DAILY DEVOTIONAL – December 29, 2020
“Bare Goodness”
Prayer: Almighty God, You alone are God and You are worthy of all of our praise. We bow before You in silence, unable to ever adequately articulate how grateful we are and should be because of Your great love and mercy given to us, freely, in Your Son, Jesus Christ. It is in His name and for His sake that we pray. Amen.
Scripture: Luke 1:46-55
46 And Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
50 And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
52 he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”
Devotional – “Bare Goodness”
Throughout my life as a pastor and student of God’s Word, the most profound moments of revelation and understanding I have had, have come as the result of wrestling with very simple questions. I have come to learn that my faith and spiritual life grows and matures more in the quiet, deep contemplation of the elementary questions than it does when grappling with the more profound theological tenets.
Before you continue reading this devotion, take a minute or two, clear your thoughts, and focus on giving yourself as honest an answer as you can to this question. “Why do you worship God?”
Did you do it? Did you take a moment and really think about that question? Or did you just keep reading this devotional? If you didn’t take a minute or two to answer that question, I would encourage you to do so before you read any further…
Okay. Now that you have answered “Why do you worship God?” I would like to ask you another question. It is a similar question but also very different. Answering this question should also make you think about the answer you gave to the first question. So, here it is. “Why should you worship God?”
Was your answer to the second question the same as your answer to the first? Did you find the two questions to be substantially different? The first time I was confronted with the conviction to seriously ponder these questions was early in my seminary years when I was reading through the book of Isaiah and read the following:
Turn to me and be saved,
all the ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.
By myself I have sworn;
from my mouth has gone out in righteousness
a word that shall not return:
‘To me every knee shall bow,
every tongue shall swear allegiance.’ – Isaiah 45:22-23
Every knee. Every tongue. No exceptions. All will worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because He is God. Because of who He is. Because, as God said, “I am God, and there is no other.” “By myself I have sworn,” God said, because there is none greater, God has no equal, no rival, no other. Why should we worship God? Because He is God. Such a simple yet eternally profound answer, especially when we consider why we worship Him now, when we worship Him now, and what things do or do not drive us to our knees in worship of Him.
In her song of praise, Mary said, “my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Yes, Mary was blessed beyond measure and beyond what she or anyone deserves, however, that is not the first reason she says she worships God. Mary first rejoices not in what God has done for her, but in God, in who He is and because He is God.
As we continue in our Advent and Christmas series looking at some of the writings of Martin Luther, here is some of his commentary on Mary’s Song:
Truly, Mary sets things in their proper order when she calls God her Lord before calling Him her Savior, and when she calls Him her Savior before recounting His works. Thereby she teaches us to love and praise God for Himself alone, and in the right order, and not selfishly to seek anything at His hands. This is done when one praises God because He is good, regards only His bare goodness, and finds one’s joy and pleasure in that alone. That is a lofty, pure, and tender mode of loving and praising God and well becomes this Virgin’s high and tender spirit.
But the impure and perverted lovers [of God], who are nothing else than parasites and who seek their own advantage in God, neither love nor praise His bare goodness. They have an eye to themselves and consider only how good God is to them – that is, how deeply He makes them feel His goodness and how many good things He does to them. So long as this feeling continues, they esteem Him highly, are filled with joy and sing His praises. But just as soon as He hides His face and withdraws the rays of His goodness, leaving them bare and in misery, their love and praise are at an end. They are unable to love and praise the bare, unfelt goodness that is hidden in God. By this they prove that their spirit did not rejoice in God, their Savior, and that they had no true love and praise for His bare goodness. They delighted in their salvation much more than in the Savior, in the gift more than the Giver, in the creature rather than in the Creator.
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. For where it comes to pass that God turns His face toward one to regard him, there is nothing but grace and salvation, and all gifts and works must follow. Here is the origin of the many prayers in the Psalter – that God would lift up His countenance upon us, that He would not hide His countenance from us, that he would make His face shine upon us and the like. And that Mary herself regards this as the chief thing, she indicates by saying: “Behold, since He has regarded me, all generations will call me blessed.”
Note that she does not say all generations will speak all manner of good of her, praise her virtues, exalt her virginity or her humility, or sing of what she had done. But for this one thing alone, that God regarded her, they will call her blessed. That is to give all the glory to God as completely as it can be done.
We rightly thank God and praise God for His priceless and precious gift of His Son, Jesus Christ, whom He sent to the cross to die and rise again in our place and for our salvation. More than that, however, we worship God for who He is, because He is God, understanding that it is only because of who He is, only because of His justice, holiness, mercy, and love that He sent and that we have a Savior at all.
Jesus, who is God in the flesh and who reveals the Father to us, said in John 12:44-46, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.” Notice Jesus didn’t say “whoever believes I rose from the dead” or “whoever puts their faith in the resurrection,” but rather “whoever believes in me” because when we look at Jesus and worship who he is, we worship the God and Father who sent Him, and who God is.
Thank God, that He is God! He is worthy, and He will be praised!
Thanks for joining me for another daily devotional, and remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today, and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
