ADVENT 4, C – December 20, 2009

SCRIPTURES – Micah 5:2-5; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45

 

 

Such amazing things are said about Mary by Elizabeth. “Blessed are you among women!” she cries. Mary will add to this by saying, “From now on all generations will call me blessed.” Elizabeth tops it off by calling Mary, “the mother of my Lord.” Because of this, the Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D. gave Mary the title, Theotokos: Mother (literally, Bearer) of God.

 

Is this saying too much? What should we say of Mary and think of Mary? We should say no more, but also no less, than what Elizabeth, as well as Mary herself, says.

 

In this regard, we Lutherans can do no better than saying about Mary what Martin Luther said about Mary. Following are words of Luther from his 1521 writing on The Magnificat, the song of Mary that is recorded in Luke 1:46-55.

 

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

[There are] two kinds of false spirits that cannot sing the Magnificat aright. First, there are those who will not praise God unless He does well to them;… These seem indeed to be greatly praising God; but because they are unwilling to suffer oppression and to be in the depths, they can never experience the proper works of God, and therefore can never truly love or praise Him…

The other sort are more dangerous still. They err on the opposite side. They magnify themselves by reason of the good gifts of God and do not ascribe them to His goodness alone. They themselves desire to have a part in them; they want to be honored and set above other men on account of them. When they behold the good things that God has done for them, they fall upon them and appropriate them as their own; they regard themselves as better than others who have no such things.

Mary…sets things in their proper order when she calls God her Lord before calling Him her Savior, and when she calls Him her Savior before recounting His works. Thereby she teaches us to love and praise God for Himself alone, and in the right order, and not selfishly to seek anything at His hands. This is done when one praises God because He is good, regards only His bare goodness, and finds his joy and pleasure in that alone. That is a lofty, pure, and tender mode of loving and praising God and well becomes [Mary’s] high and tender spirit.

But the impure and perverted lovers, who are nothing else than parasites and who seek their own advantage in God, neither love nor praise His bare goodness, but have an eye to themselves and consider only how good God is to them, that is, how deeply He makes them feel His goodness and how many good things He does to them. They esteem Him highly, are filled with joy and sing His praises, so long as this feeling continues. But just as soon as He hides His face and withdraws the rays of His goodness, leaving them bare and in misery, their love and praise are at an end. They are unable to love and praise the bare, unfelt goodness that is hidden in God. By this they prove that their spirit did not rejoice in God, their Savior, and that they had no true love and praise for His bare goodness. They delighted in their salvation much more than in their Savior, in the gift more than in the Giver, in the creature rather than in the Creator.

The bare goodness of God is what ought to be preached and known above all else. And, we ought to learn that, just as God saves us out of pure goodness, without any supposed deservedness because of our works, so we in our turn should do the works without reward or self-seeking, for the sake of the bare goodness of God. We should desire nothing because of them but His good pleasure, and not be anxious about a reward. That will come of itself, without our seeking… [For] a son who served his father merely for the sake of the inheritance would be a wicked child and deserve to be cast off by his father.

He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden. For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.

Mary confesses that the foremost work God did for her was that He regarded her. This is indeed the greatest of His works, on which all the rest depend and from which they all derive. For where it comes to pass that God turns His face toward one to regard him, there is nothing but grace and salvation, and all gifts and works must follow…

Note that she does not say men will speak all manner of good of her, praise her virtues, exalt her virginity or her humility, or sing of what she has done. It is for this one thing alone, that God regarded her, that men will call her blessed. That is to give all the glory to God as completely as it can be done. Therefore she points to God’s regard and says: “For, behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed. That is, beginning with the time when God regarded my low estate, I shall be called blessed.” Not she is praised thereby, but God’s grace toward her…

From this we may learn how to show her the honor and devotion that are her due. How ought one to address her? Keep these words in mind, and they will teach you to say: “O Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, you were nothing and all despised; yet God in His grace regarded you and worked such great things in you. You were worthy of none of them, but the rich and abundant grace of God was upon you, far above any merit of yours. Hail to you! Blessed are you, from thenceforth and forever, in finding such a God.” Nor need you fear that she will take it wrongly if we call her unworthy of such grace. For, of a truth, she did not lie when she herself acknowledged her unworthiness and nothingness, which God regarded, not because of any merit in her, but solely by reason of His grace.

