Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Mary’s Song

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

We’re looking at people who have had close encounters with God. Of course, Mary’s experience is often read at Christmastime. In Luke 1, Mary sings the very first Christmas carol. It’s the first Christmas song, and I’d say it’s the best.  Let’s look at 1) what leads her to sing, 2) what she sings a little about, and 3) what she sings a lot about.  This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 8, 1996. Series: Daring to Draw Near. Scripture: Luke 1:39-55. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. As you may have heard recently, it is with sadness that we share with you that our founder and friend Timothy J. Keller passed away in the morning of May 19, 2023, at the age of 72, trusting in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection. While our hearts are heavy with the news of Tim's death and our prayers are with his family as they go through the grieving process, our spirits are also lifted because we know that he has a new life and is with his Savior and that one day we will see him again. And so with that hope in mind, we want to honor Tim's wishes and continue ministering the gospel during this season, because as you have heard Tim say many times, the gospel changes everything.

So listen now to his teaching and join us in praying for his family. Thank you. I'm going to read the passage in the bulletin that's printed here. It's Luke 1, 39 to 55. I'm going to read it in one language. When I was in Europe, there was a very nasty little joke that used to, I heard a couple times, I said, well you know if you know three languages, you're trilingual. You know two languages, you're bilingual, if you know one language, you're an American. But that's not true in New York. No. So us Americans in New York only know one language feel a little bit kind of dumb, but the only language I know I am about to show you, Luke 1, 39 to 55. At that time Mary got ready and hurried to the Hill Country to a town in the Hill Country

of Judea, where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with a Holy Spirit, in a loud voice, she exclaimed, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear. But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby and my womb leaped for joy, blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished. And Mary said, my soul glorifies the Lord and my

spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for He has been mindful of the humble state of His servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed. For the mighty one has done great things for me. Holy is His name. His mercy extends to those who fear Him from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with His arm. He has scattered those who are proud in their inn most thoughts.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty. He has helped to serve in Israel, remembering to be merciful, to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers. Nothing on the other side yet. This is God's word. I'll tell you why I would like to look at this passage for a second. One reason is those of you who come to the evening services on some regular basis know that this fall we've been looking at people who've had close encounters with God, people who've met God face to face, had a powerful spiritual experience, and of course Mary's experience is mentioned

in the passage that was already read. The second of the lessons that is traditionally used in the lessons and carols, the enunciation where the angel comes and says, Hail Mary, greetings. The Lord is with you. The Holy Spirit will overshadow you. And the sun that will be born to you will be God's sun. Now the aftermath is what we just read. And I'd like to look at it because,

you know, we've been singing Christmas carols tonight and you'll continue to sing Christmas Carol's. But this is the first Christmas Carol. What Mary sings. It's the first Christmas Carol, it's the first Christmas song, and I'd say it's the best. Let me just briefly look with you at what led her to sing and what she sings a little about and what she sings a lot about. What led her to sing, what she sings a little about and what she sings a lot about. What letter to sing, what she sings a little about and what she sings a lot about.

What letter to sing is this story. You know, I realize that in the over the years, I mean, a Christmas time, I always go to Christmas passages and I've preached on the enunciation, which is verses 26 to 38, and I've preached on the magnificate, which is Mary's song, which begins in verse 46. But really, there's something very special that we can learn about what led her to sing. It's this story from verse 39 to verse 45.

You see, when the angel comes to Mary and says, God is going to give you a son, and it's going to be God's son. And the one born will be the most high and so on. She says at the very end, verse 38, verse before, this passage begins, she says, she says, behold, I am the handmaiden of the Lord. May it be to me, as you have said. She submits. It's courageous. it's amazing.

She knows that because she will be an unwed mother because she will have a child before she's married, she will be, her life essentially will be ruined. It'll be ruined socially, it'll be ruined relationally. And she submits, but there's no joy, there's no release. I would call it a semi-comprehending surrender. And sometimes that's the best you can do, frankly.

And there's nothing really wrong with that. Sometimes that's all you can muster. Sometimes you can say, I'm going to do the right thing. I don't understand why it's so hard. I don't understand what God is doing. But you submit. It's a semi-comprehending submission. But near the end of the message from God, the angel,

Gabriel, the angel, says to Mary, indicates to her, go see Elizabeth. He doesn't exactly say go see Elizabeth. He says, he says, you know, Elizabeth is also under the hand of God. Elizabeth, your older cousin, Elizabeth, who's been barren, Elizabeth, who's too old to have children. Even she is being touched by God.

