The Song of Advent: Joy Found in God's Provision (Luke 1:39-56)

On December 16, Pastor Jeff McLain continued The Song of Advent series with a focus on Mary's prophetic song in Luke 1:39-56. In this message, Pastor Jeff highlighted how Mary's song reveals the joy that flows from God's provision, which meets both spiritual and physical needs with goodness and good news for the hungry and thirsty. Her song reflects on how Jesus fulfills the long-awaited messianic promise of God’s abundant Spirit and tangible blessings—bringing joy to God’s people. This truth invites us to live in the overflow of joy with God, sharing His goodness with others.

The Song of Advent Series.
This Advent series focuses on the themes of hope, peace, joy, and love through the lens of Mary's Magnificat, a prophetic song celebrating God's faithfulness and transformative action. Each week will explore a different aspect of God's character, beginning with how God lifts the humble and fulfills His promises. Through this journey, we will reflect on the continuing relevance of these divine qualities as we prepare for Christ's return.

Who we are together.
River Corner Church is a growing church community of everyday people who gather to worship God, follow Jesus, and journey through life together.

What we practice together.
Our small church community is uniquely caring, simple, laid-back, and intergenerational. As a church, we want to be a welcoming, safe, and healing community for those who are seeking, hurting, or need a place to belong. Our practices are contemplative (reflective) charismatic (Spirit-driven), conversational, and informative. The times we share together are intentional and intimate, and a mix between modern and traditional. We want to be a place in which love and honor are lived out, where humility is central, and where hospitality is woven into the threads of our community. There is room at the table.

When we gather together.
River Corner Church gathers weekly on Sunday mornings at 10:00 AM to worship and experience God, study the scriptures, journey through life together, and partner with the Holy Spirit. We meet in a simple worship meeting house at 524 River Corner Road in Conestoga, Pennsylvania. You are welcome as you are, just be yourself. There are other times that we hold small groups, events, and more.

Our Pastoral Leader.
As the pastor of River Corner Church, Jeff McLain leads our church community and helps others to think differently about Jesus, life, and everything in-between. Jeff also serves as the Director of Pastoral Ministries at Water Street Mission, where he works with those facing homelessness and poverty. Jeff, Katie, and their three wander-filled daughters look to lead quiet lives. Committed to lifelong learning, Jeff is currently pursuing a Doctor of Ministry at Kairos University and completing a Master of Business Administration with a focus on Executive Leadership at City Vision University. These academic pursuits complement the two masters he completed earlier at Fuller Seminary. Jeff has a passion for baseball, boardwalks, beaches, bays, and books, but above all, his greatest joy lies in spending time with his family and guiding our church community on our journey of faith together.

Learn more about us at rivercornerchurch.com.

Transcript

We are in the third week of Advent, the third week of our series - The Song of Advent. In many mainline and Roman Catholic churches, the third Sunday of Advent not only focuses on “joy” but is actually called Gaudete (gow-det-eh) Sunday, or “Rejoicing Sunday.” The theme of this Sunday focuses on “rejoicing” because of the joy we experience in Jesus. This theme is reflected in the readings for the third Sunday of Advent, which often include Philippians 4:4-6. Paul’s words in Philippians 4:4-6 challenge followers of Jesus to be a people of joy. He writes, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” In this challenge, Paul calls followers of Jesus to be known by joy, to be a people who are overflowing with joy in a way that they are rejoicing in all things. As followers of Jesus, we are rejoicing because of what we are experiencing in God. Because of what we are experiencing in God, we are gentle to others. Because of Jesus, we know the joy God brings us. We are rejoicing because God’s presence is near. Our anxiousness loses its power because we have access to joy through God’s abundance - which we access through prayer and thanksgiving.

Through our Song of Advent series, we have been looking at Mary’s song in Luke 1; this is not just a worship song; it is a prophetic word, as we have seen in the past few weeks, but it is a song of rejoicing. Mary is singing prophetically through her joy. Her joy is rooted in being part of God’s work and because God is working in, with, and through her. Mary's joy in Luke 1 is rooted in and celebrating God’s faithfulness, as she magnifies the Lord for lifting the humble, filling the hungry, and fulfilling the promises long hoped for.

Advent invites us to reflect on the coming of Christ—remembering the promises associated with his first coming, we are learning to rejoice in his presence now and the fulfillment of those promises, and we remember what it means to be faithful as we anticipate Jesus’ return as King when all “wrongs” are made “right.” The Advent season calls us to live in the “already and not yet,” recognizing that the hope, peace, joy, and love of God’s Kingdom are breaking into the world even as we prepare our hearts for the fullness of God’s reign that is yet to come.