[The more] we ascribe merit and worthiness to [Mary], [the more] we lower the grace of God and diminish the truth of the Magnificat. The angel salutes her only as highly favored of God, and because the Lord is with her (Luke 1:28), which is why she is blessed among women. Hence all those who heap such great praise and honor upon her head are not far from making an idol of her, as though she were concerned that men should honor her and look to her for good things, when in truth she thrusts this from her and would have us honor God in her and come through her to a good confidence in His grace.

Whoever, therefore, would show Mary the proper honor must not regard her alone and by herself, but set her in the presence of God and far beneath Him, must there strip her of all honor, and regard her low estate, as she says; he should then marvel at the exceedingly abundant grace of God, who regards, embraces, and blesses so poor and despised a mortal. Thus regarding her, you will be moved to love and praise God for His grace, and drawn to look for all good things to Him, who does not reject but graciously regards poor and despised and lowly mortals. Thus your heart will be strengthened in faith and love and hope. What do you suppose would please Mary more than to have you come through her to God this way, and learn from her to put your hope and trust in Him, notwithstanding your despised and lowly estate, in life as well as in death? She does not want you to come to her, but through her to God.

Again, nothing would please her better than to have you turn in fear from all lofty things on which men set their hearts, seeing that even in His mother God neither found nor desired anything of high degree. But [those] who so depict and portray the blessed Virgin that there is found in her nothing to be despised, but only great and lofty things—what are they doing but contrasting us with her instead of her with God? Thus they deprive us of her example, from which we might take comfort; they make an exception of her and set her above all examples. But she should be, and herself gladly would be, the foremost example of the grace of God, to incite all the world to trust in this grace and to love and praise it, so that through her the hearts of all men should be filled with such knowledge of God that they might confidently say: “O Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, what great comfort God has shown us in you, by so graciously regarding your unworthiness and low estate. This encourages us to believe that henceforth He will not despise us poor and lowly ones, but graciously regard us also, according to your example.”…

For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name.

[Mary] sang [first] of God’s regard and gracious good will toward her, which is indeed the greatest and chief work of grace, as we have said. [Only then did] she come to His works and gifts. For God indeed gives to some many good things and richly adorns them... He scatters His gifts [abroad] among the multitude; but this does not mean He regards them highly. His good things are merely gifts, which last for a season; but His grace and regard are the inheritance, which lasts forever…In giving us the gifts He gives only what belongs to Him, but in His grace and His regard of us He gives His very self. In the gifts we touch His hand; but in His gracious regard we receive His heart, spirit, mind, and will. Hence the Blessed Virgin puts His regard in the first and highest place. She does not begin by saying: “All generations will call me blessed, because He has done great things for me,” but: “because He has regarded my low estate.” Where God’s gracious will is, there are also His gifts; but, on the other hand, where His gifts are, there is not necessarily also His gracious will… And so, God would not have His true children put their trust in His goods and gifts, spiritual or temporal, however great they be, but in His grace and in Himself, yet without despising the gifts.

Mary does not desire to be an idol; she does nothing, God does all… Therefore she adds, “And holy is His name.” This is as if she said: “As I lay no claim to the work, neither do I to the name and fame. For the name and fame belong to Him alone who does the work. It is not proper that one should do the work and another have the fame and take the glory. I am but the workshop in which God performs His work; I had nothing to do with the work itself. No one should praise me or give me the glory for becoming the Mother of God, but God alone and His work are to be honored and praised in me. It is enough to congratulate me and call me blessed, because God used me and did His works in me.” Behold, how completely she traces all to God, lays claim to no works, no honor, no fame. She conducts herself as before, when she still had nothing of all this; she demands no higher honors than before. She is not puffed up, does not vaunt herself or proclaim with a loud voice that she is become the Mother of God. She seeks not any glory, but goes about her usual household duties, milking the cows, cooking the meals, washing pots and kettles, sweeping out the rooms, and performing the work of maidservant or housemother in lowly and despised tasks, as though she cared nothing for such great gifts and graces. By other women and her neighbors she is thought of no more highly than before, nor desired to be, but remained a poor townswoman, one of the great multitude. Oh, how simple and pure a heart was hers, how strange a soul was this! What great things are hidden here under this lowly exterior!