Right Side Up

Sermon Transcript

President Donald Trump has made the slogan “Make America Great Again” famous. Whatever your opinion of him, it’s hard to deny that the slogan was effective now that he has won two presidential elections with it. It appeals to something that comes naturally to all of us: The desire for greatness. Nobody takes up a sport and thinks, “I hope I’m bad at it.” Nobody takes a job and thinks, “Well hopefully I get fired soon.” We long for greatness, sometimes to the point that we drive ourselves to extremes to get it: On one extreme, we anxiously overwork to get it, while on the other, we despair or resent others if it feels like we can’t attain it. We know this, but the longing isn’t something you can just kill. The problem isn’t with the desire for greatness; the problem is when we begin to think that greatness is something we must achieve, rather than something we receive. The passage on which we are focusing today focuses on a woman who was not great, who then became great: Mary, the mother of Jesus. We’ll see in this passage that greatness was something she received, not something she achieved, and that she says what happened to her is just a microcosm of what God has done for all his people. As God’s people, our greatness is something we too receive from God, rather than something we achieve for God, and we receive it from God through a particular person: Jesus Christ. God has made his people great through the greatness of Jesus, and why is that the case? Because Jesus is great, because Jesus is the greatest, and because Jesus has made the lowly great.

 

Jesus is great

 

Our passage today begins with a visit from the angel Gabriel, the same angel who appeared to a priest named Zechariah in the temple in the passage just before this one. It’s the same angel, but here the scene is different: From the temple mount in the capital city to a priest, now the angel goes down about 1000 feet in elevation, a 3-4 day journey north, to an obscure city called Nazareth, to an obscure woman named Mary. Rather than holding some office in Israel like a priest, all we’re told about her is that she was a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and we’ll see why the house of David matters in a bit. But Mary was what the kids today might call a “rando.” She holds no significant office, she’s from no significant family. In fact, later in chapter two we’ll see that she and her husband didn’t even have enough money to offer the proper sacrifice when they went to the temple. She was poor.

 

But on this day, six months after he appeared to Zechariah, Gabriel appeared to her. And when he came to her, he called her favored one, and told her that the Lord was with her. We’ll see throughout this passage that Mary was a godly woman, and that is especially seen in her humility. So in response to hearing that she’s favored by the Lord, and that he’s with her, she’s not like, “Well right, of course the Lord would favor me.” Instead she’s greatly troubled! But the angel assures her again to not be afraid, because she has found favor with God. Clearly she’s a humble, godly woman, but the angel never appeals to that to explain why she found favor with God. After all, there were other humble, godly women in Israel at the time, one of whom we’ll see again in this passage, another whom we’ll meet in chapter two, and many others who, like Mary, lived in relative obscurity, and even in poverty, serving their Father who sees in heaven in ways most other people never saw, and there’s nothing here or anywhere else in the Bible to suggest that Mary was somehow godlier than they, or even more outlandishly, that she was immaculately conceived. She’s an ordinary, righteous Israelite, but God, according to his good pleasure, for reasons known only to him, chose to favor her.

 

And the favor he bestowed upon her begins to be spelled out in verse 31: Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. Now already that’s God’s grace: Mary’s relative, Elizabeth, had been barren for much of her life, and a number of you know the bitter pain of infertility. It’s God who must give conception, and now he tells Mary she will conceive in her womb and bear a son. But the reason Mary is called favored by God, the reason Elizabeth will even go so far later in the passage as to call her “Blessed among women,” as in blessed above other women, is because of the specific son she will bear. Mary wasn’t naturally great, but she became great because of the greatness of the one she’d bear. So verse 32 says of this son that “He will be great.” Now in the passage just before this one, there was another birth announcement, and Gabriel said that son, John, would also be great before the Lord, but already in this story we can see that this son will be greater. John was promised to a barren woman; this son is promised to a virgin woman. Gabriel said John would be great before the Lord, and then he stopped. But here there’s an “and.”

