Micah 5:2-5a
5:2 But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.
5:3 Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has brought forth; then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel.
5:4 And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth;
5:5 and he shall be the one of peace.
Psalm 80:1-7
80:1 Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock! You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth
80:2 before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh. Stir up your might, and come to save us!
80:3 Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved.
80:4 O LORD God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people's prayers?
80:5 You have fed them with the bread of tears, and given them tears to drink in full measure.
80:6 You make us the scorn of our neighbors; our enemies laugh among themselves.
80:7 Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.
Hebrews 10:5-10
10:5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, "Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me;
10:6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.
10:7 Then I said, 'See, God, I have come to do your will, O God' (in the scroll of the book it is written of me)."
10:8 When he said above, "You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings" (these are offered according to the law),
10:9 then he added, "See, I have come to do your will." He abolishes the first in order to establish the second.
10:10 And it is by God's will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)
1:39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country,
1:40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
1:41 When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit
1:42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
1:43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?
1:44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.
1:45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."
1:46 And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord,
1:47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
1:48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
1:49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
1:50 His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
1:51 He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
1:52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
1:53 he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.
1:54 He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy,
1:55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever."
I’ve been reading the Psalms, and the highest praise I can offer is to say Luke’s songs hold up to comparison to the best of the Psalms; to any of the Psalms. I’ve been reading the Magnificat and the Benedictus regularly, and now I have a chance to say something about them.
Just so you know where this is going.
There are two stories here. I mean in this part of Luke’s nativity. The story of Mary is one; the story of God is the other. The story of God is told, here, in the readings from Micah; and the Psalm; and the letter to the Hebrews. The story of Mary is told by...well, her.
Luke makes this a woman's story. First, Elizabeth just backhands her husband, who hasn't been able to speak since before she got pregnant because he asked Gabriel how the promise of a child could be true, since he and Elizabeth were so old. "And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord." That she even knew all this Luke attributes to the Holy Spirit, so we're still with the story of God here. But then Mary speaks:
My soul extols the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has shown consideration for the lowly stature of his slave. As a consequence, from now on every generation will congratulate me; the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name, and his mercy will come to generation after generation of those who fear him. He has shown the strength of his arm, he has put the arrogant to rout, along with their private schemes; he has pulled the mighty down from their thrones, and exalted the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has come to the aid of his servant Israel, remembering his mercy, as he spoke to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever. (Luke 1:46-56, SV)
That is an entirely bottom up song of praise, praise offered by a young woman who has no status in the community, is little better than a handmaid, and who until this moment in Luke's story has not revealed her inmost thoughts. What she said to Gabriel was:
In the sixth month the heavenly messenger Gabriel was sent form God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man named Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. He entered and said to her "Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you!"But she was deeply disturbed by the words, and wondered what the greeting could mean.The heavenly messenger said to her, "Don't be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Listen to me: you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him the throne of David, his father. He will rule over the house of Jacob forever; and his dominion will have no end."And Mary said to the messenger, "How can this be, since I am not involved with a man?"The messenger replied, "The holy spirit will come over you, and the power of the Most High will cast its shadow on you. This is why the child to be born will be holy, and be called son of God. Further, your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age. She who was said to be infertile is already six months along, since nothing is impossible with God."And Mary said, "Here I am, the Lord's slave. May everything you have said come true." Then the heavenly messenger left her. Luke 1:26-38, SV
She asked a question. She asked for simple clarification. There is a subtle but important difference there from the story of Zechariah, which is also part of the story of God Luke tells:
But Zechariah said to the heavenly messenger, "How can I be sure of this? For I am an old man and my wife is all along in years." Luke 1:18, SVNot "How can this be?" but "Why should I trust you?" It's worth noting here that the closest we have to an angel, a messenger of God, in our concepts is an ambassador. Ambassadors are emissaries from the head of state of their country. They speak for the head of state in that country, stepping aside only when the head of state is actually present. So Gabriel speaks for God, and when Zechariah, or Mary, speak to Gabriel, they each speak to God. This is a remarkably rare occassion in the Scriptures. The story of God, in Luke, begins with the visitation of Gabriel to Zechariah, and continues straight through until Elizabeth stops speaking to her cousin, and Mary, for the first time, speaks for herself. And what she says is one of the great songs of Christmas.
