He Has Shown His Arm

He Has Shown His Arm
Luke 1:51-55

Introduction:
I was at the mission prison last Tuesday with Arden and Jean. Every year they put on a Christmas meal that they bring into the prison for the inmates and they’ve invited me to preach every year for the last three years- so it’s become a bit of a tradition. After the sermon I usually mingle and talk to the guys and I spent most of my time speaking to one man, a 22 year-old who is a fairly new Christian. He told me about his mother, who just died and how she had been addicted to drugs. When he was born, he was called a ‘Crack Baby’. The ministry took him away from his mother and put the baby in a foster home where he was repeatedly abused for about the next 16 years of his life. He said he could not understand why God had allowed him to suffer so much through his life. As he was relaying the events of his life to me I thought about my own 4 year old son and it broke my heart to think of a little boy having to suffer that way. It pained me physically to imagine anyone harming my little boy that way. How could anyone harm a little boy that way?

Mary’s joy must have also been mixed with that same pain (maybe more intensley. For she knew (at least in part) that the baby in her womb would also have to suffer. I told that man in the prison that His suffering may seem like God had abandoned him, but the truth is that God had considered that boy worthy to share in the fellowship of Christ’s suffering and that if Christ has shared in our suffering, he also has the strength to carry us through ours.

I say all that, so that as we meditate on the rest of Mary’s magnificat, let’s remember the pain she must have felt knowing her little boy would also suffer and be afflicted. Read vv. 51-55

I. What is His Arm?
Mary begins with the phrase, “He has performed mighty deeds…. He has shown strength with His arm.” Two questions come to mind- the answer to the first is obvious: “What mighty deeds… or, how has He shown his strength recently to Mary.” The incarnation is obvious. What could be a more mighty deed then for the transcendent creator of the universe to become the imminent Saviour of mankind by becoming the child of a maidservant? Mary also lists some other mighty deeds. She says God has used His arm to show His strength to:

1) Scatters the proud. God hates pride. Pride is the mark of rebellion. “In his pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God” (Ps 10:4). “Pride goes before destruction” because God alone is the only Being in the universe worthy of pride; but instead, He shows his strength in his humility when he emptied himself of the riches of heaven and became a servant. He scatters the proud. Celebrities who once mocked Christianity and morality suffered their own public humiliation in 2007.

2) Puts down the mighty: This is an overstatement. The only mighty being in the universe is God. In reality, he puts down those who are only mighty in their own minds. Being mighty goes hand-in-hand with pride. God allows men like .... to think they are mighty and to become proud, but he will scatter them. He will put them down in His time (maybe in 2007).

3) Fill the hungry: The Bible says “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” God will fill those who hunger for righteousness with justice, peace, and truth. The people of Darfur, who hunger, not for revenge, but for God- they will be filled.

4) Send the rich away empty: This does not mean that God hates the rich. In fact, the wealth of the godly comes from God just like the poverty of the godly comes from God. Whether in riches or in poverty, we do all things through Christ who strengthens us. The rich that God sends away empty are those who think that their riches will save them. The Jews mistakenly believed that wealth was a sign of blessing. Jesus shattered that myth when he said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Even the pope, with all the trappings of wealth and religion that surround him, must repent and believe the gospel. Salvation is by grace for all- rich and poor.

5) Help Israel: God watches over His people- He is able to help Israel in the dark days of their Roman occupation. Not even the mighty Roman Empire, nor the powerful Herod the Great could prevent the advent of the King of the Jews. In fact, even their active opposition was used by God to accomplish their will. All that to fulfill a promise he made to Abraham and Jacob and David centuries earlier. And even today we see God at work in the Middle East preparing Abraham’s seed for the long hoped for revival of Israel that may precede Jesus’ return.
Those are the mighty deeds of God that were and are being displayed by His arm. That leads us to the next question: “What is the Arm of God?” Is the Arm of God a great big arm that reaches down from heaven? Let’s find out.

II. What Mary knew from scriptures about the arm of the Lord:
Mary’s magnificat shows that her mind was saturated with the word of God. She knew that the scriptures say many things about the Arm of the Lord in the Old Testament. Here are a few of those things:

1. The Arm of the Lord created everything: Jeremiah 27:5; 32:17
'I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are on the ground, by My great power and by My outstretched arm, and have given it to whom it seemed proper to Me.’ (Jer 27:5)

'Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You. (Jer 32:17)

2. The Arm of the Lord delivered Israel: Exodus 6:4-7 (Dt 4:34; 5:15; 26:8)
'I am the Lord; I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.”

3. The Arm of the Lord judges the wicked and scatters the proud: Is 30:30; Ps 89:10:
The Lord will cause men to hear his majestic voice and will make them see his arm coming down with raging anger and consuming fire, with cloudburst, thunderstorm and hail. (Is 30:30 NIV).

You have scattered Your enemies with Your mighty arm. (Ps 89:10)

4. The Arm of the Lord preserves those condemned to die and upholds the upright: Ps 79:11; 89:20; Is 59:1
May the groans of the prisoners come before you; by the strength of your arm preserve those condemned to die. (Ps 79:11 NIV)

Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. (Is 59:1).

5. The Arm of the Lord is revealed to the ends of the earth: 1 Kings 8:40-43; Is 52:10
"As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your name-- for men will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm…” (1 Kings 41-42 NIV)

The Lord has made bare His holy arm In the eyes of all the nations; And all the ends of the earth shall see The salvation of our God. (Is 52:10)

III. So What/Who is the Arm of the Lord?
1 Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. 3 He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him….. (Isaiah 53:1ff)

Conclusion:
Why is it hidden to some as to who the Arm of the Lord is? Look at John 12:37-41:
37 But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him, 38 that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke: "Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" 39 Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: 40 "He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, Lest they should see with their eyes, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them." 41 These things Isaiah said when he saw His glory and spoke of Him.

The Arm of the Lord is hidden from some people so that they can’t believe. This is the sovereignty of God; this is the mighty deed of the Lord- He opens the eyes of some and closes the eyes of others! That’s why Christmas is anything but a Christian holiday in our world. That’s why Santa and Rudolf mean more to people at Christmas then Jesus Christ. That’s why I saw more Moslems and Sikhs and garden variety pagans out doing their last minute Christmas shopping as I see Christians remembering the gift of spiritual sight that we have received. That’s why Christmas is marked more by gluttony, revelry, drunkenness and materialism then it is marked by sacrifice, humility and worship.

But not so with you if you are a believer because the Arm of the Lord has been revealed to you. Christmas is more about what happens here in your heart this morning then about what happens around the tree tonight or tomorrow morning because God has shown you something greater then toys that rust- He has shown you His strength to scatter the proud and put down the mighty; He has shown His might in filling the hungry and sending away the rich empty handed. He has shown His power to reveal His outstretched arm to you and to redeem you and to purchase you from destruction. The Arm of the Lord is JESUS!