 

This son, Jesus, will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. He’ll be the son of Joseph legally, but that’s not what he’ll be called ultimately. Ultimately he’ll be called the son of someone higher than Joseph, someone higher than Herod, the king over Judea at that time, someone higher even than Ceasar Augustus, who ruled the Roman Empire at that time: he will be called the son of God himself, the Most High, who rules over the kingdoms of men. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. That’s why it mattered that Joseph was of the house of David.

 

A bit of background, then: David was the greatest king in the history of Israel, the people to whom Mary and Joseph belonged, and the people to whom God committed himself when he made a covenant with their forefather, Abraham. David was a descendant of Abraham who served the Lord in his day, and to whom the Lord gave a glorious kingdom, a kingdom that was also a blessing to all the people of Israel. God then made a promise to David, and here it is from 2 Samuel 7:12-13 – “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” David wasn’t going to last forever; his days were going to be fulfilled, and he was going to lie down with his fathers. But God said that later he would raise up one of David’s offspring, and establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

 

But then within two generations, David’s kingdom was divided, and things seemed to go from bad to worse at the centuries went on, until the northern kingdom was taken into exile and wiped out of existence, only to be followed in exile by the southern kingdom ~150 years later. Then for about 500 years prior to the appearance of this angel to Mary, there was no descendant of David ruling over the people of Israel. Instead, they were ruled by the Babylonians, then the Persians, then the Greeks, now the Romans, and suffice it to say that while some of those rulers were better than others, none of them were particularly pleasant to live under, and certainly none of them ushered in the blessings of the kingdom of God. But the promise of God still stood: Where was this descendant of David who wouldn’t be defeated by the Babylonians or the Persians or the Greeks or the Romans or anyone else, and who would usher in all the blessings of the kingdom of God? This descendant of David came to be known as the Messiah, a Hebrew word for an “anointed one,” since kings were anointed with oil, and in Greek that title is translated Christ.

 

It can be hard for people, even Christians, today, to understand just how deep this longing for a Messiah was among the people of Israel. The majority culture in America, and really in all of modern Western civilization, has been formed by a different story than the story of scripture. That story’s major tenets are summarized well in Psychologist Steven Pinker’s 2018 book Enlightenment Now’s subtitle: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. If you grew up in the West or even just watched Western TV shows or attended a Western university, the story you got was that we can make a better future for ourselves and future generations if we will simply use reason and science, especially technology. If we combine that with humanism, a concern to include and now even affirm every individual human, we inevitably will make progress, the thinking goes. So almost no one in the West today is looking ahead to the future and thinking, “Man, if we can just get the right king in power, everything will be ok.” Wasn’t there a rally in Philly recently and throughout the country called the “No kings” rally? More commonly, people think, “Man, if we can just improve medical technology to the point that we can heal every disease, then implement just enough systems to distribute that technology to everyone, and control population size through contraceptive technology, but then still enable people to fulfill their individual desires for children through reproductive technology, and develop AI to the point where it does all the work we don’t want to do for us, and becomes a trained therapist each of us can use for our various mental and emotional problems, and then give everyone a universal basic income, everything will be ok.”

 

But you know who still develops all those solutions, or which others people might prefer? People, people whose names you often don’t know, people who if you knew them, in some cases at least, you probably wouldn’t want to follow them, and people who, if they are successful, will amass great wealth and, as a result, great influence over your life. Functionally, then, if you buy our majority culture’s story, you still set your hopes for the future on people. Why is that preferable to setting your hope for the future on one person, whose name we do know, and who if you get to know him, you will only want to follow him more? For example, anyone who buys the Western story has to believe that part of progress is more just laws, and a more just administration of them; that’s part of why so much of our society is so emotionally invested in politics. But what if there was one king who always made just laws, who always enforced them justly, and who would always remain in power?

