Advent 4- Mary and her song
The mother of Jesus has had a particularly important place in Christianity. Tradition tells us that when Luke was writing his gospel he interviewed Mary, among others. Mary receives high praise in Scripture. The angel Gabriel comes to her saying, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you" (Lk 1:28). At seeing Mary her cousin “Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!’” (Lk 1:41-42). Recognizing her favored status Mary proclaims, “from now on all generations will call me blessed” (Lk 1:48).
We find Mary’s presence throughout the gospels. She created the context for Jesus’ first miracle in John when he turned water into wine (Jn 2). At the cross Mary is there with John as Jesus declares her his mother, and John her son. She is present with the disciples after the resurrection as well. She is also at the end of the Bible in Revelation chapter 12 where Mary seems to be referred to. It reads “A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth” (Rev 12:1-2). Then a dragon appears to try to destroy her child. … And every week in worship Mary is mentioned in our creed as we proclaim Jesus as “born of the virgin Mary”. Evidence of devotion to Mary goes back to the 3rd and 4th centuries, but based on paintings in Roman catacombs it probably goes back even earlier.
Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox churches both hold her with incredibly high honour- they hold her with higher honour than the angels- superior to all other creatures. They believe that she was taken bodily into heaven, and right now she is with Christ in heaven speaking to her son on our behalf. Which is why they believe it is okay to ask her to pray for us (just as we would ask fellow Christians to pray for us). They hold her with such high honour it makes most protestants uncomfortable. They honour her and seek her prayerful intercession, but don’t worship her. Worship is reserved for God alone. As the mother of Jesus, who is God the Son, she is considered the Theotokos- the God-bearer, the mother of God. Mary is so important because her “yes” to God’s plan is seen as undoing Eve’s “no” to God in the garden. Through her “yes” Mary provides a way for the savior to enter into the world.
Both Orthodox and Catholics see Mary as the prototype of the Church and as the ideal Christian. Through her cooperation with God’s plan Christ dwells in her womb. Likewise, as we cooperate with God we receive Christ’s presence in our hearts.
As protestants, our honouring of St. Mary is lower key. We assume we mostly gave these practices up at the time of the Reformation, but even the reformers spoke very highly of Mary.[1] [2] Most modern protestants question the Catholic and Orthodox devotion to Mary as being embellished, superstitious, or as not having much of a biblical basis. However, the fact remans that for major branches of the Christian family, and for the vast majority of Christian history, there has been serious devotion to Mary.
I think this is such a strong tradition that it should challenge those of us with protestant leanings. At the very least we should have the utmost respect for Mary, and take the time to meditate on her as a model disciple who was willing to risk her own comfort and safety to follow God’s lead into an unknown future. Mary is a powerful symbol of the way God brings the Kingdom of God to earth. God works through the powerless. … Think of Moses with a speech impediment asked to confront Pharaoh and lead the people out of slavery. Think of the little shepherd boy David going to battle against Goliath. … When God announces this most important moment in history, God brings the message to the world through a woman. According to the early Jewish historian Josephus, women at this time and in this culture were not even considered reliable witnesses in a court of law. In the eyes of the world, Mary is a very ordinary woman. However, God’s message of the coming kingdom is given to this young woman. … God doesn’t give the news to the Roman Emperor. God doesn’t give the news to a king, or to one of the temple’s high priests. God doesn’t put up billborads, or go on CNN. The first to really grasp God’s Good News is a pregnant woman. Mary would have vanished into the mists of time except for being drawn into an extraordinary story. It is a very strange way for God to make an announcement that will change the world forever.
God’s plan is to turn the world upside-down. In Mary’s song we hear about the lifting up of the marginalized and the lowering of the powerful.
