Bjcorbin's Blog

In these days leading to our celebration of Christmas, I find myself drawn to the words of “Mary’s Song”, from the gospel of Luke (1:46-55).  Within this passage Mary is responding to her cousin Elizabeth’s extraordinary greeting as she exclaims, “my soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in God, my Savior”.  As I’ve meditated on those words, their profound nature has become more apparent to me.  I find myself wanting to understand exactly what it is to “magnify the Lord” and to truly abide in His joy.  While I’ve certainly walked with the Lord long enough to give a passable explanation of these things, I have to wonder if I’ve ever actually experienced them first hand. 

The Bible says that the joy of the Lord is our strength and while few of us would consider ourselves to be deficient in the area of joy, how many of us have complained about our fatigue (e.g. stress, burn out, exhaustion…).  It is unlikely that we as Christians would describe ourselves as joyless, but that seems to be a common adjective used by Non-Christians to describe us.  I believe that part of this can be attributed to the fact that we generally mistake happiness for joy; but happiness is a fleeting emotion that is driven largely by circumstance and is easily changed.  Joy on the other hand is experienced in our spirit and is rooted in our response to God as opposed to our circumstances; this makes joy more profound, transcendent and sustaining.  Happiness is generally something we pursue, while joy is found in our surrender to Gods plan.  Mary had surrendered to God’s plan and the joy that she was experiencing caused her own cousin to view her in a totally different light.  Undoubtedly this would be the effect on our family, friends and neighbors if we similarly succumbed to the joy that the Lord has afforded us.

Arguably the concept of “magnifying” the Lord is even more vital than that of partaking of His joy.  The scripture tells us that our destiny is to be transformed into the image of Christ and that He is faithful to complete the good work that He has begun in us.  Based on these verses it would seem that the committed Christian should expect to grow more Christ-like with each passing year of their journey, but from my experience that is rarely true.  As I ponder the reasons for this, I wonder if this is even one of our goals and I shudder at the thought of what our souls are magnifying if it is not the Lord.  The idea of magnifying is that a clearer, more defined picture will emerge from our interaction and that begs the question of what picture is emerging from the worlds interaction with the church.  Jesus is the “light of the world” and He’s called us to reflect that light to a fallen world; but how will that ever be accomplished if His light cannot be seen in us.

Mary understood that something of heaven had been deposited within her and that Gods intent was not simply for her to enjoy the sensations of the baby in her womb or to bestow upon her honor amongst women; but that it was to bring forth that life when the time came.  The same is true of believers today, as the Lord has once again deposited Himself within us, not just for our own edification, but so that we will allow Him to come forth at His appointed times.  This Christmas I pray that His people everywhere will respond as Mary did when she told the angel, I am the Lord’s servant, let it be as you have said.  I pray that we will truly magnify the Lord and genuinely rejoice in Him.  God bless you and your family this Christmas.