 

The only “problem” with such a king would be that he’d still be king, and that means neither you nor I would be, which means there would be times when we’d want something, and he’d say no. As long as we are under any king, we can’t just do what we want, and sin inclines us to resist that. But always being able to do what we want isn’t actually the best thing for us. Imagine if at any given moment, you could always eat whatever food you craved in that moment. Well, if your appetite is anything like mine, you’d be dead in a matter of years, because there are some things we want that aren’t actually good for us, and a good authority, like a doctor or a nutritionist in this example, will say “no” to some of your desires, for your good. That’s the kind of good authority that Jesus exercises as the Son of the Most High, the Son of the God with ultimate authority, whose authority is always for the good of those under it. He only commands what is best for us, and he only forbids what would kill us in the long run. Can you imagine a human king who ruled like that? And can you see now why righteous Israelites like Mary longed for this king?

 

Part of the reason we’ve been trained not to put that kind of hope into a king is because we’ve seen the failures of so many kings. Part of the reason we are suspicious of authority is because authority is so often abused! But this king is different from any other human being, and that is seen in how he was conceived. So Mary, after hearing this announcement, asks how she can conceive this child, since she is a virgin, and in verse 35 Gabriel tells her that the Holy Spirit will come upon her, and the power of the Most High will overshadow her, and therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the son of God. There was another time in the Bible when the Holy Spirit was said to hover over something. In Genesis 1:2, when God made the heavens and the earth, we read that the Spirit was hovering over the face of the waters. That was the first creation; so what’s the imagery here? A new creation. God himself was going to create the life of this child in an extraordinary way, creating the child in the womb without any father’s sperm fertilizing any mother’s egg. And therefore, the text tells us, this child would be called holy, the son of God.

 

One other individual in Luke’s Gospel is called the son of God: Adam, the first man God made, who though created holy, fell from that holy state when he sinned against the God who made him. Since then, every other human has been conceived by the union of a man descended from Adam, and a woman descended from Adam, and therefore, every other human was not born holy, but sinful, having inherited from Adam a fallen, sinful nature, and a guilty legal status. Every other human, that is, except this man, who because he was not born by ordinary generation from Adam’s fallen seed, but was created a new Adam, a second Adam, directly by God himself, was born holy, set apart from sinful humanity, to restore the image of God as the true son of God.

 

There’s no reason a king couldn’t pass just laws. There’s no reason a king couldn’t enforce them justly. Sometimes the right thing to do isn’t even that complicated to figure out. But the kings we’ve known and seen in the world often choose instead to serve their private interests, to bolster their wealth or greatness in the world at the expense of justice and the good of their subjects, because they, like we, are sinners. But this king isn’t like that. He’s holy, set apart from all that, and entirely devoted to God. Jesus is the great king we desperately need, and now Mary was being told that God had given her the favor of giving birth to this great king. She was stunned, she struggled to see how it could be possible, but in the end, in verse 38, she says, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

 

If you are determined to rebel against the Lord, then even the best king is bad news, because as we said earlier, even the best king over you still means someone is over you besides you. But when you lay down the demand that you be in authority, when you instead adopt the posture, like Mary, of a servant of the Lord, then you can see just how great King Jesus, and his authority, is, and you can say, with Mary, “Let it be to me according to your word.” God’s assignment to Mary was to bear the Son of God—she said, “Let it be to me according to your word.” God’s assignment to you may be to witness for him in the job you have right now—can you say, “Let it be to me according to your word?” It may be to endure a season of joblessness, while still rejoicing in him—can you say, “Let it be to me according to your word?” It may be to step into greater leadership in the church—can you say, “Let it be to me according to your word?” When the difficulty of these assignments hits us, it can even feel impossible to persevere through them with the kind of righteousness, joy, and peace that are typical of God’s kingdom, but look at what the angel tells Mary in verse 37: Nothing will be impossible with God. He will give you what you need for whatever service he assigns you, and the service, however small it may seem, will all be worth it, because of the greatness of the king to whom it is offered. As the great pastor John Newton once said, “Ah, what a poor cold, confused, inconsistent creature! I am a poor servant, indeed! and my only comfort springs from thinking (which yet I do too seldom and faintly) what a wondrous Master I serve.”