Mary’s Song

Mary’s Magnificat (mag-NIH-fi-kaht), a prophetic song of hope, peace, and joy, amplifies this message. Far more than just a personal declaration of experiencing God's presence, Mary's song reveals God’s heart for the humble and overlooked and celebrates the transformative work that God is doing through the coming of Jesus. Mary is giving us a statement of faith, a doctrine; she is reinterpreting scriptures she grew up with (as we saw last week) with the new light of understanding she has received from the Angel and the Holy Spirit. In Luke’s Advent narrative, Mary emerges as a theologian, teacher, and prophet, offering a Spirit-filled vision of God’s promises being fulfilled for humanity, and Mary is demonstrating that God’s Spirit is being poured out on men and women equally. Mary’s song reminds us to rejoice in God’s Kingdom, which is within reach, and to trust that God’s redemptive work is bringing the joy of abundance to and through all people.

Series So Far

In the first message of our Advent Season, we saw how Mary’s song offers hope by showing God’s care for the humble, providing dignity in their circumstances and hope for others. In the second message, we explored how her song reveals God’s promise of peace as Jesus confronts the proud, lifts the marginalized, and breaks down dividing barriers.  Today, however, through Mary’s example, we are reminded that while we wait, we also rejoice—for the Lord is near. There is an abundance of joy coming to humanity.

Don’t take Mary’s words lightly, Theologian William Barclay describes Mary’s song as one of the “most revolutionary documents in the world.”

Scriptures This Week

I invite you to turn with me again to Luke 1:39-56 this week. Pay attention and see what grabs you this week that may not have stood out to you in the last few weeks. This passage comes right after Mary has learned from the Angel that she will carry the Messiah in her womb. In the New International Version, Luke 1:39-56 reads like this;

“At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”

And Mary said:

“My soul glorifies the Lord

    and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has been mindful

    of the humble state of his servant.

From now on all generations will call me blessed,

    for the Mighty One has done great things for me—

    holy is his name.

His mercy extends to those who fear him,

    from generation to generation.

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;

    he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones

    but has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things

    but has sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel,

    remembering to be merciful

to Abraham and his descendants forever,

    just as he promised our ancestors.”

Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.”

Reflections

There are many aspects to this song. We have looked at various aspects throughout this series. There have been glimpses of Mary’s journey, the promise of God’s mercy in each generation, and more. However, this morning, I want us to focus on verse “53” and this line from Mary’s Magnificat: “He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.”In her song, we are drawn into a vision of profound joy—a joy that satisfies the hungry, bringing spiritual and tangible goodness to those in need and leaving the proud and rich without. She is singing from a place of joy, and this joy comes from recognizing that God is fulfilling his promises among those who are in the most need. The Message version of this passage confesses that Mary is saying "The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold.” Mary realizes this is why Jesus has come. This is what God has long promised: that those who are hungry will be filled with good things and those who have been in control and hoarded the wealth will be left without power and abundance. In Mary’s confession, we know that we can have joy, both spiritually and materially.

Other Passages

Again, Mary is quoting from Psalm 107:9 in this passage. Psalm 107 is filled with prophetic expectations for the fulfillment of God’s promises. It recounts how God’s people, wandering in wastelands—homeless, hopeless, hungry, and thirsty—cried out to God in their trouble and rebellion, and God delivered them. God guided them and gave them a place to settle, and from this newfound home, they praised God for his unfailing love. God's deliverance is shown through satisfaction for the thirsty and tangible good things for the hungry. These were people in desperate circumstances—prisoners in oppression, sinful rebels, the enslaved, and the helpless—yet when they called out to God, their chains broke. In their broken state, they even loathed food and struggled to enjoy life, but God provided abundantly. Psalm 107 speaks of a land of plenty, with vineyards and farms yielding a fruitful harvest, meeting their needs in full.

Mary’s song echoes the themes of Psalm 107 because she saw its fulfillment in the coming of Jesus. She recognized that, through Jesus, God was satisfying the spiritually and physically hungry with good things and bringing deliverance to those in desperate circumstances. Just as Psalm 107 spoke of God guiding the wandering, breaking the chains of the oppressed, and filling the hungry with tangible blessings, Mary celebrated that Jesus embodied this promise. She saw in Jesus the fulfillment of God’s unfailing love—lifting the humble, providing dignity to the forgotten, and bringing hope to the hopeless. Mary’s song magnifies the joy and faith of a God who not only remembers the downtrodden but also acts decisively to meet their needs and transform their lives. This is why she sang with such profound hope and rejoicing.