And so basically, it's interesting. The messenger from God says, because obviously Mary is troubled. She's submitting, but there's a kind of confused, she's kind of confused. He says, go see Elizabeth. So she goes to see Elizabeth. And as soon as she comes in, Elizabeth, hearing Mary's greeting, is filled with Holy Spirit. And suddenly she gets tremendous powers of perception and tremendous powers of insight. And she says, how, why am I so favored

that the mother of my Lord would come to me? How, why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me? And she says, blessed is she who believes that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished. Now, this is what hits Mary. And it strikes her amazingly. First of all, from what we can tell,

when we look at Mary's song, she's struck by what Elizabeth says about Mary. She says, how is it that the mother of my Lord? Mary is a nobody. Mary says in verse 48, he has been mindful of the humble state of his children. Mary was a nobody socially. When she and Joseph go to make their offering when Jesus is born at the temple, you'll see

if you read it in Luke chapter 2, they offer two pigeons, two young pigeons. It's the offering that was prescribed for the poorest of the poor. If you came in to give an offering, of course, if you were rich, you had to give this and if you were middle class, you had to give the porcelain, they were nobodies. And now that she was on wed mother, she was pregnant outside of wedlock, she was really a nobody. She walks in and Elizabeth shows her an honor and a deference she's probably never experienced before. Why should the mother of my Lord come to me? But she's even more struck with what Elizabeth says about Jesus. Because if you look, you might say, well, she doesn't say much about Jesus. Oh, my, she does.

She uses the most heavy, duty, trinitarian language possible. Because on the one hand, she says, the Lord has made this promise to you. The Lord promised, the Lord came and made this promise. Blessed is she, who believes what the Lord has said, her will be accomplished. But on the other hand, the baby, in her womb, is the Lord. It's the same thing.

It says, but why am I so favored to the mother of my Lord would come to me? Well now which is it? Which is, where's the Lord? Is the Lord the one that has sent the baby or is the Lord the baby? Is the Lord the one who has promised the baby or is the Lord the baby? And the answer is yes. This is lofty.

This is astonishing. I think Elizabeth, of course, her theology is high. It's lofty. It's nuanced. It's trinitarian. The Father is God, the Son is God. One is not the real Lord and the other one is sort of an emissary. They are both my Lord, they are the same, they aren't the same.

This is high level stuff filled with the Holy Spirit. So Elizabeth has this remarkable statement about Mary and about Jesus, and when that happens, the penny drops for Mary. And it's like, the fact that Elizabeth knows this confirms to Mary that this is of God. And what Elizabeth actually says seems to pull together the things that Mary's been pondering, surely on her trip she's been pondering the scriptures and pondering what the angel said, and it brings it together. And suddenly she says, my soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit doth rejoice in God, my

Savior. Suddenly the penny drops. It comes together. Instead of a kind of semi-comprehending submission confused, she sees it. She gets it. Clarity, joy, release. And she begins to sing the first Christmas Carol. Now, before we go on and take a look and see some of the things she says in the Christmas

Carol, what do we learn about this little story, about what led up to singing? We need fellowship. Look, here's something very, very practical. First of all, Mary does not just go sit alone. Mary doesn't really understand, Mary doesn't really see, Mary doesn't really break into joy until she gets into fellowship with another sister. She comes in and Elizabeth says a couple things

and it all clicks, it all comes together. Now this is extremely important. We find the Lord mainly in community. Even Gabriel kind of hints at this and says, look Mary, I know this is gonna be hard. Go see Elizabeth. So often the word from God we need comes through a brother or sister.

So often the missing piece of the puzzle comes. What a beautiful picture this is of a one-on-one relationship between Christians. What a beautiful picture this is of a small group fellowship. We come in and we talk about what God means to us. And the pieces of the puzzle come together. It reminds me, of course, of that wonderful and sad, but mainly wonderful passage in the four loves by C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis was part of a group of men who were good friends and one

of them Charles Williams died in the mid-40s. And later on he wrote this passage in which he says, when Charles died, I didn't just lose Charles, I lost the part of Ronald that only Charles brought out. In other words, I don't know Ronald like I used to because Charles is not there to help me know Ronald. What he's saying is, the human personality is so rich. Our personalities are so rich that one person doesn't bring us all out.

