The Fourth Sunday of Advent ---- 23 December 2018

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 lowliness 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.

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 thoughts 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 helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,

according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever."]

My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…

·       This hymn/poem/canticle/whatever you might call it is placed on the lips of Mary, the mother of Jesus, by Luke. It’s a lovely poem and we sang a version of it for our Responsorial. In it, Mary gives thanks and praise to God for what she has been given. It’s called the Magnificat, because like so many other things in our church history, the Latin words that begin the prayer become the prayer’s title (so the Pater noster, the Gloria Pati, the Agnus Dei, etc.)

·       That’s not all that’s there. If I dare to say it, the Magnificat is altogether subversive! And maybe the world as it is needs a little subverting. In Mary’s song, everything in the world is turned on its head!

·       It’s right there for all to see:               My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

Mary declares that all generations will call her blessed, that is, all generations will recognize what God has done and what God is doing. No one could deny that she holds a special place in the history of salvation and grace. We don’t need to worship her to realize that no one else in the history of God’s people has the place she has. And we dare not deny that it is the grace of God that has done this!

·       She goes on:

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.

Once again, Mary gives praise to God for God’s mighty deeds in the history of Israel up to and including her, and she takes it further in a word of what might be called “Prophecy”, proclaiming the mercy of God for all in every generation.

·       Now the topsy-turvy story/song of grace comes into play:

He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts 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.

All that is powerful and great and honoured by all the world is dumped over the side and declared an illusion. God’s strength is greater than the strength of the proud, the powerful, and the rich. The proud are scattered “in their conceit” as another translation puts it. The powerful are pulled from their thrones and the rich are left in hunger while the hungry eat. As Jesus put it during his ministry “The last will be first and the first will be last.”

·       Mary ties all this to the story of salvation as it has come to her in the story of God’s people:

He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,

according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.

It is God who has remained faithful through all the years. It is God who is active in her life and the lives of all God’s people. It is God who will remain faithful and merciful from one generation to the next. It is God who has sent a saviour, born as one of us, and as the letter to the Hebrews states And it is by God's will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

·       To read and contemplate the Magnificat allows us to look over the history of our salvation through the eyes of one who was intimately involved in it while at the same time hear the prophetic word of what is to come, sooner or later.

·       Elizabeth greeted Mary and the unborn John the Baptist jumped in her womb… because of who Mary bore with her. Elizabeth said it best: Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

·       Again it is God who is praised in the recognition of Mary’s place as Jesus’ mother. What she said of Mary I hope might be said of any of us here: …blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.

My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…