| Introduction
What follows is a translation of exerpts from
Martin Luthers work on the Magnificat. Klaus Schwarzwaeller has chosen
these excerpts out of Luthers much longer work to present the heart of
Luthers understanding and application of this prayer of Mary and to
present it here in sermon length and in a form accessible to the modern reader.
This English version was pieced together by Bruce E. Shields from the
translation by A.T.W. Steinhaeuser in Luthers Works, Volume 21,
edited by Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1956).
The TextLuke 1:46-55
And Mary said, „My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor
on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will
call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy
is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to
generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the
proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful
from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry
with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his
servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise
he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.“
The Luther Exposition
In order properly to understand this sacred
hymn of praise, we need to bear in mind that the Blessed Virgin Mary is
speaking on the basis of her own experience, in which she was enlightened and
instructed by the Holy Spirit. No one can correctly understand God or His Word
unless he has received such understanding immediately from the Holy Spirit. But
no one can receive it from the Holy Spirit without experiencing, proving, and
feeling it. In such experience the Holy Spirit instructs us as in His own
school, outside of which nothing is learned but empty words and prattle.
The tender Mother of Christ does the same here
and teaches us, with her words and by the example of her experience, how to
know, love, and praise God. For she boasts, with heart leaping for joy and
praising God, that He regarded her despite her low estate and nothingness. To
her neighbors and their daughters she was but a simple maiden, tending the
cattle and doing the housework, and doubtless esteemed no more than any poor
maidservant today, who does as she is told around the house.
My soul magnifies God, the Lord.
These words express the strong ardor and
exuberant joy with which all her mind and life are inwardly exalted in the
Spirit. Therefore she says, My soul exalts God
, as if she
said: My life and all my senses float in the love and praise of God so
much that I am exalted, more than I exalt myself, to praise the Lord.
For God is not magnified by us so far as His nature is concerned, but He
is magnified in our knowledge and experience when we greatly esteem Him and
highly regard Him, especially as to His grace and goodness. Therefore the Holy
Mother does not say: My voice or my mouth, my reason or my will,
magnifies the Lord. But Mary says, My soul magnifies
Himthat is, my whole life and being, mind and strength, esteem him
highly. She is caught up, as it were, into him and feels herself lifted up into
His good and gracious will. Along with that we must here give heed to
Marys last word, which is God. She does not say, My
soul magnifies itself or exalts me. But she exalts God alone;
she ascribes everything to God alone. For though she experienced such an
exceeding great work of God within herself, yet she was ever minded not to
exalt herself. So little did she lay claim to anything, but left all of
Gods gifts freely in His hands, being herself no more than a cheerful
guest chamber and willing hostess to so great a Guest. Therefore she also kept
all these things forever.
And my spirit rejoices in God, my
Savior.
The wondrous pure spirit of Mary is worthy of
praise, because, having such overwhelming honors heaped upon her head, she does
not let them tempt her, but acts as though she did not see it, remains
even and right in the way, clings only to Gods goodness,
which she neither sees nor feels, overlooks the good things she does feel, and
neither takes pleasure nor seeks her own enjoyment in it. Thus she can truly
sing, My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. It is indeed a spirit
that exults only in faith and rejoices not in the good things of God that she
felt, but only in God, whom she did not feel. In God as her salvation she is
filled with joy; and she knows God only by faith.
For He has regarded the low estate of His
handmaiden. For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
This is what Mary means: God has regarded
me, a poor, despised, and lowly maiden, though He might have found a rich,
renowned, noble, and mighty queen, the daughter of princes and great lords. He
might have found the daughter of Annas or of Caiaphas, who held the highest
position in the land. But He let His pure and gracious eyes light on me and
used so poor and despised a maiden, in order that no one might glory in His
presence, as though he were worthy of this, and that I must acknowledge it all
to be pure grace and goodness and not at all my merit or worthiness.
