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Micah 5:2-5a, Hebrews 10:50-10, Luke 1:39-55
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, West Valley City, UT
The Reverend W. Lee Shaw
I love Christmas music and I confess that I do put it on early. I generally start with the "Messiah" and "The Nutcracker" around Thanksgiving and then move on from there. Even as I wrote this sermon I listened to various Christmas music, from the Kings College Chapel Boys' Choir to Dave Brubeck. But perhaps no Christmas hymn or carol has the power or the majesty of what we heard today in the Canticle and the Gospel: The Magnificat. Mary's song.
It is so potent that in the 1980's, the government of Guatemala forbade its use because it is so powerful with words such as, "...has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly." Not so much a good song for a military dictatorship.
But to fully appreciate the "Magnificat" we need to go to Mary: Mary is unmarried, pregnant and a young teenager, maybe 13-15. We read that now she "goes with haste" to the hill country to visit her cousin Elizabeth. I think we can assume she did not pack up the family Toyota and head out on the Interstate! She is a teen girl, pregnant, on foot in the hill country and she is in a hurry. She clearly needs to be with Elizabeth. She has undoubtedly heard of Elizabeth's own pregnancy in her old age. Two unexpectedly pregnant women coming together: one a teen girl the other a woman past the age of pregnancy. Two miracles of birth: Elizabeth will give birth to the one we know as John the Baptist and Mary is the mother of the one we know as Jesus.
The two greet each other in love and in humility. Elizabeth knows of Mary and her special charism, gift. Elizabeth is the first to confess, that you "are the mother of my Lord." Elizabeth knows. Elizabeth, this elderly pregnant woman, is actually the first evangelist to confess the Lordship of Jesus.
Mary then greets Elizabeth with the "Magnificat," which we have now heard twice today. This is perhaps the premier canticle of the church. It is the song of hope and deliverance from a teenage girl for what God has worked with her.
Now for you purists out there, yes, there are strong parallels between the Song of Mary and the Song of Hannah in the Hebrew Scriptures. Both reflect a mother-to-be's hope for her newborn. Perhaps Luke did borrow some format from this tradition. But I cannot believe that given Luke's unique information about Mary, that he made this song up based on Hebrew Scriptures. This is Mary's song. This is Mary's testimony to us through "all generations."
It is as powerful as it is beautiful. That is why a dictatorship banned it. To hear it, read it, sing it, is to hear the hope of all of us in the birth of the Messiah, God with us. In this song of praise it is clear that Mary saw herself now as one set apart, called of God to be the mother of our Lord, "Theotokos" in Greek, "God Bearer."
Elizabeth calls her "Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb..." a phrase familiar to all of us who pray the Rosary. Mary sees this in herself as she "rejoices in God my Savior" who has "looked with favor" on her and all generations who will now call her "blessed." This is the same word in Greek that Jesus will later use in the Sermon on the Mount in naming the "blessed," the "happy" those filled with God's good will.
Is it any accident that Jesus will use the same language in his great Sermon on the Mount (in Matthew) or Sermon on the Plain (in Luke)? I do not think you can discount the teaching a child hears from his mother for those images that will stay with him in his adulthood. I hear strong echoes of Mary's Song in this most famous sermon of her son. I cannot help but think he heard much of this from her as she taught and played with him on her lap.
Too often we relegate Mary to that pretty woman in blue. She is so much more. She is the mother of our Lord, the God bearer, "Theotokos," the chosen one of God. As such she is owed our devotion and veneration even as we worship her Son. If Jesus is truly God in the Holy Trinity, Jesus is truly human in the birth and love of his mother Mary. Jesus is fully divine and fully human.
But there is one piece of this Gospel reading that can slip right past us if we are not careful. It holds up the most powerful message for us here and now. These are the words of Elizabeth to Mary: "And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord." "Fulfillment" carries the connotation in the Greek of "perfection," the coming together in unity. This is the promise of fulfillment in belief.
This is the hope and the call to us: Believe. Believe in what God has spoken to you in Word and in Sacrament. We are each heirs of Elizabeth's insight and blessing: "blessed is [he-she] who believed that there would be fulfillment of what was spoken...by the Lord." For us, this is what was spoken by our Lord for us: "Take eat this is my body....this is my blood." As we partake of the Sacrament of our Lord, we become one with the words of these two prophets of unexpected pregnancies.
As you make your Communion, may your soul magnify the Lord and rejoice in God, your Savior. May that child within you leap in joy on meeting Jesus again for the first time in the bread and the wine of his most Holy Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist. May we each say, "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savior." May we hold that sentence in our hearts from now until Christmas Eve: "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savior."