Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)
39 In
those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill
country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted
Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped
in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and
exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is
the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened
to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as
soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for
joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a
fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord." [46 And Mary said,
"My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 and my
spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he
has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all
generations will call me blessed; 49 for
the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. 50 His
mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. 51 He has
shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of
their hearts. 52He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the
lowly; 53 he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent
the rich away empty. 54 He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of
his mercy, 55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to
Abraham and to his descendants forever."]
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed
·
The long hymn of praise we heard
today in the reading from Luke’s Gospel is referred to as Mary’s Canticle. In
times past, it was simply called the Magnificat,
which is the Latin term for the hymn taken from the first line, “My
soul magnifies the Lord…”
·
We have all heard hymns of praise
before. Our worship is full of them. Some are simple and some are less so. The
Canticle of Mary can seem confusing and so, it really bears looking at.
·
The setting is important. This poem
just didn’t come out of nowhere. Mary has gone to visit her cousin, Elizabeth,
who is now pregnant even though she was believed to be beyond the age of
child-bearing. Mary arrives and is met by Elizabeth with words of praise and a
report of Elizabeth’s child had leaped in her womb at the sound of Mary’s
greeting. “Why should you come to me, you who are the mother of my Lord?
Blessed are you and blessed is your child!”
·
Elizabeth and Mary are both shamed
women. Elizabeth because she was childless and Mary because she was pregnant
while betrothed. Each accepted the other and showed openness to how God is
acting in their world and in their lives. What appears to be shame and disgrace
will be turned around and what they and the world around them believed to be
their shame would become their honour.
·
Now, Mary has heard a lot of unusual
things, such as the angel Gabriel’s message to her, so this is another one to
add to the list. According to Luke, Mary responds to Elizabeth’s greeting and
prophetic statement with a poem to praise God, who has done all these things.
She accepts the idea that what is going on is beyond her comprehension and yet
has turned the entire world up-side-down. She was low and had been raised up.
She was poor and had received riches beyond imagining. She was nothing and from
now on all generations will call me blessed…
·
As her song goes on, she blesses God for all
God has done and will do, just about all of it unexpected and un-looked-for.
·
The proud will be scattered like
chickens before a fox and the powerful laid low, tossed from their thrones. The rich will go hungry as they are turned
away from a banquet.
·
On the other hand, the lowly will be
lifted up and the hungry will feast and be filled.
·
This sounds like a revolution, but
rather than a violent rising of the under-class and the dispossessed, this will
all be accomplished by the mighty power of God. In fact, it will be a
continuation of the working-out of God’s promise to Abraham and his children,
so this change has been brewing for centuries.
·
This is the message that Mary’s song
carries – the praise of God for what is being done in her life and through her
life to the entire world.
·
What is to come appears to be
unexpected, especially since the rich and powerful are in control. Since they
are in control, the lesser folk are considered far from God, from God’s mercy,
and from God’s grace. Perhaps the biggest surprise contained in Mary’s song is
that the reduction of the high and mighty makes them the poor and lowly, and
therefore the inheritors of the promises and of the grace and mercy of God that
is given to the raised-up lowly. After all, the promise was made to them, too.
·
It seems that none of us will be
excluded, no matter how low or how high up we appear to be now. Just because a
thing is unexpected does not mean that you will be excluded. Just because what
will be is not what you’d thought it’d be does not mean that you are not part
of it. This might be the good news to all the world at this time.
·
For those who depend on their riches
and for those who desire riches to depend on, the message is the same: rich or
poor, old or young, what you are before God is all that you are and nothing
more. The realization of this is a point of true freedom and quite a
revolutionary idea.
·
Mary’s song of praise speaks of what
is and what will come. She speaks of herself in a very humble way: he
has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all
generations will call me blessed… This has proved true and the
Mother of Jesus holds a particular place in the history of salvation and the
life of all the Christian churches.
·
As Mary received what she did not expect, we will be surprised at how
and from which direction the grace of God comes to us. Whether it is seen in
the unexpected person or a visit, in the spoken and heard word, from a line of
a hymn, from the bread and wine, or from a sandwich and a cake, God’s grace and
God’s love will be there and we’ll know it even as it surprises us. Like
Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens’ A Christmas
Carol or George Bailey in the movie It’s
a Wonderful Life, grace comes unforeseen in an unexpected way.
·
The up-side-down, the unexpected, the
unlooked-for, the grace and mercy of God … all in the Magnificat, a song well worth looking at and remembering.
·
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. His
mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
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