4th Sunday in Advent

“My soul magnifies the lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”

In today’s gospel we hear the Magnificat:
that great song of Mary found in the Gospel of Luke.

And there’s very similar words in the book of Samuel:
When another mother: Hannah, sings a similar song.

Hannah was unable to conceive and bear children:
We are told that it was because, “The Lord had closed her womb.”

In time, however, she did conceive:
And she gave birth to Samuel:
who would become a great priest and prophet.

When Hannah dedicates Samuel to the temple to become a priest:

She sings a song:
The song that Luke uses as the model for Mary’s song.

Hannah says,
“My heart exults in the Lord;

My strength is exalted in my God.”

It sounds a lot like Mary’s song:
“My soul magnifies the Lord.”

As both songs continue,
They talk about the mighty being laid low,
The lowly raised up:
About God acting in the world.

And so these women sing:
“My heart exults in the Lord.”
“My soul magnifies the Lord.”

That’s an arresting phrase: My soul magnifies the Lord.
MY soul magnifies the Lord.

It is sometimes translated as:
“my soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.”

But there’s something really powerful about this translation:
“my soul magnifies the Lord.”

And it IS a better translation:
Since Mary’s song is named “The Magnificat”
The Latin word for “Magnifies.”
The more traditional, version translates the song as:
“My soul doth magnify the lord,”
And a little later says,
“For he that is mighty hath magnified me.”

Think about that:
Mary is saying:
I magnify the lord:
And the Lord also magnifies me.

Double magnification:
Double “Bigger.”
As if : In a magnifying glass.

And that’s where we are in Advent:
Advent prepares us for Christmas:
Taking us through the magnifying glass:
Through the looking glass.

There, everything looks familiar,
But everything is utterly and profoundly different.

Because God has become incarnate, enfleshed, one of us:
And that changes everything.
It magnifys everything.
It makes all meaning bigger.

This is the God-magnifying life of Jesus.
Where JESUS magnifies God:
Where JESUS: coming to earth:
Makes us more able to SEE god:
As if we are looking through a magnifying glass.

At the beginning of the service we prayed:
“that when Jesus comes he will find in our hearts a mansion prepared for him.”
It echos the Gospel of John:
Where Jesus says that he goes to prepare a mansion for us:
That in his father’s house there are many mansions.

Jesus promises to prepare a place for us.
And now we are on the cusp of welcoming God again:
And recognizing God as living, moving, and acting among us again.
We are told to prepare a mansion for God.

You know the song:
“Joy to the world”

“Let every heart, prepare Him room.”

Preparing God a space:
So that God might be born again in us.
So that we might be born again in him.
Our souls, or bodies, our very being, will magnify the greatness of God.
Will make it bigger:
More visible.

As Mary’s soul magnifys the lord:
So should ours.
We too, have a part in God’s divine action.

And that’s what Jesus’ incarnation is all about:
That’s what God becoming human is all about:
About how humans, too, can magnify the Lord:
Making God more visible:
Brining peace, joy, love, and hope to the world through us:
Magnifying God’s grace and spirit through us.

“My soul magnifies the Lord,” can mean that through me,
through you, through us:
others can see the Lord more clearly.
Through me and through you,

People can catch a glimpse of that peaceful kingdom:
Can see it magnified more clearly.

Through each of us, through our words and our actions,
through all that we do, can magnify God.

We magnify God’s being with our own bodies.
We magnify God’s action with our own practices.
We magnify God’s word with our words in the world.

But HOW can we magnify the Lord?
That’s a big question.
It’s easy to think that it’s too big for any one of us to handle.

But another important lesson that Mary’s Magnificat teaches is that we are
enough.
Whoever you are, whatever you have or haven’t done, you are enough.
The song of Mary reminds us that all of the scripture points to the little, the lowly,
the “who me?” as the vehicle for salvation.

Bethlehem is nothing special.
Hannah, the mother of Samuel, is nothing special:
Elizabeth:
The mother of John the Baptist, is nothing special.

And both Elizabeth and Hannah endured disgrace due to their barrenness.
And Mary:
Mary is a NOBODY.
An underage woman, from a nowhere town—Nazareth.

All throughout scripture whenever God wants to do something it’s the little,
the ordinary, the unexceptional that God uses.

When God wants to create humans:
God reaches into the mud.
When God wants to redeem all of creation:
God enters that creation fully and completely:
as one of the most vulnerable creatures on the planet:
a human child.

And a human child born to NOBODIES.
In a NOWHERE town.
A tiny baby:
Who is, at first, a NOBODY.
Yet, entirely enough
Enough to change human history,
Enough to change the world:
Enough to change us:
Into the beloved children of God that we are.

That tiny baby:
Magnifying the Lord:
Making God more visible to all.

It is through human beings, through human flesh:
Through this fragile and easily broken substance that salvation happens.
It is through us that God works.
Through us that God is magnified.

And just like Mary and Hannah, though little, we are enough.
Each of us is enough to magnify God.
Imagine what would happen if we let God work.

If we truly made room for God to be born in our hearts.
If we let God magnify the good work that God has begun and is already doing in
each of us.
What if we joined together with others to magnify that work?
Imagine the world that would be born from that.

As we prepare to welcome Christ once more into our hearts and our homes, may
our souls magnify more and more the glory of God.
May our souls:
Make God magnified:
Seen more clearly:
In the world and in us. Amen.