 

Let’s continue to consider this wondrous master we serve as we see that he is not only great…he is the greatest.

 

Jesus is the greatest

 

The next encounter in our passage is between Mary and her relative, Elizabeth, who conceived and was pregnant with John, and that’s the story of the passage before this one. The angel in that story appeared to her husband, and the angel told him that John would be filled with the Holy Spirit in the womb, and would go before the Lord, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared (Luke 1:16-17). Now Mary comes to see Elizabeth, with John in Elizabeth’s womb, and probably with Jesus in Mary’s womb. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, verse 41 tells us, the baby leaped in her womb. Now any mom can tell you that kids move around in the womb, but the timing of it is certainly interesting. Then we read that Elizabeth too was filled with the Holy Spirit, and one of the things the Holy Spirit sometimes does when he fills someone, is he gives them supernatural insight into what’s happening.

 

So here, the Holy Spirit reveals to Elizabeth why the child in her womb leapt: It’s because standing before her was the mother of her Lord. Elizabeth calls Mary blessed at the beginning and end of her speech to Mary. She’s recognizing that Mary, regular old Mary, has become great, because of the greatness of the one inside her, who Elizabeth calls “my Lord.” Remember who John was supposed to go before? The Lord. Remember who John was supposed to prepare a people for? The Lord. The Holy Spirit opened Elizabeth’s eyes to see that the child in Mary’s womb is the Lord who the child in her womb was sent to go before. In the history of the church Mary has been called the mother of God in part because of this verse. Obviously that doesn’t mean that God owes his existence to Mary; God is the one being who exists necessarily and eternally, and he is the cause of Mary’s existence, not the other way around. But Mary is the mother of God in the sense that she is the mother of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is truly God, the Lord before whom John was to go.

 

Here we touch the two great mysteries at the heart of the Christian faith: The trinity, and the incarnation. In the trinity we confess God to be one God, who exists eternally in three persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, such that there are not three gods, but one God, such that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, but the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father. And in the incarnation we confess that God the Son assumed a human nature in Jesus Christ when Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary, such that the child, from the moment of his conception, is both truly man, the promised human descendant of David, and truly God, the Lord before whom John was to go. Jesus is not only great—he’s the greatest possible being, the one than whom no greater can be conceived, because he is God himself.

 

I mentioned a bit ago that there’s no inherent reason a king couldn’t pass just laws or administer them justly. A sinless king could, and Jesus is that sinless king, holy from his mother’s womb. But there are creaturely limitations to a merely human king that have nothing to do with sin. Sometimes the right answer is obvious, but other times it isn’t. Who has the wisdom to know what truly are the best laws? Human wisdom is finite, but God’s wisdom is infinite. A single human king is limited in knowledge—how could they even be aware of all the issues affecting all their subjects? But God is infinite in knowledge. A single human king is limited in space—how could they exert their authority over their entire realm? But God is omnipresent, not bound by time or space. And even a sinless human might change, but this God is eternal and unchangeable. Even a sinless human depends on others for life, but God is utterly independent. Jesus is the king we can rely on not only because he’s sinless, but because he’s God. Mary was blessed because the child she bore was not only great—he’s the greatest.

 

And Elizabeth could rejoice in this! There was no, “Well now wait Lord; why does she get to be the mother of my Lord, while ‘all I get’ is to be the one who prepares his way?” She’s just thrilled that the mother of her Lord is even coming to her! You see brothers and sisters, when you really get a glimpse of the greatness of Jesus, when you rejoice in it, it remakes your concern for your greatness. Who cares how Elizabeth stacks up against Mary? The mother of her Lord came to her. And we too can know this Lord. When he grew up, Luke records a story of someone who came to him and said, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” You know what our Lord said in response? “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (Luke 11:27-28). The Lord who was in Mary’s womb has come to us, and he’s given us his word, so that through it we might know him, and receive him by faith.