That you really get to know an individual far better in a group than you do one-on-one. And if that's the case of a human personality, how much more Jesus Christ than what that means is, that your brothers and sisters, from their vantage point, see aspects of the glory of Christ, you do not see, and it's only together that you will see Him more and more truly. What if Mary said, no, I just, what if Mary said spiritually, I want to be alone. She didn't.

She hurried to see Elizabeth. She hurried. Guys, we all know that women are a little better at this. You see, she has a revelation. She says, I got to go talk to Elizabeth. She hurries. Do we hurry? You see, without community, if I go one to Elizabeth, she hurries. Do we hurry? You see, without community, if I go one step further, the other thing we learn about this is not just that

we get to know God better in community, but you must never assume God is calling you to something unless it's confirmed by other Christians. You don't see Mary saying, hey, I'm gonna be the mother of the Messiah. An angel told me, bow down, she comes in and she does not take hold of this until some other Christian confirms it. Now I can tell you a couple other great stories that we'll make you laugh too. You see, there are tremendous number of very unmarried like people running around not just the churches of Christianity in general. They feel like God has spoken to me. I'm going to be a counselor. I'm going to be a singer. I'm going to be a minister of music.

I'm going to be a preacher. I'm going to be a teacher. And you don't, like Mary, if you feel God's calling you to do something, you ought to shut up about it. And you ought to try your hand as much as you possibly can to serve other people. And you need to wait for somebody else to come and say, you are good at that, and you need to do it.

I can tell you some funny stories. It's a true story. Charles Spurgeon, a great preacher in a huge Baptist church in London in the middle of the 19th century. One day, after a service, a man came up to him who he'd never met before and said, God has told me that I am supposed to preach in this pulpit next Sunday. And Spurgeon looked in right in the eye and said, no, he didn't, because if God would have told you that,

he would have told me, too. And that's exactly what happens here. God's not going to tell Mary without telling somebody else. You see, you cannot be self-annoyed. You cannot be self-accredited. You must wait and see other people see the same thing in you. Delusion is too easy. Mary comes in rightly so, humbly wondering whether she didn't

just imagine it. And I think everybody, when you first hear in a sense from the Lord that I want you to do this or I want you to do that, you ought to be just as deferential. See, we know God. We know ourselves best in community. There's an awful lot there. Well, look, very briefly then. What is Mary's thing about? First of all, she sings a little bit about me, and then she sings mainly about he.

If you notice, in the first couple of verses, she sings, she says, right away, the first thing she says, my, you get a lot of my is the first. My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. For He's been mindful of the humble state of His servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed. For the mighty one has done great things for me, holy is His name. Wish I had time to go into this, but I don't really. Mary says a couple things about herself.

If you're a Protestant, you need to be corrected in a way, because we Protestants very often. If you raise to Protestant, very often we don't give Mary the honor she deserves. And she says right here, I'm pretty interesting. She says, all generations from now on will call me blessed. She knows that she's going to be a model and inspiration for people through all generations. She's a very strong statement. We Protestants have to recognize that. But if you're raised Catholic, you also probably need to keep this in mind. That is verse 47, not 48, where she says,

My spirit rejoices in God, My Savior. She's not perfect. Perfect people don't need a Savior. You know, and what you have actually, even though Mary is so unique, is you have a perfect picture of what Christians begin to sing about. Because on the one hand, I'm a sinner. On the one hand, like Mary, I'm a sinner, I need a savior. I am saved strictly by grace, but on the other hand, the Bible says that every Christian

is seated at the right hand of God as it were, is holy and blameless in his sight, just like Mary, who's amazed by the fact that though she was humble and though she needs a Savior, though she's saved by grace, she has now been given this tremendous position and tremendous honor. Every Christian is things like that. Thank you for listening to today's teaching here on Gospel and Life. As you process the news of Tim's passing, we recognize that you may be looking for a way to respond.