Since, then, this tender Virgin, of lowly estate, received this honor
unexpectedly that God should regard her in such abundant grace, she does not
glory in her worthiness nor yet in her unworthiness, but solely in the divine
regard, which is so exceedingly good and gracious that He deigned to look upon
such a lowly maiden, and to look upon her in so glorious and honorable a
fashion. They, therefore, do her an injustice who hold that she gloried, not
indeed in her virginity, but in her humility. She gloried neither in the one
nor in the other, but only in the gracious regard of God.
Thus the Virgin Mary was a poor, despised, and
lowly maiden, who served God in her low estate, nor knew it was so highly
esteemed by Him. This should comfort us and teach us that though we should
willingly be humbled and despised, we ought not to despair as though God were
angry at us. Rather, we should set our hope on Gods grace.
Now, after lauding her God and Savior with pure
and single spirit, and after truly singing the praises of His goodness by not
boasting of His gifts, the Mother of God addresses herself in the next place to
the praise also of His works and gifts. For we must not fall upon the good
gifts of God or boast of them, but make our way through them and ascend to Him,
cling to Him alone, and highly esteem His goodness. Thereupon we should praise
God also in His works and gifts.
Mary confesses that the foremost work God did
for her was that He regarded her, which is indeed the greatest of His works, on
which all the rest depend and from which they all derive. Note that she does
not say men will speak all manner of good of her, praise her virtues, exalt her
virginity or her humility, or sing of what she has done. But for this one thing
alone, that God regarded her, men will call her blessed. That is to give all
the glory to God as completely as it can be done. Therefore, she points to
Gods regard and says: For, behold, henceforth all generations will
call me blessed. Not she is praised thereby, but Gods grace toward
her. In fact, she is despised, and she despises herself in that she says her
low estate was regarded by God.
But she does take it amiss that the vain
chatterers preach and write so many things about her merits. They are set on
proving their own skill and fail to see how they spoil the Magnificat, make the
Mother of God a liar, and diminish the grace of God. For, in proportion as we
ascribe merit and worthiness to her, we lower the grace of God and diminish the
truth of the Magnificat. Hence all those who heap such great praise and honor
upon her head are not far from making an idol of her, as though she were
concerned that men should honor her and look to her for good things, when in
truth she thrusts this from her and would have us honor God in her and come
through her to a good confidence in His grace.
Whoever, therefore, would show her the proper
honor must not regard her alone and by herself, but set her in the presence of
God and far beneath Him, must regard her low estate; he should then marvel at
the exceedingly abundant grace of God, who regards, embraces, and blesses so
poor and despised a mortal. Thus regarding her, you will be moved to love and
praise God for His grace, and drawn to look for all good things to Him. What do
you suppose would please her more than to have you come through her to God this
way, and learn from her to put your hope and trust in Him, notwithstanding your
despised and lowly estate.
Again, nothing would please her better than to
have you turn in fear from all lofty things on which men set their hearts,
seeing that even in His mother God neither found nor desired anything of high
degree. But the masters who so depict and portray the blessed Virgin that there
is found in her nothing to be despised, but only great and lofty
thingswhat are they doing but contrasting us with her instead of her with
God? Thus they make us timid and afraid and hide the Virgins comforting
picture. For they deprive us of her example, from which we might take comfort;
they make an exception of her and set her above all examples. But she should
be, and herself gladly would be, the foremost example of the grace of God, to
incite all the world to trust in this grace and to love and praise it, so that
through her the hearts of all men should be filled with such knowledge of God
that they might confidently say: O Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, what
great comfort God has shown us in you, by so graciously regarding your
unworthiness and low estate. This encourages us to believe that henceforth He
will not despise us poor and lowly ones, but graciously regard us also,
according to your example.
For He who is mighty has done great things
for me, and holy is His name.
