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My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;"
Imagine the feeling that Mary must have been feeling at this point? We can get an idea from Hannah in the OT. Hannah we read in 1 Samuel chapter one was a barren woman who one day in the temple of God was praying in earnest that God would hear her prayers and give her a a male child. She vowed that this child would be dedicated to the temple and he would live there the days of his life. While she is there a priest walks by and sees her mumbling to herself. Thinking she is drunk he rebukes her and she tells him what the deal was. The priest says:"Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant the request that you have asked of him." to which she relpied: "
May I, your servant, find favor in your sight." Well we know the rest of the this part of the story, she does get pregnant because the Lord remembered her, and she did as she promised and dedicated this child to the Lord. Her first words when this act of obedience was done? "
My heart rejoices in the Lord;" If you read the rest of her song of praise it sounds very much like Mary's praise.
Now Mary says two profound things:
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.
I think magnifies the Lord as the KJV would have it more a resounding statement. Can our souls give anyone a magnifying glance at the Lord? Do we as mary did proclaim the greatness of God, from deep down inside of us?
My Spirit rejoices in God my saviour.
It seems to me that at this point there was such a rush of the Holy Spirit involved here that even Mary's spirit was rejoicing of the likes I cannot imagine. That state of bliss in which all earthly cares vanish and there is a total release of pure joy, and submission. One could argue that she was foretelling of her future salvation or she could have been speaking in past tense as some would say, but never the less she proclaims that God is her saviour. Remarkable, really.
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for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant."
Doesn't this sound just like Hannah? No doubt Mary must have heard these stories when she was a child, and perhaps she had Hannah in mind when she echoed her words (
May I, your servant, find favor in your sight). So what can we learn from this? God is not a respecter of persons. He doesn't care where you came from, who you were born from or what your status in the community is. He will use you, if you are willing, to bring others to Him.
Mary, when she said let it be to me as you said, became a bondservant(verse 1:38), one who had at this point sold herself into service to the Lord. Now the word that is used for her at this point at least in the Strongs concordance is doule, or woman slave. Hopefully you will not get the idea that she became an unwilling slave of the Lord. She did it willingly! What we can learn from Mary at this point is what the young rich man did not. "You lack one thing, go and sell all you own and follow me" He could not do it. Mary did. She gave away her future as a normal everyday housewife, she even gave away her chance to be married and possibly even was risking her own life by being pregnant and unwed. Mary at this point was saying I Mary who sold myself into being a slave of the Lord, have found favor with God. Imagine if we sold out for God what He could do through us,
lowly servants that we are.
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From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name."
How prophetic is it that even today Mary is still called the Blessed Virgin? Who could argue that the Lord did not only do great things for her, but through her act of obedience? Holy is his name!!!
Imagine being in that time and really your only role a a woman would be to be a wife and to bear children. Time after time I am sure there were many women who like Hannah prayed to God for a son, and maybe even some of them prayed to give birth to the Messiah. Some were rich, and some came from very influential families, but God chose this girl, barely a woman, of no consequence, betrothed to a carpenter, to bring about His plan of salvation for not only her but all of mankind? Do you still feel weak and insignificant in the family of God? Humble yourself before God, and let Him, use you as well, and all nations may call you blessed one day.
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He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation."
Not every generation has feared the Lord. This generation we live in now is so full of post modern thought that the ideals of God are challenged every day. What does it mean to truly fear God? I do not mean just reverence either. I think people have watered down what it really means to fear God. I believe that "The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of knowledge; But the foolish despise wisdom and instruction." "And be not afraid of them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Does this generation fear earthly death or everlasting hell? From this we can learn that mercy is given to and found by those who
do fear God.
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He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit."
If you look in the OT you will see many references to the right hand of God, who we all know is Jesus the Christ. Who were the proud of that time? The religious zealots who had turned into worshippers of their own religion over the worship of god. They would parade in with their flowing robes and would make a scene of giving alms. They thought they new every jot and tital(sp?) of the law, and they ended up being burned by that very law. Sometimes I wonder today if we haven't made our religion a God. I wonder if we take for granted the beatitudes, or even if we give mercy in the same manner that we were given mercy.
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He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly."
Once again the mighty priests who worshipped the law instead of serving the law giver, were kicked down from their perches. In their place came some fishermen, and a tax collector and even lowly gentiles. I think this tells us that we should be humble in our state. We are not better because we are saved, we are just better off.
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He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty."
It has been said that money cannot buy love, friendship, trust, or even happiness. This is true. From the sermon on the mount we hear how God will do great things if we humble ourselves before him. Once again something the rich man would not do. There is a story in the Bible that talks of it being easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom. To the Jews, the more you had, the more God was blessing you. So what Jesus said made no sense to the disciples. Who will get in then if not the rich? The actual "eye of the needle" was a gate within a gate. There were huge giant gates so that the armies could go in and out, but during war times or at night they were always kept shut for saftey sake. Everytime somebody wanted to come in they had to go by way of the eye. The eye was a doggie door of sorts, a smaller door within one of the big doors. The thinking wa it was safer to open the little door rather than swing wide and let the city be taken unaware. A rider on a camel would not be able to just waltz through he would have to get off, unpack the camel, lead it on its knees through the eye, and then transfer all the stuff through the gate if it had not been stolen. If you were a nomad, or a loner no big deal but these rich guys had alot of camels and it took along time. So it seems to me that in order to get into the kingdom of heaven we must lay our things outside of the gate and kneel our way in as well
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He has come to the help of his servant Israel, for he has remembered his promise of mercy,"
"Mercy and truth preserve the king: and his throne is upholden by mercy." One story that I love is about the guy who got in way over his head in debt (perhaps it was credit card debt) Anyway he went up before the creditor and said I don't have the cash and begged and pleaded for his life. This man showed him mercy and forgave the debt ( Imagine if Visa/Mastercard/Amex called you up today and said, you know what I have been thinking about this and I know you will never be able to repay me this debt so I am going to just write this off, you owe me nothing.) When the guy walked out however he didn't retain the knowledge of the mercy he was given. No no, he ran down a guy who owed him money, and tried to make him pay up. The guy who showed him mercy found out about it and reinstated the debt.
We have been forgiven a great debt, that we could never have repaid. Our creditor showed us the ultimate mercy that no get out of debt service could ever do. What are we to do now? Show that same mercy back to those who have done to us the way we did God. The good Lord said if we don't forgive others he won't forgive us. Let's remember our promise of mercy.
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The promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children for ever."
"Tho all men are liars God is true." That is a paraphrase by the NLT but it is one of my favorite sayings. In this world where we are hard pressed to even trust own clergy, it is good to know that God has never once lied to anyone. He never said I will give you this and give you that instead. God promised the people of Israel that He would send them a Messiah, and Mary just announced that promise was fulfilled, through her.
No wonder they call her blessed.
Is that more in line with what you wanted Polycarp?