Advent 2000 Newsletter

"Mary" by Tilman Riemenschneider (1460-1531)

The blue hue used to adorn altars and pulpits during Advent is Marian blue, appropriately. Also appropriate is to learn from the hope-filled virgin and her song (Luke 1:46-55) how to magnify the Lord. Exactly that preachers are assigned to do by the lectionary for the 4th Sunday in Advent this year. For help, we can look to a preacher who was especially fond of both Mary and her song, Martin Luther.

Fondness for Mary was common in his era. But he may have felt a special connection with this lowly, poor, powerless girl. For his "little exposition of the Magnificat" was written in the months before and after the famous Diet at Worms, that high court where Luther felt his own lowliness, weakness and poverty. Working on Mary's Song, how God lifts the lowly and has mercy on those who fear him, may have prepared Luther for the Diet. For he compared her trust in God's goodness to David's spirit, which in turn sounds like Luther's posture at the Diet. He writes that when David was driven from Jerusalem and likely to be cast out forever he said, "If I find favor in the eyes of the Lord, He will bring me back; but if He says, 'I have no pleasure in you,' behold, here I am." Her trust must have bolstered his. Can it bolster ours, too?

And experiencing God's spiritual strength at the Diet re-enforced Luther's love for Mary and her song. For upon leaving the safety of the Wartburg, where he had completed work on his Magnificat, he wrote to his duke, Frederick, not to worry about guarding Luther. "In fact, I will guard you more than you can guard me. In this matter no sword can help but only God with no human help. Whoever believes the most can guard the most." This Luther learned from the Magnificat, for he explains, as we shall see, how God especially helps those who trust Him without relying on any human help.

Luther's exposition was addressed to John Fred-erick, nephew of the Elector Frederick and an intercessor on Luther's behalf. Now, John Frederick and Mary were opposites in worldy terms. So Luther's pastoral concern is that the noble prince learn from the lowly girl's spiritual wisdom.

• C is for Contentment
  What does Luther find so admirable in Mary? She was content, even in "her insignificance, lowliness, poverty and inferiority." She was content because of her genuine humility. "True humility . . . never knows it is humble . . . , for if it knew this, it would turn proud from contemplation of so fine a virtue. . . And therefore, when honor and elevation come, [humility] must take it unawares."

• R is for Rejoicing
  That touches a second, deeper aspect of life. As Luther praises Mary, cautions his prince and diagnoses human sin, he looks beyond humility or lack of it to the person's corresponding attitude toward God. Mary's singing, "My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior," "teaches us to love and praise God for Himself alone . . . and not selfishly to seek anything at his hands.

• O is for Outcomes
  Even that lack of genuine love for God and of faith in Him is not the worst. It is as bad as we can get, but not as bad as it can get for us. For God can and does deal with us according to our faith or lack of it. If we do not believe then God will not help us. Luther points this out in his wonderful exegesis of Mary's line, "He has shown the strength of His arm."

• S is for Servant
  So God's regard will lead us to that alternative, happier outcome. But on what basis can we hope for God's regard? We will see two factors as Luther explains Mary's singing, "He has helped His servant Israel in remembrance of His mercy." First, with this, says Luther, "she divided Israel into two parts and refers only to that part that is God's servant. Now, no one is God's servant unless he lets Him be his God and perform His works in him."

• S is for Steadiness
  With that Luther shows us the outer life of Mary and of all believers whom God has regarded. We will have a steadiness of heart, like Mary, and not "let our spirits rise or fall according to how He gives or takes away our gifts." In such contentment Mary sings God's praise from a pure love of Him, not tied to His gifts. Her contentment came, and ours will come, from knowing God as "He who is mighty."

• I is for Inability
  St. Luke, through whom we have Mary's song, must have been taken by her theme: God has mercy on those who fear Him. At least, Luke caught that aspect in many stories. So much so that "fearing God," as former editor Bob Bertram points out in the following piece, is a theme of Luke's Gospel. Mary herself is told not to fear. And there are Luke's Christmas shepherds and their "great fear."

• N is for Not
  Or is this a misreading of the Christmas story? After all, weren't the shepherds promptly told not to fear? Doesn't that prove that their fear was groundless? To the contrary, what better grounds could their fear possibly have had? It was exactly on target.

• G is for Grace
  But if the fear of God is not morbid, we owe it to one another, to America, to explain why it isn't. Again, consider Luke. Throughout his gospel -- also in his second volume, the book of Acts -- what is it about God that enables some sinners to fear God? Finally, it is God's mercy. That is hardly morbid.

• S is for Share
  But why the falling? Answer: to take us down to share death with himself, to purge away our old morbid selves. This Christ, precisely because his mercy stares straight through us, can play rough, inspiring mortal fear of himself, cauterizing away our petty phobias. Yet our dying, because it is shared dying with him, is always for the sake of the shared rising. At just the right moment in the Godfearers' dread, Jesus breaks in and reverses their dread.