Title: Song of the Soul
Luke 1:46-56
soul song
text background
The Gospels are primarily concerned with Jesus' public life, not his childhood. Each Gospel takes a slightly different approach to this. The earliest recorded Gospels of Mark and the latest recorded Gospels of John deal only with the public life of Jesus, which began roughly at the age of 30, whereas the Gospels of Matthew and Luke deal with the mystery of Jesus' birth. The news that Mary will give birth to Jesus is transmitted directly to Mary in Luke, while Matthew's Gospel goes to Joseph, who was betrothed to her. This is probably because Matthew was written by an author who valued the Jewish tradition, whereas Luke was written by an author who, in a slightly different way, was concerned with the Gentiles, women, children, and the marginalized. Anyway, the text we read together today should be read under the premise that it was written by Luke with this theological background.
You are probably familiar with the story of Elizabeth and Mary's meeting. Every Advent and Christmas season, beautiful scenes like fairy tales are introduced here. The Bible explains that both women conceived in a special way. The angel Gabriel informed them in advance that they were pregnant. Elizabeth was past her gestational age, and Mary was not yet married. One was old and the other was young. Both women became pregnant in an unusual way. In this case, the parties are bound to be a little confused. It's hard to focus on what. These two women met as if there was something in common between people with a broken heart. And we had a spiritual conversation that only the two of us could communicate.
Those with insight may have found this story a bit puzzling. Elizabeth had a lot of experience in life, and her husband was a priest, so she could have been able to tell a religious story, but Mary was a young girl who was only 15 or 16 years old at best. It doesn't seem natural for such a young girl to sing a song with a socially revolutionary content. If you've reached this point, you've come close to biblical texts.
soul song
What did you think of as you read today's text? Do you have a feeling that the Word is taking you into a spiritual world? In many cases, people read Bible texts dryly. Some zealots read the Bible as a means to religious gratification, much like going to karaoke to sing. In this state, no matter how zealous we are, it is never in accordance with the Word. It is important that the biblical text draws us in. As the saying goes, we become one with the biblical text when we do. This is the reading of the Bible that contains our soul.
Today, such a soul can hear praise from Mary. “My soul rejoices in the joy of praising you and thinking of God my Savior” (verse 46). What does it mean for the soul to praise? We often encounter these expressions in the Bible, but we pass by saying that it is always the case. When we pray a lot and our voice stops, or when we read a lot of Bibles and carry an old Bible, we think that we live as souls. Such a passionate life of faith is also necessary. But those are just our sound religious practices. We can offer early morning prayer meetings 365 days a year without missing a single day. Just as members of “Jehovah’s Witnesses” view it as an absolute duty to evangelize from house to house, one can develop this habit according to one’s own efforts. For the soul to praise the Lord is completely different from these religious habits and disciplines.
At this very moment, my sermon might hit some limit. Because I can't accurately convey to you what a 'soul' is. I'm not going to explain this theologically or tell you about my brief experience. I try to approach it from the same common sense level as you. What do you think of your soul? If today's worship is that our souls are praising God, what state are you in now? Do you feel that your body and mind are in unity right now? The soul refers to us as one body and one spirit.
We don't usually live as 'souls'. This means that our spirit and body are separated. Of course, on the surface it seems that spirit and body or mind and body coincide, but in reality they are not. The incongruity of spirit and body means that we only deal with this world in a formal way. Instead of throwing away our entire existence, our entire destiny, we live like a jigsaw puzzle with answers that the world has already provided. Let's ask ourselves this question. Where do I hang my whole being? In fact, the very fact of hanging everything seems meaningless to modern people today. Because it is given only in relationship with God. The song of the soul seems impossible in the first place for modern people who ignore the horizon of a spiritual life that is only possible in a relationship with God.
That's right. The soul is the channel through which we communicate with God. So, the song of Mary delivered by the writer of Luke today continues in verse 47 like this: “My heart throbs with joy at the thought of God my Savior.” This excitement of joy makes us praise the Lord again. I don't know if this explanation may sound cliche to some. This is happening because we do not know what it means to think of God as our Savior. God is the savior of mankind. Thinking about Him is directly related to the problem of salvation. What is more fundamental than salvation in this world? If you are someone who looks deeply into the death, emptiness, frustration, and meaninglessness of this world, you cannot overlook the issue of salvation. Literature also speaks of salvation, and the embryonic stem problem, which is returning to a serious situation these days, is ultimately linked to the problem of salvation. In this respect, the attitude to fully focus on the issue of salvation is to praise with the soul. Those who are saved, or more precisely, those who know the God who will bring about salvation, cannot help but sing.
God's omnipotence
What does Mary call God's saving act? Today's text makes this very clear. It is the fact that the order distorted by humans is reversed.
See verses 51-53. “The Lord stretches out his mighty arm and scatters the proud in heart. He took the powerful from their place, he exalted the little, he filled the hungry with good things, and the rich returned empty-handed.” These words are similar in meaning to the Old Testament Isaiah 61:1,2 that Jesus read in the synagogue (Luke 4:18). Not only that, it is almost similar to the sermon on the plain in Luke's Gospel, which parallels the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's Gospel (6:21-26).
Who are the proud, powerful, and wealthy people? On the other hand, who are these poor, hungry people? This kind of stratification occurs everywhere in human society. No matter how good a society is, such divisions, discrimination, and conflicts are bound to exist between people. The historical fact that communism, which dreamed of a perfectly equal society, failed, is a testament to this. Mary sings that God is completely renewing this hierarchical, twisted society. It is a very disturbing song to listen to to create a society of equality by bringing down those who are up and raising those who fall down. The Christian gospel clearly does not tolerate the evil order fixed by man.
Today we have lost all that ability. If the reason is that Christianity became one with the Roman Empire after Emperor Constantine in the ancient times, it is probably because of collusion with capitalism today. The fact that we will fight for martyrdom in front of the revised private school law, instead of saying anything in the face of the inheritance of poverty in this society, clearly shows how much our Christianity is a group that resists change and reform.
So, what should we do after reading today's text? Is it our job today to search out the proud, the powerful, and the rich and forcibly deprive them of everything? However, the Bible does not convey these words in the sense that the church should specifically initiate social reform. It is not the specific task of the Church to humiliate those who pretend to be good-looking. In this way our souls cannot praise the Lord. We may feel refreshed for a moment, but we cannot praise the Lord.
Mary's praises focus on the power of the Lord. God is omnipotent and holy (vv. 49,51). Only God can cast the powerful out of their place (verse 52). We must learn to fear before the Almighty (verse 50). God has mercy on such people. Who is speaking now? The core of the true novelty of this world is that God achieves it.
If you want to feel these words more vividly, you must keep in mind the era in which the Gospel of Luke was written. Sounding like a manifesto of liberation theology or Marxism, this hymn of Mary came from a time when Roman authority soared to the heavens. Isn't that surprising? It means that they sang that God would break the absolute power that everyone feared, and that God rules over all that power. Mary, whose gaze was focused only on the Almighty God, did not care about the Roman power.
But right here lies the tension in our Christian faith. Although we do not make social change and the realization of revolution as the fundamental goal of our faith like any political party or civic group, we hope that God will bring about a fundamental transformation of this society. So, how should we Christians live? Can we just pray and wait? Or should I specifically engage with history? These two attitudes, waiting and participating, are the two attitudes of life that can appear in those who believe in Almighty God. Whoever sings the song of the soul does not miss this tension. Sometimes I wait, sometimes I participate. It is one.