“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.” (Luke 1:51-53)
Mary sings about the God who saved a group of slaves from the powerful Egyptian nation and chose those slaves to bear His name. Mary sings of God who scatters the proud, who lowers powerful rulers, who raises up the lowly, who feeds the hungry, and turns away those who allow their fellow human beings to go hungry when they have plenty. This is a message that turns the world upside down. The high are brought low and the low are brought high, the first will be last and the last will be first. …
Mary, in her weakness and emptiness, is made a conduit of power. Mary, who has no ability to produce a child on her own since she is a virgin, is given a child by God. … When we recognize our own emptiness, it is then that we are able to be used powerfully by God. God works through us not in our strength, but in our weakness. God doesn’t work so much by leading an army, but by carrying a cross.
Mary’s song is known as the Magnificat. Its power and implications were realized by the Guatemalan Government during the 1980’s when they banned speaking it in public. It was banned because it was seen as encouraging rebellion and a danger to the powerful and oppressive state. Isn’t that fascinating? The song of a young pregnant woman is a danger to the state? (…). I think the Guatemalan Government of the 1980’s actually has a grasp of Mary’s song that we sometimes miss in the church. Guatemala is not the only place that this has become banned- It was banned in Argentina when mothers rose up to cry for justice for their missing family members in the 1970’s. During the British rule of India in the 19th century, the Magnificat was banned from being sung in churches.
The Magnificat is a threat to tyranny because tyrants want to feel powerful and in control, and they often treat the people like cattle who exist only for the benefit of the tyrant. … Mary’s song say’s otherwise. Her song says that the oppression of the poor is not the will of God and that when God’s kingdom arrives fully the tyrants will have no power. The power of the Magnificat is the revealing of the truth that God picks sides and if you are a tyrant you will find yourself standing against God … and you will not win that fight.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who faced the Nazis and was executed by them, said the following about the Magnificat:
“The song of Mary is the oldest Advent hymn. It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings. This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind.” (A sermon in Advent 1933)
This song is a call for justice and resistance that trusts in God and the inevitable arrival of His kingdom through Jesus, even in the face of oppressive and unjust governments. Mary’s song is the song of a young pregnant woman living among a people oppressed by an occupying force. The hope that grows in Mary’s womb shows her a world where God gives dignity and worth to the humble, food to the hungry. It is a world where God removes dictators from their thrones.
Obviously, it is a project that is not finished yet. There is more to do. We are still waiting for the time when the kingdom of Christ will fully envelop us. The theologian David Bentley Hart says, “If the teachings of Christianity were genuinely to take root in human hearts- if indeed we all believed that God is love and that we ought to love our neighbours as ourselves- we should have no desire for war, should hate injustice worse than death, and should find indifference to the sufferings of others impossible”.
The vision Mary received turns the world upside down- it looks like a feast of fools where a homeless beggar sits on the king’s throne, and the master of all is the servant of all. It is strange to the world. The first will be last and the last will be first. The low will be made high, and the high will be made low. God announces the arrival of his kingdom through a pregnant woman, not the emperor, or the chief priest. It looks backwards and upside-down. But, perhaps it is the world that has really been upside down all along and God has arrived to put it right side up. Amen.
[1]
1 Martin Luther, Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works, English
translation edited by J. Pelikan [Concordia: St. Louis], volume 24, 107.
Martin Luther, op. cit., Volume 11, 319-320.
Martin Luther, Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works, English
translation edited by J. Pelikan [Concordia: St. Louis], Volume 4, 694.
[Martin Luther, Weimar edition of Martin Luther's
Works (Translation by William J. Cole) 10, p. 268.
[Martin Luther, Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works (Translation
by William J. Cole) 10, III, p.313.
Martin Luther, Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works, English
translation edited by J. Pelikan [Concordia: St. Louis], Volume 51, 128-129.
[2]
John Calvin, Calvini Opera [Braunshweig-Berlin, 1863-1900], Volume
45, 35.
Bernard Leeming, "Protestants and Our Lady", Marian
Library Studies, January 1967, p.9.
John Calvin, Calvini Opera [Braunshweig-Berlin, 1863-1900],
Volume 45, 348.
John Calvin, A Harmony of Matthew, Mark and Luke (St.
Andrew's Press, Edinburgh, 1972), p.32.
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