The Lyrics to Mary's Song - part 1

It is the Christmas season.  No way around it, we are in full swing.  Thank goodness we have the stores to all remind us of this with flyers and emails and sales and all of the things that we do not need! 

It is during the materialism that I need the reminder that the season is not about the things that we spend the most time worrying about.  It is not about presents.  It is not about trees.  It is not about decorations.  It is not about a feeling of happiness.  It is not about family.  It is not about friends.  All of these things have their place, but none of their places is at the forefront of the meaning of the Christmas Event.  During the next few weeks I want to focus on the Christmas Event.  That one moment of God coming to earth that changed so much.  And when this was told to Mary, she sang a song.  This song captures the essence of the real purpose and meaning behind Christmas.  And so I want to examine the lyrics.

The song is found in Luke 1:46-55.   It begins like this:
"My soul exalts the Lord, my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior."

This is what it is about.  Recognition of a proper place and the fact that we exist for God, not the other way around.  What a corrective.  In the time of the greatest materialism we begin to think that the world revolves around us.  We buy gifts and wonder what people will get us.  We put together lists and we dream about the food that pleases us the most.  And this song that Mary puts together simply begins with the idea that we are here to exalt our God, not the other way around. 

But, this does not mean that there is no gift at Christmas.  No, we receive the greatest gift - because we can rejoice that God is our Savior.  This is in fact the meaning and the reason behind the name "Jesus" because He will save His people.  This expression implies that our greatest need was not anything to do with material goods, but instead a change in our relationship with God.  We needed saving.  We needed to be healed and helped.  But at our core, before we could be healed, before we could be helped, we needed to be redeemed.  And God sent His Son Jesus to do just that.  To save us.  But notice that this comes after exaltation.  Even our salvation is not solely for its own end, but instead to drive us to exalt our Lord all the more. 

This Christmas, let us not just talk about Jesus being the "Reason for the Season".  Let us talk in specifics about the fact that He came so that we could exalt Him.  He came to save.  And let us worship Him for all that He has done for us.