Mary the Revolutionary (and Eventual Mother of Jesus)
Luke 1:39-55
Luke 1:39-55
Last week we had John the Baptist as a salty talking adult, and this week we have an as yet unborn John the Baptist leaping for joy in his mother’s womb. Obviously the lectionary scriptures are not in chronological order. Depending on the viewpoint of your minister, this may be a passage that you reflect on every Advent, or this might be something that never gets mentioned at all. Mary’s radical song reminds us all that she is not here to simply be a silent mother of Jesus. She was a revolutionary before Jesus was even born.
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 for ever.’
This passage comes immediately after the passage where Mary learns that she is pregnant with Jesus. She is going to her friend Elizabeth’s house to engage in an activity that we rarely see in the bible. The two women talk to one another about their own thoughts on God with no guys around. Elizabeth knows that Mary is pregnant, and she knows that Mary will be “the mother of my Lord.” Elizabeth tells Mary she is blessed by God, and goes on and on about how great it is that Mary’s going through this.
After all the blessings from Elizabeth, Mary bursts into a song of praise. I like to think this happened just like a Broadway musical. The music swells, and Mary begins her solo. The song itself follows a familiar pattern to many Psalms, and it gives us the opportunity to hear exactly what Mary believes about God. Mary starts out with thanks and pleasantries, but then she moves into some theological statements.
Mary is the first person to explicitly state the reversal of fortune motif that continues throughout Luke’s gospel. God brings the proud and powerful down, and God lifts the low up. God feeds the hungry, and God gives the rich nothing. In other words, Mary is praising God because she believes that God is going to bring revolutionary change. She believes God is going to flip the balance of power so that, as Jesus will go on to say, the last shall be first.
I love this as a beginning of Jesus’s story because it reminds us that Jesus doesn’t come from nowhere. Jesus’s mom was pretty darn radical in her day as well, he probably spent his earliest nights having songs like the one we see here sung to him as a baby. He probably heard the ideas that his own theology would be built on from his mother as he grew. Son of God or not, moms are pretty influential, and Mary doesn’t sound like the type of mom to be tight lipped about her faith. Jesus was probably his time’s version of the kid in the Baby Bjorn at the protest.
The gospels don’t give much more for Mary to say than this, and that’s a shame. She isn’t mentioned much after Jesus becomes an adult, but I imagine she was still doing her part and serving God well after the crucifixion. She and Elizabeth were mothers of the revolution. Much like Jesus is all God and all human, his revolutionary spirit comes from God, but he also gets it from his mom.
If you like this, please share it. Other people will get to like it too!