We read in Genesis 25:5, 6 that Abraham gave
gifts to the sons of his concubines; but to Isaac, his natural son by his true
helpmate Sarah, he gave the whole inheritance. Thus God would not have His true
children put their trust in His goods and gifts, spiritual or temporal, however
great they be, but in His grace and in Himself, yet without despising the
gifts.
The great things are nothing less
than that she became the Mother of God, in which work so many and such great
good things are bestowed on her as pass mans understanding. For on this
there follows all honor, all blessedness, and her unique place in the whole of
mankind, among which she has no equal, namely, that she had a child by the
Father in heaven, and such a child. She herself is unable to find a name for
this work, it is too exceedingly great; all she can do is break out in this
fervent cry. Hence men have crowded all her glory into a single word, calling
her the Mother of God. No one can say anything greater of her or to her. It
needs to be pondered in the heart what it means to be the Mother of God.
In order to become the Mother of God she had to
be a woman, a virgin, of the tribe of Judah, and had to believe the angelic
message in order to become worthy. So her sole worthiness to become the Mother
of God lay in her being fit and appointed for it; so that it might be pure
grace and not a reward, that we might not take away from Gods grace,
worship, and honor by ascribing too great things to her. For it is better to
take away too much from her than from the grace of God. Indeed we cannot take
away too much from her, since she was created out of nothing, like all other
creatures. But we can easily take away too much from Gods grace, which is
a perilous thing to do and not well pleasing to her. It is necessary also to
keep within bounds and not make too much of calling her Queen of
Heaven, which is a true-enough name and yet does not make her a goddess
who could grant gifts or render aid, as some suppose when they pray and flee to
her rather than to God. She gives nothing, God gives all, as we see in the
words that follow: He who is mighty.
Truly, in these words she takes away all might
and power from every creature and bestows them on God alone. What great
boldness and robbery on the part of so young and tender a maiden! She dares, by
this one word, to make all the strong feeble, all the mighty weak, all the wise
foolish, all the famous despised, and God alone the Possessor of all strength,
wisdom, and glory.
This, then, is the meaning of these words of
the Mother of God: In all those great and good things there is nothing of
mine, but He who alone does all things, and whose power works in all, has done
such great things for me. For the name and the fame belong to Him alone who
does the work. It is not proper that one should do the work and another have
the fame and take the glory. I am but the workshop in which He performs His
work; I had nothing to do with the work itself. No one should praise me or give
me the glory for becoming the Mother of God, but God alone and His work are to
be honored and praised in me. It is enough to congratulate me and call me
blessed, because God used me and did His works in me.
Behold how completely she traces all to God,
lays claim to no works, no honor, no fame. She conducts herself as before, when
she still had nothing of all this; she demands no higher honors than before.
She is not puffed up, does not vaunt herself or proclaim with a loud voice that
she is become the Mother of God. She seeks not any glory, but goes about her
usual household duties, milking the cows, cooking the meals, washing pots and
kettles, sweeping out the rooms, and performing the work of maidservant or
housemother in lowly and despised tasks, as though God had not so flooded her
with grace more than the others.
And His mercy is on those who fear Him, from
generation to generation.
Having finished singing about herself and the
good things she had from God, and having sung His praises, Mary now rehearses
all the works of God that He works in general in all men, and sings His praises
also for them, teaching us to understand the work, method, nature, and will of
God. Many philosophers and men of great acumen have also engaged in the
endeavor to find out the nature of God; they have written much about God, one
in this way, another in that, yet all have gone blind over their task and
failed of the proper insight. And, indeed, it is the greatest thing in heaven
and on earth, to know God correctly if that may be granted to one. This the
Mother of God teaches us here in a masterly fashion, if we would only listen,
just as she taught the same above, in and by her own experience. How can one
know God better than in the works in which He is most Himself? Whoever
understands Gods works correctly cannot fail to know His nature and will,
his heart and mind. Mary describes, in the following four verses, the works of
God, portraying God so well that it could not be done better.
