Scripture: Luke 1:46-56
46 And Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has looked with favor on the lowly state of his servant.
Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed,
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name;
50 indeed, his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.
54 He has come to the aid of his child Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
56 And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.
Questions
- Mary’s song is about deliverance from the oppression and corruption of the world, how do we understand God’s deliverance today?
- How’s does Mary’s personal experience relate to the deliverance she is talking about?
- Do we ever see Jesus’ first coming in terms of the physical deliverance of Mary’s song and how does this relate to God’s love coming to the world in Jesus?
Background
Related Scriptures: Exodus 15; Psalm 136; Isaiah 54:4-0
The Old Testament word for God’s loyal love is hesed which has a primary meaning of, “joint obligation between relatives, friends, host and guest, master and servant; closeness, solidarity, loyalty:[1]” It is because of hesed that God brings deliverance to Israel and provides blessings.
Verse 50 seems to be speaking of God’s hesed and shows that God’s deliverance comes through this character trait of God.
Mary’s song reveals that God’s power (might) is always governed by and subject to God’s love for and mercy toward God’s people.
Reflection
When I read most translations of Luke 1:50 I have difficulty, because while the words “mercy” and “fear” are in some ways technically correct translations, these words have specific meanings in English that are not accurate to the message of Mary’s song. Further, when these words are in tandem in English they have a negative connotation that is the exact opposite of what Mary’s song is trying to convey. In English mercy is about clemency when someone deserves punishment and fear is to be uncomfortable because of the belief that someone is dangerous. Meaning when many read Luke 1:50 they come away with the idea that God shows clemency only to those who grovel before the divine throne out of a belief it is dangerous not to do so. Such an idea could not be further from what is being expressed in this wonderful verse of poetry.
To understand this we must realize that Mary would have been thinking of the Hebrew word hesed when she crafted this beautiful hymn, and that word does not mean clemency from punishment as our word mercy can. Hesed in the Bible refers to God’s faithfulness to a covenant and the resulting love, care, and compassion. Thus, when Mary says that God is showing mercy, she means that in her pregnancy God is demonstrating a faithfulness to the people of Israel that results from God’s character of always being faithful and holding true to the covenant that God made. The mercy of this verse is not, God deciding to show clemency when punishment is called for, it is God recognizing that faithful love demands salvation. This is further brought out when we realize the idea of “fearing God” has nothing to do with the English concept of danger but is a term for, “honoring, respecting, reverencing” and individual. And in this passage, “those who fear him” is shorthand for those in covenant with God, and has nothing to do with how these people conduct themselves. Mary is saying that God faithfully remembers the Israel, not because of what they do but simply because they are God’s covenant people and it is in God’s character to maintain that covenant.
On the fourth Sunday of Advent we celebrate love, and in Mary’s song we see what it means that love came down at Christmas. Mary defines God’s love in terms of God’s faithfulness to the covenant with Israel; love is God continuing to provide deliverance for Israel because God has promised to do so. Christmas is the ultimate reminder to us that God has maintained covenant with humanity because God’s character is faithful and true. God has come to deliver us, in all senses of the word. God has come to deliver us from want, from oppression, from hatred, from injustice, from greed, from malice, and all other results of sin because God has come to deliver us from sin itself. God’s love is God’s character expressed through action and there is no greater action than God joining to the world in the person of Jesus to provide us with a life that leads us to deliverance from all that ills us.
When we celebrate love at Christmas we are celebrating God’s faithfulness and trying to bring that same character into our own lives. Love is about remaining faithful to the covenant God has called us to take on, a covenant to bring hope, peace, and joy into our relationship with God and through that relationship into the world around us. Our faithfulness demonstrates how we have truly respected and honored God and how Jesus has loved us, this is the true meaning behind the word “fear” in verse 50. It is not about believing there is danger with God (fear), but demonstrating a respect for God in our emulation of God and God’s character. Those who God delivers are those who join themselves to the covenant and the covenant is an agreement to learn and live God’s character in the world. So for us this Christmas we celebrate God’s love coming down and teaching us how to be more present in the covenant which leads to God’s deliverance. We see God’s character revealed in the deliverance we experience in holding to God’s covenant and we endeavor to promote that covenant that leads to deliverance in the world around us.
[1] Ludwig Koehler et al., in The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament
Squinting in the Light 
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