 

So if we have him, if we serve this wondrous master, the greatest one, the God-man himself, can we not only accept whatever he assigns us, but rejoice in what he assigns others? You may be familiar with the command in the Bible to grieve with those who grieve, and rejoice with those who rejoice (Rom 12:15). Often we put the emphasis on grieving with those who grieve, but have you ever noticed it can be harder to rejoice with those who rejoice, when you want what God has given them? Can I as a pastor rejoice when God grows my friends’ church more visibly than he’s growing mine? I can if I’m really seeing the greatness of Jesus. Then I’ll just want to see him proclaimed, to see more people coming to know him and worship him, whether God chooses to do that through me and my church or through someone else’s church. Can I not just be ok with other churches growing, but actively rejoice in it? Can you? Can you not just be ok with God’s work in the lives of others, but rejoice in it? That’s what Elizabeth shows us is possible here by the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

If that’s lacking in your life, if you notice you’re just kind of mopey about your assignment from the Lord and low-key envy the assignment he’s given others, I feel you, and both you and I need to realize that’s not ok. Pray, and ask the Holy Spirit to fill you with joy in the greatness of Jesus so that you can rejoice when you see his greatness on display in the lives of others. Then take time to look for it in one another’s lives! This is one reason we need to be together, brothers and sisters, even when it snows. The best historical estimates we have are that Mary’s journey to see Elizabeth took 3-5 days. Imagine if she’d have been like, “Man I’m just not feeling it today. That’s 3-5 days, I’m in my first trimester feeling the morning sickness, I just had a conversation with an angel, I know I can talk to God myself; I’ll be good.” She would have robbed herself and Elizabeth of the joy and encouragement they received from their encounter.

 

When you wander or isolate yourself from your church family, that’s what you’re doing. You’re robbing yourself of the chance to see more of the greatness of Jesus in the lives of others, and you’re robbing others of the chance to be encouraged by his work in your life. The medieval poet Dante, in his depiction of heaven, writes this: “The more souls that burn in Heaven above, as mirrors flashing light on to one another, the more there is for all of them to love, and all the more they do love.” And we have an opportunity to taste that on earth through our relationships with one another. As you see the greatness of Jesus more clearly, as you focus on him, you can forget yourself, and rejoice in the ways he’s working in the lives of others.

 

He is not only great; he’s the greatest. He is truly God, and finally, he has made the lowly great.

 

Jesus has made the lowly great

 

So after Elizabeth calls Mary blessed, Mary sings a song well known in the history of the church as the Magnificat, from the Latin word “to magnify,” which appears in the first line of her song: My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. Elizabeth calls Mary blessed, but Mary knows where to turn that blessing: to the Lord himself. She knows she’s undeserving of this blessing, and it’s only because of God’s goodness that it has come to her. She says in verse 48 that God has looked on the humble estate of his servant, and from now on, not only Elizabeth, but all generations will call her blessed, because he who is mighty has done this great thing for her, granting her to bear the great king of Israel, God’s own son, Jesus Christ.

 

Mary wasn’t great in herself. God could have chosen Herod’s daughter, or Ceasar Augustus’ daughter, or their wives, to bear this child. He could have chosen the high priest’s wife or daughter. Those were the great ones of their day. But instead he chose to bestow this incredible blessing on this poor, obscure virgin. And so she realized she’s only great now because of the greatness of Jesus, who God granted her to bear, and it leads her to praise. She realized how honored she is, while also realizing how undeserving she is. But though this particular blessing was particular to her, it was not out of step with how God normally acts.

 

She says in verse 50 that his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. She goes on to sing about how he has brought down the mighty from their thrones, but exalted those of humble estate. Yes, she who was humble and insignificant is now honored and called blessed for generations to come, but that’s just like the Most High God to do. He brings down the mighty, and exalts the humble. He has done that for her, but she says he’s also done it for more than her. In fact, in sending this child to her, Mary says in verse 54 that God hasn’t just helped her—he’s helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to their fathers, to Abraham and his offspring forever. She’s saying what has happened to her is just a microcosm of what God has done for the nation in sending this child.