To help with that, we have set up a page that gives you a way to share your condolences, submit a story of how Tim's teaching or writing has helped you, or simply how you can pray for the Keller family in this ministry. For more information, please visit gospelandlife.com slash remembering. That's gospelandlife.com slash remembering. Now here's the remainder of today's teaching. And not only that, notice what she says, my spirit, my soul. I love that because you know, spirit and soul are just two ways of talking about the very immaterial core center

of your personal being. Just two different ways of talking about the same thing. She's not talking about two parts of her. One part is rejoicing, one part is glorifying. I mean, you can see, this is Semitic parallelism. She's saying the same thing twice. But here's what she's saying. She is not saying, I have found a code of ethics, which I have picked up.

And now I really have more clarity in my life. You know, oh, she's not saying I've turned over New Leaf. She says, my soul. She says, my spirit. She says, I haven't taken anything up. I've been taken up. I've been shaken to the depths. This involves my whole life, my whole center of my being.

You don't try God, you don't add God, you don't add Jesus Christ, you're shaken to the depths. She has a whole new experience, you see. She's singing because of this astonishing sense of sinfulness and yet honor. That's what she's singing about me. But mainly, she's singing about me. But mainly, she's singing about he. Because you notice in the first few verses, blessed is she who believed, pardon me, verse 47,

48, she's saying, my soul, my spirit, he's been mindful of me from now on, generation will call me blessed, but almost immediately, every other verse begins to start with his, he, he has performed mighty deeds. He has scattered those who are proud and are inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones. He has filled the hungry with good things. He has sent away the rich empty. He has helped to serve him. I really wish that we had time to open this up, but this is the essential thing that she's

saying. This is the most unsenembranished, the most unsenemmental Christmas Carol you're going to find. Some of the older Christmas Carols get away from it. The new Christmas, I mean, if you get all the way down into white Christmas, for example, and stuff like that, you know, the most sentimental song I know is Give Me A Home Where The Buffalo's Room, and the deer and the antelope play. They play.

They're out there tearing each other to shreds, but no, they play. Yes. Yes. Where seldom has heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day. Yes, a desert. You know, that's a sentimental way.

Let's just take a look. Now, an awful lot of Christmas carols are incredibly sentimental. This is utterly unsinemorial. I love this about Mary.s are incredibly sentimental. This is utterly unsinemmental. I love this about Mary. She's not sentimental. And neither is Jesus. There's a place.

One day I'm gonna preach on this one too. There's a very strange two little verses at the end of Luke 11. Jesus is teaching and it says, suddenly a woman cried out from the crowd and said, blessed is the womb that bear you and the breast that you suck.

And Jesus turns to her and says, no, rather, blessed is the one who hears the word of God and does it. It's a rebuke. He says, don't tell me flowery things. Don't tell me you have perfect attendance pins. Don't tell me that you're related to me. Don't tell me that you've memorized the Bible. Don't tell me any of those things. Don't tell me you have perfect attendance pins. Don't tell me that you're related to me. Don't tell me that you've memorized the Bible. Don't tell me any of those things. I want to know, do you do what I ask?

Very unsenemorial. And here's what's so unsenemorial about Christmas. What Mary is saying is, yes, God has brought his grace to earth. God's grace has come to earth. In a sense, the winds of God's grace are blowing, but just like a strong wind, if you don't know how to sail, the same wind that can whisk you to your destination, if you know how to relate to it because you're a good sailor, if you do not know how to relate to that wind, the same wind can knock your boat over, drown you, or push you into the rocks.

And she is saying that's exactly what's happening. God has come with His grace. And if you meet it with humility, look, look at the first thing. If you meet it with humility, you will have mercy. His mercy extends to those who fear Him. He has performed mighty deeds with His army. He has scattered those who are proud and they're in most thoughts. First of all, she's saying,

if you, this is the gospel, the gospel is that you're saved by grace, not saved by being a good person. The gospel is not that God shows his favor to the good, and he scatters the bad. No, the gospel is not that the good come in and the bad don't, but those who know that they're bad come in and those who think that they're good don't.

And what he's saying is, she's singing. She is singing, if you understand the gospel, that means that if you are scattered, you'll be gathered. And if you're gathered, you'll be scattered. If you say, I'm all to pieces, God will bring you together, but if you say, I'm together, God will scatter you. If you are humble, He will give you a confidence like He's doing to her. Humble, lift it up.

But if you are lifted up, He will knock you apart. I mean, there is nothing more unsenimental about Christmas than this. The grace of God gathers those who are scattered and scatter those who think they're all together. Then it goes one step further, and this is very important. He says, there will be a psychological revolution. Those of you who are humble and are willing to admit your sin, God will lift you up. Those of you who are proud and think you're all together, God will scatter you. But then there's a sociological revolution.