In the first week, I shared that much of Mary's song echoes Hannah's song in 1 Samuel 2. Like Mary, Hannah declared that God had lifted her from her lowly state and worked in and through her to reveal God's heart and purposes. She proclaimed, "Those who were full hire themselves out for food, but those who were hungry are hungry no more." Hannah implies that those who had hoarded riches would now face hunger due to God’s justice, while those who lacked would be satisfied. Psalm 72 echoes this, where David speaks of the Messianic King, who not only rules with justice but brings tangible care for the needy and afflicted.

We also see this fulfilled in the life and ministry of Jesus. In Jesus’ Kingdom Manifesto, the Beatitudes, Jesus declares, “Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.” Jesus was bringing about God's promised deliverance, both physical and spiritual. In Luke 11, Jesus uses the image of a man knocking for bread to feed some visitors at night to illustrate the Kingdom of God, highlighting the need to ask for God’s blessings. In that passage, the man is motivated out of annoyance, not friendship. It seems the man would rather hoard his food rather than share it. However, Jesus teaches that God is in the business of giving goodness through others, and all we need to do is cry out. God gives out of friendship, not annoyance. Luke’s telling of that story also says that Jesus promised the Holy Spirit to those who ask, a blessing even greater than bread we should surmise. This also points to the spiritual blessing of the Holy Spirit—empowering us to live joyfully. To live by the Spirit is to live by joy, to find ourselves rejoicing in God’s goodness. Jesus also tells parables about the Kingdom’s feast, inviting the poor, the hungry, and the downtrodden, while those who hoard wealth ignore the invitation. In the story of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus shows that those who receive their good things in this life will face judgment in the next, while the forgotten, hungry, and thirsty find comfort.

Mary’s words shape much of what we see in Jesus' ministry, from the feeding of the 5,000 to the breaking of bread at the Lord’s Supper. Jesus promised a banquet of fellowship, not for the powerful but for the humble. Even when the rich invited Jesus to their feasts, it was not to share a table but to lord power. In contrast, Jesus prepared a banquet of seafood abundance for fishermen who could catch nothing on their own. Through Jesus, God’s tangible and spiritual blessings are poured out on the thirsty, the hungry, and the broken.

Mary knew this wasn’t just something God did to Abrahams people. But God has always done. That was taking new meaning in this generation as God was doing it again through Jesus, the very messianic messenger she was carrying in her. God would do this forevermore as a result of Jesus' coming. Mary knows that there is joy in Jesus’ coming because Jesus' birth brings joy because Jesus is God bringing both the spiritual and physical answers to the needs of a broken world. God is bringing provision for the spiritually and physically hungry - and all those who suffer.

I love how one scholar writes about this passage, Leon Morris, stating, “There is a revolutionary note about filling the hungry and sending the rich away empty. In the ancient world, it was accepted that the rich would be well cared for. Poor people must expect to be hungry. But Mary sings of a God who is not bound by what people do. He turns human attitudes and orders of society upside down.” The Christmas story, the one Mary knew and now gave us a statement of faith about, is a God who was turning everything upside down. God’s goodness and good news was breaking into the world and would be experienced. This is reason for joy.

For Us

Through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, the gift Jesus left for His followers, we see that Jesus continues to feed the hungry both physically and spiritually today. The Holy Spirit equips and empowers believers to serve as the hands and feet of Jesus in the world, granting us the authority, compassion, wisdom, and discernment needed to represent God's Kingdom in tangible and spiritual ways. As ambassadors of God's reign, we participate in the Kingdom by praying, performing acts of compassion, acts of spiritual deliverance, meeting physical needs, and advocating for justice and the hungry. When we share rather than hoard, give out of love rather than obligation, or when we act on an impression to help someone, we are living out Jesus' command to care for the least among us. Additionally, Jesus feeds the spiritual hunger of those who seek God, offering the bread of a transformed and eternal life through prophetic words, the scriptures, prayer, and the Holy Spirit, sustaining believers with God’s presence and love.

For us, in Mary’s understanding of who God is and what God was doing, there is a revolution in how we think about money and resources. In a society that isn't focused on Christ, people are mainly concerned with getting as much as they can for themselves. But in a Christian way of living, a way of living after the birth of Jesus, no one should have more than they need while others struggle to get by. Everyone should have enough, but also be willing to share with others. The beauty of Mary’s song is that it carries this powerful message. Christianity brings change, both in individuals and in the world - spiritually, economically, and physically - all which we see in the life and ministry of Jesus - and all Jesus implies for us as he sends us to the ends of the earth to teach and do all he taught and did.

