Excerpted from 2024 Advent Guide: Hope is Near, an Advent Guide for Lectionary Year C from the North Carolina Council of Churches.
Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
And Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowly state of his servant.
Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name;
indeed, his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.
He has come to the aid of his child Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
How many times did Mary sing her song? We know she sang it at least this one time, but I wonder, did she sing this song to her new baby every night as a lullaby? Did those around Mary and the baby always know the song? Songs, after all, are powerful. Songs shape us.
Mary’s song sings praise for all God has done, is doing, will do — and not just for her. Mary sings for all who benefit from God’s love. She praises God for relieving the proud and powerful of their swelled heads and overblown sense of self-importance. She praises God for sending the rich away empty so they might have room in them for more than money can buy. She praises God for mercy and justice. Mary bursts into a song of hope not just for herself, but on behalf of everyone who thinks God has forgotten God’s promise to be present with us forever.
It is clear from her song that for Mary, God’s hope is connected to justice. This can be a difficult image for us. In our nativity scenes we don’t really picture Mary, the mother of Jesus, as a justice figure. Compliant, obedient, servile, humble . . . that’s Mary. Mary, Mary, meek and mild. Mary with smooth skin and a blue habit. Not Mary with a copy of Marx’s Das Kapital under her arm.
And yet here is Mary, the mother of Jesus, singing for justice. Singing about how God has scattered the proud and brought down the powerful from their thrones. Singing about how God has lifted up the lowly, filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. Mary is so sure of her hopes that she uses past tense verbs. “God has brought down the powerful” (v. 52).
Mary’s song is intimately connected to justice. It is a song that sounds a lot like the stories of Jesus’ life. And so, I can’t help but think, one of the reasons Jesus taught the way he did, the way Jesus picked some stories to tell and omitted others, the way Jesus talked about the vulnerable and lowly, the way Jesus prophesied on reversing power arrangements so that the powerful in their thrones are brought down while the lowly are raised up — I can’t help but think that one of the reasons Jesus taught and lived the way he did is because he had a mother who sang a hope-filled subversive lullaby to him his whole life.
Songs are powerful and they shape our lives. If, for your whole life, you heard this song of God’s hope intimately connected to justice, how could it not impact how you lived?
