Luke 1:46b-55

The lectionary for the Third Sunday of Advent offers Luke 1:46b-55 as an alternative to the Second Reading or Epistle. These verses are a song known as the Magnificat, named for the first word of the song in Latin. The angel Gabriel has just told Mary that she will bear a child. Gabriel then explains that Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, is also expecting. Elizabeth is getting on in years, so this, too, is extraordinary news. “In haste,” Luke says, Mary goes to see her. When Elizabeth greets Mary, her unborn child recognizes Mary’s unborn child, and turns a joyful somersault. Elizabeth exclaims that Mary and her unborn child are blessed, and in response to this, Mary begins to sing.

And what a song it is! William Willimon tells the story of a college student telling him that the virgin birth is just too incredible to believe. Willimon responded, “You think that’s incredible, come back next week. Then, we will tell you that ‘God has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.’ We’ll talk about the hungry having enough to eat and the rich being sent away empty. The virgin birth? If you think you have trouble with the Christian faith now, just wait. The virgin birth is just a little miracle; the really incredible stuff is coming next week.”

I have to wonder: If they really thought about it, would more American Christians, or Christians generally, have a harder time with the story of the virgin birth, or with this song of Mary’s? Several biblical commentaries use the word “revolutionary” to describe the Magnificat. Mary’s song blesses God for the victory won over the proud, powerful, and rich for the sake of the lowly and the hungry. This is not a sweet soprano solo. One commentator says it’s more like Janis Joplin at Woodstock; to bring it up to date, maybe we’d say more like Janelle Monáe. But it’s all about God: God’s action, God’s faithfulness, God’s keeping God’s promises – it’s all about what God wants. God moves, and the people at the top who have organized reality for their benefit but at the cost of others come under siege. God keeps the covenant, and a teenager, a nobody from nowhere, testifies to wealth redistribution for the sake of the hungry. The fact that it’s Mary that’s singing this means God does exalt the lowly; that this happened to her means that the overturning of the inhumane order has begun. She is lowly, and she is lifted up.

Now, this is a good news, bad news proposition, isn’t it? Revolution sounds pretty scary to most of us. Cornelius Plantinga writes, “When our own kingdom has had a good year we aren’t necessarily looking for God’s kingdom.”

In December 2023, it’s hard to think of anyone who has had a truly great year. Many of us have much, but we also long for much. We lament the world around us: wars, climate change, growing economic inequality, threats to democracy, intractable political divisions; so much this year kindled our fear and diminished our hope. We also lament the emptiness or pain within us: illness, broken relationships, loved ones in trouble, loneliness. We’re all waiting for God’s shalom. So the question is: Can we hear Mary’s song as good news for all people, not just for some, but for all? Can we truly listen to it, and hear that lifting up the lowly and bringing down the powerful is good news for absolutely everyone? Mary sings about the God who saves not just souls, but real people with real bodies. We’re so used to thinking of “saving” or salvation kicking in only after we die that it might be more helpful for us to use a word other than “save.” Both “rescue” and “liberate” are good translations of the Greek here. We know this because every time the Old Testament writers use the word “save,” as in “God, save us,” that’s what they mean. Rescue us. Liberate us.

God wants to save all of us. God wants to rescue and liberate all of us from whatever enslaves or oppresses us, from whatever deprives us of shalom. And God wants us to act in ways that help that to happen.

© Joanne Whitt 2023 all rights reserved.