Three Takeaways

Here are three practical takeaways from the passage and reflection on Mary's song:

1. Rejoice in God's Presence and Promises: Mary's joy in this song of prophetic rejoicing comes from recognizing that God is fulfilling His promises through Jesus, both spiritually and physically. This Advent, we are invited to rejoice because God is near, and God’s promises of hope, peace, and joy are being fulfilled in the world as God’s ways take root in our world. Practically, this means that despite the chaos of life, we can choose joy by reminding ourselves of God's faithfulness and presence in our lives. We celebrate the joy others are experincing. It is important to take time each day to reflect on where we are at, and despite all we are struggling with, we must take time each day to reflect on how God is working in your life and respond with gratitude and joy, knowing that God is indeed fulfilling promises, even if they all haven’t been fufilled yet.
   
   
2. Live with Generosity and Compassion: Mary’s song highlights God’s reversal of human societal structures, where the hungry are filled with good things, and the rich are sent away empty. As followers of Jesus, we are called to embody this generosity and compassion by serving others, especially those who are marginalized or in need. This Advent season, we are reminded to consider how we can actively serve others—whether through material generosity, offering your time, or extending kindness to those who might not have much. Jesus is preparing a banquet, and through us, he wants to invite people to experience the foretaste of that banquet yet to come. Find ways to allow the joy of Christ's coming to compel you to bless others in tangible ways. Be encouraged to be both spiritual and tangible deliverance for others.
   
   
3. Embrace the "Already and Not Yet" of God's Kingdom: Advent reminds us that God’s Kingdom is already breaking into the world, but its fullness has not yet arrived. The signs and wonders are pointing to what is yet to come. While we rejoice where we can, and while we extend God’s blessing where we can, we also remind ourselves of what is yet to come. We must keep our eyes on the eternal promises to come. We don’t let the now define us, the struggles shape us, we remind ourselves and others that God has been faithful so far and what lies ahead is even greater. God is making all things new and we keep ourselves rooted in the promises of God. The more we remember how God has done some of this already in our lives, and the more we see how God did this in the scriptures, the more we can be encouraged for what is yet to come.

Joy

In her song From a Spirit-filled place, we see Mary model joy. Joy for Mary is knowing what God is up to, even though she doesn’t see it all yet. Mary knows that joy will be found for those who hunger will hunger no more. We as followers of Jesus, those who have experienced the Holy Spirit and the power of God, and those who have a relationship with God, now know joy.

Joy is contagious. People saw the joy in Jesus he had with the Father, in the lives Jesus touched there was joy, and joy was in the lives of His followers. Joy is given to us by God, through a relationship with Jesus. Jesus tells His followers that He has shared His truths with them so that His "joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete" (John 15:11). Joy is something we pray for others. Paul prays for the church in Rome to be filled with "all joy and peace" as they learn to trust in God. Joy is also a sign of spirit-filled living, which is why it is listed as a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). Joy is found in the worship of God, which is why Paul encourages the Thessalonians to "rejoice always." Joy isn’t simply happiness, although, in heaven, it will be made complete and a state of being. Joy is radical contentment despite our troubles, and it is a contagious extension of God’s goodness and good news to others. Joy’s job is to shape how we look at our problems. This is why James says, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials" (James 1:2), because God is working in us, and joy is contentment with what God is doing. It transforms how we view our problems. 

Joy is found in Jesus and only in Jesus. But it is a joy for everyone. Mary sees that here as she quotes Psalm 107. That’s why the angel tells the shepherds that Jesus alone will "cause great joy for all people" (Luke 2:10). There is hope in this joy for everyone, not just a select few, but Jesus is the source of Joy, we won’t find it anywhere else. 

While Mary and the shepherds physically saw Jesus, we don’t need to see Him physically to experience and reflect His joy. Peter says that, though we haven’t seen Jesus, by believing in Him, "we are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy" (1 Peter 1:8). Believing in Jesus, we will be filled with joy along the journey. 

Finally, joy is eternal. It reaches its fullest expression when we stand before God and He says, "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness" (Matthew 25:21).

Closing

Mary’s song celebrates the faithfulness of a God who remembers the forgotten, lifts the humble, and fills the needy and hungry with God’s abundance. This prophetic joy is more than a feeling of mere happiness; it is the gift of God’s goodness and the good news that transforms lives and situations. God’s joy is meeting the deepest needs of people who have been forgotten and desperate. God’s joy is offering joyous contentment to those who long for justice and a kingdom where mercy reigns. This is part of what the Christmas story is. Through the coming of Jesus, we find the good news of a joy that is the abundance of God, and we in return mirror the abundance of God to others.