And Mary comes right out and says, he is brought down rulers from their thrones but lifted up the humble. That's a bad word. That's not the best rendering. It's a bad translation. The word humble here is top of news, which means those at the bottom. What he means is he's brought down rulers from their thrones, but he's lifted up the poor. He has filled the hungry, but he's sent away the rich empty.

And here's what she's saying again, this is not sentimental at all. She says, the gospel of grace always lifts up the poor. Why? Because it tells the poor, it doesn't matter your pedigree. The poor, hearing from the world all this, the poor, saying, you're uneducated. That's what the world is saying to the poor. You're uneducated, you can't spell. You don't have fathers and mothers

with good pedigree, you don't have connections, you can't provide for your children. And religion comes along and says, yes, the good, the people with character get to God and the bad do not, but Christianity comes along and says no, salvation is a supernatural act of grace. The gospel comes along and says, no, salvation is a supernatural act of grace. The gospel comes along and says that the nicest and most decent people, the people with the connections, are everybody's lost as the prostitutes and the pimps.

And if you are a prostitute or a pimping, you come to him, you become a prophet, a priest, and a king before him. That's the gospel. That list up the poor. But it pulls down the rich. And I want you to know, you might say, well, only if you disbelieve, no, I will go so far as to say this,

not only does the gospel show the poor, that there are no worse than anyone, it shows the middle class and the upper class that there are no better. And you can either find that out gently now. If you become an upper, if you're an upper middle class person, if you're a professional person, you become a Christian. Once you begin to hear the gospel, you realize that you are no better than the poor. And therefore, you need to, in a sense, you will be drawn down.

You will be drawn in. You won't pick up your skirts. You will say, I'm no different than the poor in God's eyes. And God has been very good with my resources and is given to me even though I didn't deserve it in any way. Therefore I have to be generous with my resources. The gospel lifts up the poor. It definitely does. It always has.

The poor hear the gospel before the middle class. That's a historical fact. That's what the Bible says, too. And it dignifies radically the poor, but it also brings down the professionals. It knocks them down, it shows the poor, they're no worse. Then anyone else, they don't have to be ashamed of anyone, but it shows the rich and it shows the middle class that they're no better.

This is incidental. The grace of God does this. Psychological revolution, sociological revolution. The grace of God is like, psychological revolution, sociological revolution. The grace of God is like a wind and it's blowing and it depends on you as to whether it will whisk you to incredible places, whisk you into the arms of God or whether it will drown you or drive you to the rocks. And Mary says it's up to you, but it's going to happen. Because the last thing she says is, he helped us serve in Israel, remembering to be merciful

to Abraham as descendants for ever even as he said. That promised to Abraham was 2,000 years old, but it happened. And now of course, Jesus Christ has promised to come back and put everything straight, and that promise is 2,000 years old. Don't doubt it. The wind is blowing, says Mary. Listen, you today, right now, can decide, put your finger up here, see which way the wind's blowing?

The gospel is not be good and God will bless you. The gospel is admit that you like Mary are at the bottom and he will lift you up. If you can say today what Elizabeth said that this baby is your Lord, then the wind will whisk you into his arms. This is the message of Christmas, let's pray. We ask Father that you will show us the glories of this message. We thank you that we call Mary Blessed. We do. We have learned so much from her today and we continually will. We thank you that she struggled.

We thank you that she wrestled. We thank you that she really in many ways is such a wonderful model, such an incredible inspiration because she's not made of different stuff than we are. We call our blessing because she shows us the way. We pray Lord that like she, we will hurry off to brothers and sisters when we're troubled.

We pray Lord that like she, we will see that like she did, that we will see that the gospel of grace is both a warning and a blessing. And we pray that like she did, we can also say, may it be to me, as you have said, so that we can know the joy that she knew, our souls and spirits want to magnify you forever. So answer all these requests we make them in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to today's teaching. We recognize that many of you will want to respond

to the news of Tim's passing. If you would like to know more about how to share your condolences or to share a story of how Tim's writing or teaching helped you or if you just want to know how you can pray, please visit gospelunlife.com slash remembering. This month's sermons were recorded in 1996 and 2009. The sermons and talks you hear on the gospel and life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.