Luke 1:46-56 Mary praises God
46 Mary said,
“With all my heart I glorify the Lord!
47  In the depths of who I am I rejoice in God my savior.
48  Who has looked with favor on the low status of his servant.
     Look! From now on, everyone will consider me highly favored
49    because the mighty one has done great things for me.
Holy is God’s name.
50  God shows mercy to everyone,
        from one generation to the next, who honors him as God.
51  He has shown strength with his arm.
     and has scattered those with arrogant thoughts
and proud inclinations.
52   He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones
         and lifted up the lowly.
53  He has filled the hungry with good things
     and sent the rich away empty-handed.
54  He has come to the aid of his servant Israel,
         remembering his mercy,
55  just as he promised to our ancestors,
         to Abraham and to Abraham’s descendants forever.”

56  Mary stayed with Elizabeth about three months,
and then returned to her home.

The Gospel is Good News for Us,
Thanks be to God!

What if she says: “No?”
What if he gets down on bended knee in the jewelry store,
or points to the plane towing a sign in the sky,
or arranges for the scoreboard at the stadium to ask…
What if her answer is “No.”

What if …
in front of the whole family,
in front of the whole congregation,
in the middle of the Ellen show,
he proposes …
– and yes, there are You-Tube clips of all these ….
and she says, “no?”

What if Mary said to Angel Gabriel:
nah, don’t think so, no way,
You can’t be serious!
You’ve gotta be kidding!
Do you realize the commitment you’re asking me to make?

Mary does not say yes immediately.
She’s puzzled, what the angel is proposing makes no sense.
How can this happen?
Gabriel assures her that with God nothing is impossible.

This scene of the angel and Mary has been a favorite subject
for artists, especially in the Italian Renaissance.
I love that they so often picture Mary with an open book, assumed to be Scriptures.
It’s as if Gabriel has interrupted her reading,
in order to announce a future event that the Gospels have already described.

Frederick Buechner writes about the work of these artists:
“The pastel blues and pinks and purples,
the angel’s shimmering wings,
Mary’s look of quiet wonder,
her head tilted toward the angel
as his head tilted toward hers.
He tells her not to be afraid but he is quaking in fear
at the thought that the history of humankind
now depends on the answer of a young girl.” (Peculiar Treasures)

There’s an Irish legend that when Gabriel visited Mary,
the sun, the moon and all the stars stopped moving,
that the whole universe held its breath, waiting for her answer.
Not until she said, Yes, did they begin moving again.

Mary did say yes,
she said, I am God’s servant, let it be.
And then this young woman went to visit her relative,
Elizabeth, whom Gabriel said is also expecting a baby.
Two pregnant women-
one young, one old,
one long married, one never married.
And in their meeting, their greeting of each other,
they confirm that the Spirit is indeed at work in each other,
creating a new future for Israel, for the world, for us,
in and through the babies whom they will mother.

Mary said, “Yes!”
When she visits her relative, both Elizabeth and her unborn child
recognize the significance of Mary’s unborn child.
With this greeting, Mary responds by singing.
Another of Luke’s arias,
one of the show stopper songs of praise in his Gospel:
the song that is the Magnificat.
My soul magnifies, my whole being praises God,
for the great things God has done and will do.

The Magnificat has been a favorite subject of composers
and hymn writers.
Mary’s song is not just awesome praise music,
she sings a full-throated revolutionary protest song.
The words follow in the tradition of Israel’s prophets,
echoing the praise and promise of Hannah’s song,
the calls to justice and righteousness of Isaiah, Jeremiah,
and all those who kept reminding the people of
both God’s faithfulness and their responsibilities
as God’s covenant people.
In tune with the prophet Micah,
who says this is what the Lord requires of us:
     to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with your God.

Mary’s song is not a sweet, soft lullaby,
but a subversive threat to the powers that be
and who do everything they can to stay that way:
to be rich at expense of the poor,
to be powerful at the expense of the powerless.

The Magnificat, Mary’s Song, has been banned by governments,
because it’s politically dangerous –
because this prayer dares to claim that
God’s priorities are not the world’s ways,
that in and through this child will be God’s great reversal:
The powerful brought down, the lowly lifted up,
the rich turned away empty, the hungry filled.

In liturgy written for this season,
Presbyterian pastor Thom Shuman says:

Every notion we have about power, success,
wealth and achievement,
God takes and tosses out the window.
More importantly, God comes to us,
to upset our idea that we have to save ourselves.
In Jesus, God comes to us,
removing our sin, our failures, our expectations,
so we might have life.

This is the hope of Advent,
the promise fulfilled in Christmas,
and the mystery we call faith
which Shuman states this way:

Christ was born,      so that we might see hope in the flesh;
Christ lived,      so that we might hear grace spoken aloud;
Christ died,     so that we might feel the breaking of God’s heart;
Christ is risen,      so that we might know the promises are true;
Christ will come again,      so that we might be blessed as God’s children.

One of the Advent hymns included in the new Presbyterian hymnal
is John Bell’s lyric of Gabriel and Mary, set to an Irish melody:

#101 No wind at the window, no knock on the door,
no light from the lamp stand, no foot on the floor;
no dream born of tiredness, no ghost raised by fear;
just an angel and a woman and a voice in her ear.

“O Mary, O Mary, don’t hide from my face.
Be glad that you’re favored and filled with GOd’s grace.
The time for redeeming the world has begun,
and you are requested to mother God’s son.”

“This child must be born that the kingdom might come,
salvation for many, destruction for some;
both end and beginning, both message and sign;
both victor and victim, both yours and divine.”

No payment was promised, no promises made;
no wedding was dated, no blueprint displayed.
Yet Mary, consenting to what none could guess,
replied with conviction, “Tell God I say, Yes.”

Mary said, Yes,
Yes, to Angel Gabriel,
Yes, to God’s new future.
A yes of joy, amazement, foolishness and risk.
Mary song of praise will be followed all too soon
by the wailing and mourning of the mothers of Bethlehem
whose children were slaughtered by Herod’s soldiers.
Herod ordered them to search ruthlessly for and
to destroy any possible threat to the King and his hold on power.
Herod was only one of the many tyrants throughout history,
and throughout the world today,
who seek and keep power and wealth through violence.

Yet, the child he saw as a threat was the one who grew up to say,
…put down your sword,
…blessed are the peacemakers,
…love your enemies,
…forgive those who hurt you…

Mary’s yes, Mary’s song says
…that God’s rule is more powerful than any earthly ruler,
…that God’s love is greater than any hate,
…that God’s good is greater than any evil,
…that God’s light is greater than any darkness.

Mary said yes to an awesomely life-changing,
history-changing call to serve God.
She would be blessed and burdened by saying yes.

Can we, will we say yes to what God asks of us?
What will we say, each and every day …
when God calls us to live, to pray,
to act as if God’s new world is already here?

Will we say yes?
Yes, we will feed the hungry, and house the homeless.
Yes, we will visit the prisoner, and friend the lonely,
Yes, we will speak and act to lift up the lowly.
Yes, we will sing Mary’s dangerous song of God’s promises
Yes, we will be people of love.
Sharing love by loving those we see regularly.
Sharing love by loving those we do not know.
Sharing the love of Christ with all we meet.

May God’s love, God’s joy, God’s peace, God’s hope
so fill our hearts and our lives,
that we, too, sing with Mary –
“with my whole heart, my entire being, I praise God, my Savior.”

And now let us sing praise to God, with another of the new Advent hymns:
“Love Has Come”