“God’s Radical Promises!”
Luke 1:46-55 (1:49) – December 10, 2023
Who remembers going Christmas caroling? Going from house to house, singing the carols and hymns of the season, bringing hope, joy and peace to many at this season of the year. Such a wonderful memory! And, such wonderful carols and hymns and songs, too!
Just think of where these songs of hope, joy and peace come from. All over the world, there have been songs of Advent and Christmas written throughout the centuries. These are by turns loud, joyous and bright music, or they could be soft, gentle, quiet lullabies. What holds all of these songs in common is their focus on God’s promises fulfilled.
That sounds so much like our Gospel reading from Luke today. The pregnant teenager Mary sings a song where she remembers the promises of God. And, these promises are not just theoretical. These promises are actually happening to her, at the time she is singing.
Her cousin Elizabeth is much older, and had given up any hope of having a baby until God miraculously intervened. Mary – well, we all know Mary’s story, how the angel Gabriel came to her and said God had highly favored her. And – Mary said yes to God, and became pregnant by the Holy Spirit. After several months, Mary and her cousin Elizabeth are together, at Elizabeth’s home. Mary, a thoughtful, contemplative teenager, began singing this marvelous song of God’s promises fulfilled in her life and in the time to come.
At the beginning of this song – this Magnificat – Mary starts with giving praise to the Lord. Magnifiying God’s name! As the Jewish people had done long before Mary, she sings of the great things God has done. Except, for Mary, God is now doing these things for her, personally! Just imagine, Mary was from a small town in an obscure region of Palestine. A nobody from nowhere. Except, she is so similar to many young women throughout the centuries.
Just think, “living in a rural village in an occupied country. Everyone around her discounted her. But God did not. This gives everyone else who feels like a nobody the assurance that God values them too. God has work and a plan for them, too.” [1] What a bright hope this holds out for so many who otherwise would feel left out, downtrodden, and left behind!
Both Mary and Elizabeth felt joy, too. Both knew the joy of having a baby grow within their bodies, and they knew the joy of having God’s promises personally fulfilled in their own lives. Plus, Mary was joyful because she looked forward to seeing her son as the fulfillment of the world’s hope, the fulfillment of God’s promises foretold throughout the ages.
Mary is not a meek, mild and lowly person, no matter what certain carols may say. As we read Mary’s song of praise to God, we can clearly hear this song is a radical departure from the broken, the fallen, the least and the last. From the words of this song, I suspect that Mary is not only thoughtful, she is intelligent, even mature and freethinking.
Can you listen with open ears to Mary sing of God who “has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble,” and “has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.” This is a classic story (or song) about the “haves” and the “have-nots,” and we can guess who Mary associates herself with! The Jewish people are definitely downtrodden; the Roman empire certainly has them under their collective boot heel. Nevertheless, Mary’s notes of joy ring out for all to hear in the Magnificat!
Remember, Mary’s song, giving glory, magnifying God, is also clearly a radical protest song. As she sings about the injustice not only in her hometown, but within the whole occupied Jewish nation, any peace but a forced “peace” was the furthest thing from the minds of the Roman occupiers. Yet, “the new world Mary sings about here isn’t elusive or unquantifiable at all. The hope she holds onto is one passed on to her from her ancestors: from Hannah, who sang this hymn of reversal and revolution in the Hebrew scriptures, to the Psalmist, who echoed praise to God for raising the poor from the dust and lifting the needy out of their desperation.” [2]
One commentator, Rolf Jacobson, tells about one of his colleagues at Luther Seminary. Dr. Lois Malcolm grew up as a missionary kid in the Philippines. “Growing up among that nation’s poor, Malcolm reported that when they heard Mary’s Psalm, it was the first time that anyone had told them the good news that God cares about them—the poor, the oppressed. Mary’s Psalm announces, “Christ has come to challenge the structures of sin, death, the devil, and oppression. Christ has come in the strength of the Lord to do what the Lord has always done: lift up the lowly, free the enslaved, feed the hungry, give justice to the widow, the orphan, and the sojourner.” [3]
In the words of a modern retelling of Mary’s song: “Though the nations rage from age to age, we remember who holds us fast: God’s mercy must deliver us from the conqueror’s crushing grasp. This saving word that our forebears heard is the promise which holds us bound, ‘til the spear and rod can be crushed by God, who is turning the world around.” [4]
Can you believe how radical, how revolutionary an idea this was (and is)? Especially to a large group of people who have been poor, downtrodden, and left on the outskirts for generations, perhaps for centuries? What good news – even marvelous news – this would be to such a group of people, to know that God not only loves them, but God cares about each of them, and is actively coming to their defense, to fill their stomachs and right their wrongs!
This is, indeed, a counter-cultural Gospel reading, counter to the culture of the United States, surely. What better reason for us to lift up this message of resistance, to open our ears to Mary and her radical song. Here in this country, the commercial picture of the baby Jesus is “a cattle-lowing, no-crying-he-makes Jesus” with Silent Night and Away in a Manger. “But at least one Christmas carol would remind us of the ends to which the son of Mary was willing to go in order to cast the mighty down from their thrones and uplift the lowly:” [5]
Nails, spear shall pierce him through, / The cross he borne for me, for you;
Hail, hail the word made flesh, / The babe, the son of Mary!
May our hushed, reverent souls magnify our Lord, indeed. Amen, alleluia.
(Suggestion: visit me at my other blogs: matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers. #PursuePEACE – and A Year of Being Kind . Thanks!)
(I would like to express my great appreciation for the observations and commentary from the Do Not Be Afraid Advent Devotional – © 2022 Illustrated Ministry, LLC.. I used several quotes and ideas from their useful resources. Thanks so much!)
[1]Worshiping With Children: Year C – Fourth Sunday of Advent (December 20, 2015)
[2] The Do Not Be Afraid Advent Devotional – © 2022 Illustrated Ministry, LLC
[3] Commentary on Luke 1:46b-55 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary
[4] Cooney, Rory, “Canticle of the Turning,” (GIA Pulications, Inc. Chicago, IL: 1990)
[5] Commentary on Luke 1:46b-55 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary
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