January 12

Magnificat

Then Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord, — Luke 1:46 BSB

No wonder Mary sang that day. At the closed gate of Eden, a promise was made that a Savior would come, born from a woman. Ever since then, every woman in the line of God’s people hoped she might be the mother of that Savior. Centuries passed, and many hearts were disappointed as their hopes faded. Then, one day, a heavenly messenger came to a humble young woman in Nazareth and told her that she would be the mother of the long-awaited Messiah. What a glorious honor! No wonder Mary rejoiced. One line of her song was, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” We can’t make God any greater—He needs nothing from us. A candle can’t add to the brilliance of the sun at noon. But we can live in a way that makes others see God as greater.

It was said of a certain preacher that in his sermons, he made God seem very great. We can do this too by declaring God’s goodness and grace to others. We can also magnify God by how we live, honoring Him through our actions.

There’s a story about Retzsch, a German sculptor, who made a statue of the Redeemer. For eight years, he dreamed of and worked on this piece. When the clay model was finished, he set it before a child of five or six years old. There were no traditional symbols—no cross, no crown, no obvious sign that it was Jesus. Yet when the child saw it, he immediately said, “The Redeemer! The Redeemer!” It was a triumph of art. Our lives should reflect the nobility and beauty of Christ so clearly that anyone who looks at us can recognize the features of Jesus and say, “That’s the image of our Redeemer!”

There’s no greater way to magnify the Lord.