Mark 10:18

What is untainted in Mary’s case is not sinlessness of the vessel, but the immaculateness of conception…the fact that Jesus had no earthly father.  Mary was simply the host chosen by God to participate in God’s plan.  It was a miracle that she became pregnant, sidestepping the order of things in the natural, or biological sense.  But there was no circumventing the spiritual order of things; Mary was a human, born of a lengthy line of sinners, stretching back to Adam.  It’s often made note of Mary’s (and therefore Jesus’) family heritage, which included harlots (Rahab), and conspirators in murder (King David).  For God to choose Mary, it was the love of God for all humanity, laying aside the prerogatives of deity, choosing mercy and forgiveness to offer holiness to undeserving humankind.  It was nothing less, or more, than grace

It is no wonder Mary sang a song of blessing; even as a human, especially another sinful human like you or me, she could see she wasn’t worthy, except for the gracious love of God wrapping holy arms around her life.  She was overwhelmed by kindness and joy.

For You Today  

We have an immediate identity with Mary.  She wasn’t naïve enough to imagine she was beginning a road-trip paved with rose petals and sunshine; her position was dangerous and swimming upstream all the way.  Her “blessedness” (which we only see from this side of the story) is that she would be overshadowed by the glory it would bring to God. 

Mary’s story, God’s glory, our choice to follow.  True disciples of Jesus Christ can never be bored with hum-drum lives; it’s a path like no other.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

   Highly Favored   and   Mary's Song; Our Song

Images:  Title Annunciazione by DaVinci via Wikimedia Commons   Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©