Mary’s Song | Sojourners

Mary’s Song

Mary and Jesus. Image courtesy Milena Moiola/shutterstock.com
Mary and Jesus. Image courtesy Milena Moiola/shutterstock.com

Mary, the mother of Jesus, sings at Christmas. It's not your typical carol. Hers is a song of thanks and praise, but Mary's sweet soprano voice is deceiving. 

Her canticle, The Magnficat, is recorded in the Gospel According to Luke. The text is assigned to be read in the churches Sunday.

Mary sings about politics and economics, the dangers of unchecked power and the foolishness of false pride, and what it means for persons and nations to eschew the common good. 

Mary sings of the outstretched arm of a Holy God who is effecting a great reversal in the world: the proud are scattered, the mighty brought low, the lowly raised up, the rich sent away empty and the hungry filled. 

Mary sings the world forward, toward a global community of justice and compassion. 

A first thought? How uncharacteristic of an expectant mother, this song! A second thought? Perhaps not so unusual. 

Is there a mother among us who in the quiet moments of her pregnancy hasn't pondered the dark realities of the world into which she will birth her child; who hasn't put her hope, like Mary, in the God who from one generation to another shows mercy? 

Mary's not preaching. She's not running for office. She has no social agenda to push. She's a young teen, pregnant and praising God. 

There is no threat here, no self-righteousness, no gloating in her song. There is merely statement. 

It's the way life has been created to work: with justice, in humility, looking to the needs of others. In our arrogance and love of power and things, we can try to work it another way, and it may work for a time. 

But one day, God stretches out God’s mighty arm and it all comes crashing down. 

Even those among us who don’t have room for God or God’s intervention can see the pattern repeated in the history of nations and the lives of others.

Hate kills life. Love stirs life. Holding grudges imprisons life. Forgiveness releases it. Criticism cripples life. Encouragement nurtures it. False pride cheapens life. Humility deepens it.  Hoarding divides life. Sharing multiplies life. 

We are given the awful freedom to go with the grain of the universe or to drag our lives across the grain. 

But when all is said and done, this is the way that will prevail — the way of love, forgiveness, encouragement, humility and sharing.

After Jesus is born, Mary will nurse and nurture her little boy. And when the moments are right, this is the song she will teach her son, the song she sang to him while he was yet in her womb, the promise of which, through his life and ministry, Jesus is bringing to fulfillment:

"My soul magnifies the Lord ... for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name ... God has stretched out his mighty arm and scattered the proud in all their plans, brought down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly. God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away with empty hands. The Lord has kept the promise he made to our ancestors, and come to the help of his people." 

Jeff Wright is a pastor at Heart of the Rockies Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Fort Collins, Colorado.