My Soul Magnifies the Lord

Sermon for 4 Advent RCL C 12/20/2009, offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts: Micah 5:2-5a; Canticle 15; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-55

Please indulge me, friends, as we begin, with just a few words about the mystery and magic of snow. I love snow. To be honest, I’m a bit addicted to it. For me, snow is a metaphor for the grace of God. Just like the Lord, snowstorms are quite unpredictable. When the snow falls, it changes everything. My plans get tossed out the window, and snow forces me to change how I go about my regular, daily activities. Snow causes me to slow down, to move more carefully and thoughtfully. Snow quiets the world. It pushes away the fast-paced rush of life. Snow causes neighbors to talk to each other, even when we usually just rush past each other on normal busy days. Just like the grace of God, everything looks different when touched by the snow. It brings beauty to everything it touches. This is how snow reminds me of the grace of God.


But that is just a minor aside. Because today, the Church calls us to remember the Mother of our Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Today, we hear of her blessedness and we hear her song of praise. This song, ever sing its recording, has been beloved and been sung everywhere in the world where the Gospel has been heard.

Many of you will remember the old translation of the Magnificat and how it begins in this way: “My soul doth magnify the Lord.” Our newer version tries to make the text a bit more understandable by phrasing it this way: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.” But the older version actually gets the original text correctly.

We can see the original wording right here in the Latin title of this most amazing poem: the Magnificat. The Magnifier. The original Greek verb here is megaluno, and it means literally to make something larger or greater. To make something appear great.

But this begs the question: how can we human beings ever speak of magnifying the Lord? What can God ever gain from our words? What can we give to God to fill any divine need whatsoever?

Nothing at all. God does what God wills. God is who God is. Our words, our thoughts, our praises and thanksgiving cannot give God anything that God does not already have. Of course, we can never add anything to God. But we can, in fact, magnify God, just as the blessed Virgin here suggests, as she speaks with prophetic voice.

Our family’s good friend, and neighbor, is a crystallographer at Bristol Meyer Squibb up in Princeton. She studies the crystalline structure of chemicals by magnifying the molecules thousands of times so that their helpful or beneficial qualities can be seen and identified.

To magnify these chemical compounds in this way does not change what they are; it simply allows people to see what has been there all along.

Likewise, when we magnify the Lord, we do nothing to change the Lord; we simply allow people to see more clearly what God has been all along.

I was thinking about the process of magnifying yesterday as I was shoveling snow – which is one of my favorite activities, don’t you know! Have you seen how mountaineers who are climbing on glaciers must wear special sunglasses to block out the sun? If they don’t, they are sure to suffer from snow blindness. The snow magnifies the power of the sun’s rays. It doesn’t change the rays of the sun, but it enhances their effect upon human eyes.

This is what it means when blessed Mary says, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” She had no power in herself to add to anything to what the Lord does, nor to take away from it.

These words are prophetic, spoken with inspiration from the Holy Spirit. The soul of Mary, (Mariam is the Greek) does indeed magnify the Lord by making it easier to see how the Lord works in the hearts of human beings. She does this by her faithfulness and obedience. “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

Mary, the faithful one, is the second Eve, the one who corrects by faithfulness what has previously gone astray due to unfaithfulness. St. Irenaeus, who lived and wrote in the second century, had this to say about our blessed Mother:

“Just as Eve, seduced by an angel’s message, turned away from God in betraying his word, so Mary, welcoming an angel’s message, bore God within her in obeying his word. Eve had been led to disobey God, but Mary consented to obey him, and so the Virgin Mary became the advocate of the virgin Eve” (Against the Heresies).

Mary is the Theotokos, the God-bearer. That is her proper title. She is the pinnacle of all created beings. This is why she is hailed as the Queen of Heaven. This is right and true, but many people get lost in these titles. We must never allow her exalted status now blind us to the role as our mentor, our teacher, our role model who gives us the perfect image of what it looks like when a human being opens her heart completely to the Lord.

God spoke to her. She trusted and believed and obeyed. And she became the spring out of which Living Water flowed to re-create the world. And thus she magnified the Lord, making him clearly known to all peoples.

My dear friends: it is the goal of the Christian life that, like Mary, we become a lens, a magnifying glass, if you will, through which people are able to see God better and more clearly; so that when people look at you, what they see is the goodness and love of God.

You may ask yourself, “Well, how is this possible? How can I ever really live that way?” That’s a good question, because the truth is that by yourself, you can never do it.

Only if you allow yourself to be transformed by the Holy Spirit can this thing happen. Only if, like Mary, you open yourself completely and say, let your will be done in me, only then can it happen.

This song of Mary, this Magnificat, is the evening song of the Church, and it has been sung at the setting of the sun each and every day for thousands of years now.

Give it a try, my friends. Let it be your song at the end of each working day, and let your life be a lens through which those around you can see the majesty and magnificence of the Lord. Amen.