 

Because remember, this child wasn’t just any child—this was the promised king, Israel’s long-awaited Messiah, and this was the Lord himself, come to rule over his people again in a kingdom that would have no end. And so it’s not just Mary he’s made great; it’s all his people, all those who would join Mary in her humble estate, and receive this child. But in order to make them great, he too would have to first occupy a humble estate. The incarnation itself was an incredible act of humility—the Most High God, our Lord, coming down, the eternal one being born in time, the omnipresent one taking on a body confined to space, the glorious one being born not only to a human, but a human of humble estate, a poor, insignificant Jewish girl living under the reign of the great Roman Empire. To lift us up he had to come down and get us, and to really get us, he would have to go even lower than mere humanity.

 

To come and get us, he would have to also be, in words used later in Luke, “numbered with the transgressors” (Luke 22:37), because we aren’t just righteous, humble servants of the Lord. We are transgressors against the Lord. From the holy state in which Adam was created, we have fallen into the shameful state of sin and guilt. So Jesus, though he remained free from sin for the entirety of his life, was willing to be treated as a sinner by men and ultimately by God when our sins were credited to him, and he bore the wrath of God they deserved on the cross. From the cross he was buried in the grave, humbled to the lowest possible place—dead, and condemned as a sinner. But from there God raised him to new life, and from there God raised him to heaven, where he sits now at the Father’s right hand, having received from him the throne of his Father David, from where he now reigns over not only the house of Jacob, but all the nations of the earth. The great one, the greatest one, is now in the greatest position, seated on the greatest throne. He is right side up.

 

And because he is, his people have also been made great in him—not only Mary, but all who hear his word and keep it, all the offspring of Abraham, all those who turn from their rebellion and receive him by faith. Mary was blessed to bear Jesus, but as Jesus said, blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it. We who are in Christ Jesus have been blessed in him with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Eph 1:3-14). Consider the incredible honor that has been bestowed on us. We were chosen by God to be his own children while we were his enemies. Though we fell from the holy state in which we were created because of sin, our sins have now been forgiven because Jesus paid for them! God has now called us not only “not guilty,” but “righteous,” because the righteousness of Jesus has been given to us! We are now not only legally righteous, but adopted as God’s sons, because Jesus is God’s son, and we are united to him! We are called the bride of Christ because Jesus loved us and gave himself up for us! We have been set free from sin and brought into the honorable service of the greatest master possible because Jesus is our master. We have eternal life, and though we die, we shall live in resurrected bodies in a new heaven and new earth, where Jesus will reign forever as king, where all the blessings of God’s kingdom will come to us, and where we will not only be his subjects, but will be exalted to rule with him.

 

Let us magnify the Lord, brothers and sisters, and let us rejoice in God our Savior! If that’s not your desire, you’re missing one of two things: Your unworthiness, or your honor. Even if you’re great in the eyes of the world, all of us are nothing in comparison to the God who made all things. He’s perfect, we aren’t; he’s eternal, we’re born in time; he’s omnipresent, we’re present one place at a time; he knows all things, we know like .0000001% of anything; he’s omnipotent, we can do like .0000001% of what we want, and on top of this basic, vast, infinite distance between creator and creature, we have sinned against him in thought, word, and deed, and still do so up to this very hour. What’s he owe us? That’s our unworthiness. But what’s he given us? Jesus Christ, the great one, the greatest one, and every spiritual blessing in him. That’s our honor. You ever just stop and laugh at how crazy it is that you’re even a Christian? Think about what you deserve, then look at what God has given you in Jesus, and your soul too will begin to magnify the Lord, and rejoice in God your savior. God has made his people great through the greatness of Jesus.