I've mentioned before that the songs of Christmas go back to the Christmas stories themselves. I don't argue that Luke's songs inspired Christmas carols and songs that now blare incessantly from speakers in stores. But it's interesting the most famous of the Christmas stories is the one we use as the basis for all others (Las Posadas, the manger, Charlie Brown's Christmas), the one which has inspired Christmas hymns from "Angels We Have Heard On High" (the chorus is simply Luke 2:14), versions of the "Nunc Dimmitus" (one of which I remember from childhood and will someday track down again), and, of course, musical settings of the Magnificat. Those songs, not coincidentally, start in Luke's narrative with Mary.
The Magnificat is entirely Mary's story.
Luke doesn't even attribute the workings of the Holy Spirit to what she says. Zechariah (Luke 1:67) is filled with the Holy Spirit and sings his Benedictus, the palimpset to Mary's song. But she sings entirely on her own, as if to underscore her status as the "favored one." And notice how she does it:
My soul extols the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has shown consideration for the lowly stature of his slave.
I rather like the bluntness of the Scholar's Version for this kind of reflection; it forces us to remove the veneer of ages from such familiar words. Mary's speech is entirely focused on God; but this is Mary's song, nonetheless. No one else could sing it but her. No one else could say it, and mean it, like she does. She still acknowledges, as she did to Gabriel, that she is God's "slave." I know we prefer "handmaid," it sounds so much more domesticated and dignified than "slave." but even the servants in "Downtown Abbey" worked at the whim and for the pleasure of the family. They were not slaves in the American sense of property bought and sold like livestock, but they had, and were expected to have, as little say over their duties and obligations to their "lords and masters" as slaves. It may be nice to think Mary was just a handmaid; but a handmaid was just a slave.
As a consequence, from now on every generation will congratulate me; the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name, and his mercy will come to generation after generation of those who fear him.
Mary rejoices in what is before her. Later in the story, before the Holy Family disappears from the narrative almost entirely, Mary will keep all these things in her heart. The future only grows darker from this moment; mortality looms, even for the child of her womb who is God. But for right now she enjoys the favor God has given her, and she gives all thanks back to God, and looks to the community, not herself, for what this means. Generations have waited for God to act; Mary realizes that God is acting through her, for the benefit of all of those who have been waiting. The close of that expectation, for Mary, is another song: the Song of Simeon, the Nunc Dimmitus. That song is the story of God, and the story of Mary, too.
He has shown the strength of his arm, he has put the arrogant to rout, along with their private schemes; he has pulled the mighty down from their thrones, and exalted the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.
Has God done this? Is God doing this? Is God going to do this? Mary puts this declaration in the present tense; not in the past gone, or the future yet to come. Her son will say much the same thing: that God is the god of the living; to God, all are living, even the ones we see as dead. If God is the God eternal, then to God all time is also present, and God is acting in the present. Her present; our present; every moment that is present. If that seems odd, consider that to us all time is present, too. The present moment is ephemeral: gone as soon as we try to grasp it, as quickly as we realize it. But it is not lost in the past, beceause the past is not lost to us. And the future is not always and ever just beyond the present moment, because the present moment is always and ever giving way to the future. How else do we understand time?
World without end, amen.
He has come to the aid of his servant Israel, remembering his mercy, as he spoke to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.
Again, the connection to the larger picture. This is not about Mary; this is about God's actions in the world; God's promises. But Mary's story is a part of that story, too.
Mary's story is a key part of our nativity observances. Mary is strong. Mary is wise. Mary is humble. Mary is the favored one. Not because she is any of these things; but because she is Mary. She extols the Lord. Her soul magnifies God. She rejoices in her savior. Because she is Mary.
Compare and contrast, Mary to Zechariah. Mary is humble before Gabriel, which is to say before God, and only asks for more information. Her question is even practical, which shows her wisdom. Zechariah wants to negotiate, to be on equal footing with the angel, if not in charge. Mary wants to understand, and this, too, is why the child will be holy. Mary doesn't abase herself before God; Mary accepts her place. And that, as her son will one day say in a parable, is what raises her up. Zechariah claims his place at the head table, in the seat of honor, and he is lead away to a lower place. Mary accepts the lowest place, and she is led to the honored position.
This part of the narrative is very clearly Mary's story. We should remember that. This story is not solely about God; it is about people, too.
Thanks be to God.
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