Magnificat

         Luke 1: 39-55

            It is the fourth Sunday of Advent, the last Sunday of this season of preparation. We prepare for the coming, the coming of the Christ Child. The themes most commonly associated with advent are faithfulness, hope, joy and love or peace. Each theme helps us in its own way to anticipate, to think about what is happening. The Incarnation, the birth of the Son of God as a mortal man, is about to happen. It will change everything. It is the coming for which the people of God have so long awaited.

          Advent, the coming. What does it mean? Today, we look at another of the three hymns in the first two chapters of Luke. We have heard from Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. Later, there is the Benedictus hymn of praise from Simeon, as he sees the child for whom his whole life has been served in waiting. Now, we pause to look at the Magnificat, a song from Mary as she praises the changes taking place in her body, in her life, in the lives of all who will follow this moment in history.

           Mary was young by any standard. Most scholars suggest she was a young teenager.  She was betrothed to Joseph to be married. She was not yet sexually active. She was naïve, young, inexperienced. She was a small town girl in a small town town. She was Jewish and obviously a pious Jewess or the Lord would not have chosen her. Her condition was not unusual for her time, but the events which were about to unfold had no precedent, no parallel. They still don’t. Only once in the history of mankind has God been born into our midst as a human being. Only once has God had fatigue, hunger, thirst, pain. Only once has God bled the blood of a man. Only once has God been a newborn baby. And it all started with little Mary, the small town girl from Nazareth with the big time blessing.

          Mary may have been a small town girl with little or no credentials, but she was no stranger to the law and the prophets of old. Her song borrows heavily in word and even theme from Hannah’s song in the book of First Samuel, where Hannah praises God for rewarding her prayers with a little boy who will become Samuel, one of the great judges of Israel. In fact, Mary’s song is loaded with references to the Old Testament. But Mary has more to say. She goes farther than Hannah. Mary understands her job. She is a vessel for the most important birth in the history of mankind. She is the caretaker for the Son of God himself. But Mary understands much more than that. Mary seems to understand that the roots of revolution are growing in her womb, that nothing will ever be the same. Listen to the words of this teenager.

“He has scattered the proud in the plans of their hearts,” she says. We have heard about pride before. We read about it in Proverbs. We know it as one of the so-called seven deadly sins. And Mary says that this newborn child will scatter the proud. Mary is speaking of a moral revolution where those of distinction have lost their position. Not only are they no longer able to justify their pride, but also they are scattered and unable to act in their superficial unity. They now will have the example of Christ as the Son of Man to use as their mirror and they will see themselves as they are. Pride withers in the sight of Christ.

“He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate,” says little Mary. Prestige and position, first cousins to pride, are now about to be vanquished. Now Mary is talking about a social revolution. In the days of Hannah, she was proud for her son as she saw him able to sit with princes. In the world that Mary sees, there will be no princes to sit with, as those from humble means will sit where princes once sat, not as the new rule, but as the obedient servants of our Lord.

“He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty” Now Mary moves to articulate an economic revolution. From moral to social to economic, the world that her baby will usher in will be the upside down world of Jesus. Mary prophesies a world where Christian charity and generosity trump pride, avarice and greed. There is loveliness in her hymn but as theologian William Barclay reminds us, in that loveliness there is dynamite, for the coming of Christ and Christianity fosters a revolutionary approach that continues to change the world. All we have to do is look around. We are in church today to worship the God who once more reached down to redeem us on that Christmas morning so long ago. We are in church today because we seek that redemption in our own lives from the Savior that Mary so ably prophesied.

Does this sound like an innocent little teenager to you? Not to me it doesn’t. I know and accept that Mary was as pure and innocent as the driven snow. But she was certainly well schooled in her history and well visioned in her understanding of what Messiah was to be. Perhaps someone else wrote this and attributed it to Mary. Perhaps this is just the platform of an evangelist and Mary was the vehicle for him to get it said. If that were true, which we will never know, would it matter? The words are still brilliant. The thoughts are still revolutionary and revelationary in their import. But I have no reason to think that Mary did not say such things except that it may have been unusual for a young girl to have such vision. Well yes, it probably was unusual. But then, there was plenty about Mary that was unusual. How many women do you know who have been visited by the angel Gabriel? Mary was, and is, revered for a reason. God picked her as his vessel to make himself known to us as a man.

“My soul magnifies the Lord,” says Mary. “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior…holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him.” Yes, his name is holy…set apart. Yes, his mercy is for those who fear, for those who have faith, for those who have hope, for those who have joy…for those who love him.

It is advent, the season of expectation. Let us join with Mary, the young girl, with Mary, the expectant mother, with Mary, the prophetess, with Mary, rocking that newborn baby as though hope itself rested in those newborn limbs. Let us, too, magnify the Lord. It is advent. He has come, he is coming again.

Let us pray.

12/22/13