Today is the Feast of the Annunciation. For my part, I will be playing for a service with the (precipitously high-church, Deo gratias) Lutherans over at Emmaus.
Shortly after the account of the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38) comes the greatest of the Biblical canticles, the Magnificat. For your edification, I offer an excellent recording of Arvo Pärt's setting of this song, as well as two excerpts of a sermon Luther gave on the Magnificat.
(Performed by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, dir. Tõnu Kaljuste, found on this CD.)
Luke 1:46-47 (Authorised Version): And Mary said, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour."
For God is not magnified by us so far as His nature is concerned — He is unchangeable — 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 hand or my thoughts, my reason or my will, doth magnify the Lord.” For there be many who praise God with a loud voice, preach about Him with high sounding words, speak much of Him, dispute and write about Him and paint His image; whose thoughts dwell often upon Him, and who reach out after Him and speculate about Him with their reason; there are also many who exalt Him with false devotion and a false will. But Mary says, “My soul doth magnify Him” — that is, my whole life and being, mind and strength, esteem Him highly.
Luke 1:48-49: "For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name."
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 upon her as pass man's understanding. For on this there follows all honor, all blessedness, and her unique place in the whole of mankind, among whom 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 the fervent cry: "They are great things", impossible to describe or define. 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, though he had as many tongues as there are leaves on the trees, or grass in the fields, or stars in the sky, or sand by the sea. It needs to be pondered in the heart, what it means to be the Mother of God.
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