The Magnificat

 Advent Meditations

December 22, 2020

The Magnificat

Mary responded, “Oh, how my soul praises the Lord.

     How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!

Luke 1:46-47 

Read Luke 1:46-56

Almost every word of Mary’s beautiful song is a quotation of scripture. Elizabeth’s child is John the Baptist, and his preaching will echo Mary’s song.

Mary and Elizabeth are far from naïve. There is yet to come much pain and sorrow in their lives. Why then could they speak with such excitement and joy about a child who then was still thirty weeks from birth? I believe they could celebrate with such uninhibited joy because, as I noted yesterday, they knew they were participating in God’s plan of salvation. In their reading of the scriptures, they met the God of Creation who is the Holy One, the Powerful One, the Faithful One, the Merciful One, and the One who is Love for all of His creation. When they realized God was literally moving within them to fulfill his promises, their spirits responded with words of reverence and joy, the words of scripture.

When I read Mary’s song, I think of that most beautiful of sonnets, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet XLIII. It begins “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach . . .”

I believe an appropriate Advent practice for us is to write our own sonnet for Jesus. Our sonnet may begin with the words, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” Then we can fill in the remaining lines with the many ways, grounded in scripture, we have experience God our Savior.

My Takeaway: I’ve never written poetry, so this will be a poem that only Jesus could love. But it will be my expression of love for the One who set me free from sin and death.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

 

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

 

Copyright © 2020 by Alex M. Knight

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.