He has shown strength with His arm, He has
scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
With what mastery Mary here hits the perverse
hypocrites! She looks not at their hands nor at their mouths, but in their
hearts when she speaks to those who are proud in their inmost beings. She
refers in particular to the enemies of divine truth. Oh, they have good hearts
and mean well, they call upon the good God and pity the poor Jesus, who was so
unrighteous and proud, and not so pious as they
.
He has put down the mighty from their seats.
And exalted those of low degree.
He has filled the hungry with good
things,
And the rich He has sent empty away.
He has helped His servant
Israel in remembrance of His mercy.
After enumerating the works of God in her and
in all men, Mary returns to the beginning and to the chief thing. She concludes
the Magnificat by mentioning the very greatest of all Gods worksthe
Incarnation of the Son of God. She confesses here that this work which was
performed in her was not done for her sake alone, but for the sake of all
Israel, and that includes the new Israel, Christendom, and along with it the
whole world. She openly confesses with this word that she is maid and servant
of the whole world.
As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and
to his seed forever.
Here all merit and presumption are brought low,
and Gods grace and mercy alone are exalted. For God has not helped Israel
on account of their merits, but on account of His own promise. In pure grace He
made the promise, in pure grace he also fulfilled it. This same promise the
mother of God here lauds and exalts above all else, ascribing the work of the
Incarnation of God solely to the undeserved promise of divine grace, made to
Abraham.
That is what the tender mother of this Seed
means here by saying: He has helped His servant Israel, as He promised to
Abraham and all his seed. She found the promise fulfilled in herself;
hence she says: It is now fulfilled; God has brought help and kept His
word, solely in remembrance of His mercy.
It follows that this Seed of Abraham could not
be born in the common course of nature, of a man and a woman; for such a birth
is cursed and results in nothing but accursed seed. Now if all the world was to
be redeemed from the curse by this Seed of Abraham and thereby blessed, as the
word and oath of God declare, the Seed itself had to be blessed first, neither
touched nor tainted by that curse, but pure blessing, full of grace and
truth. (John 1:14) Again, if God, who cannot lie, declared with an oath
that it should be Abrahams natural seed, that is, a natural and genuine
child, born of his flesh and blood, then this Seed had to be a true, natural
man, of the flesh and blood of Abraham. Natural flesh and blood yet not born in
the course of nature, of man and wifethat is a contradiction.
Here we have Gods incredible miracle: he
combined the two. He raises up seed for Abraham, the natural son of one of his
daughters, a pure virgin, Mary, through the Holy Spirit, and without her
knowing a man. Here there was no natural conception or birth, and so it
remained the natural seed of Abraham, free from Gods curse; and yet it is
the natural seed of Abraham as truly as any of the other children of Abraham.
That is the blessed Seed of Abraham, in whom all the world is set free from its
curse. For whoever believes in his seed, calls upon Him, confesses Him, and
abides in Him, to him all his curse is forgiven and all blessing given. This is
Abrahams Seed, begotten by none of his sons, but born of this one
daughter of his, Mary, alone.
Here we have the foundation of the Gospel and
see why all its teaching and preaching drive men to faith in Christ and into
Abrahams bosom. For where there is not this faith, no other way can be
devised and no help given to lay hold of this blessed Seed. And indeed, the
whole Bible depends on this oath of God, for in the Bible everything has to do
with Christ.
Let this suffice for the present. We pray God
to give us a right understanding of this Magnificat, an understanding that
consists not merely in brilliant words but in glowing life in body and soul.
May Christ grant us this through the intercession and for the sake of His dear
Mother Mary!
Amen.
Prof. Dr. Klaus Schwarzwäller,
Göttingen
E-Mail:
kschwarzwaeller@foni.net
translated by
Bruce E. Shields
Emmanuel School of Religion
Johnson City, Tennessee, USA
E-Mail: ShieldsB@esr.edu
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