Magnificat - the subversive message of Christmas Luke 1, 39-55

In that Christmas classic song, the “Fairytale of New York” recorded by the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl about two bickering Irish immigrant lovers whose dreams of a great life together in the USA have been shattered by their alcoholism and drug addiction, there is a classic interchange between Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl in which she responds to his “I could have been someone” with a fiery retort of “So could anyone!”

In the Magnificat, Mary responds to the life changing and in an honour culture such as Palestine in those days, potentially life costing news that she a yet to be married teenager is to become a mother, with an emphatic song that asserts that however things might appear, God sees everyone as a someone. For in Magnificat, we are given a picture of the God who transforms the realities that we so often dare not challenge.

Magnificat has rightly been seen as a challenge to the power structures that often dominate. During the 1970s it was banned by the Argentinian military junta when utilised by the Mothers of the Disappeared in their demands for non violent resistance to that blood soaked regime. But this response was hardly new for in the 1930s, it had been banned in Mexico and by Franco’s Spain.

And in a way, they were right to be afraid. The German martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the centenary of whose birth has been remembered this year, once wrote;

“The song of Mary is the oldest Advent hymn. It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, one might say the most revolutionary advent hymn ever sung. This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings… This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about collapsing thrones and humbled lords of this world, about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind. These are the tones of the women prophets of the Old Testament that now come to life in Mary’s mouth.”

And yet, we often miss so much of what is the message of Magnificat. Certainly it begins with a note of gentle yet joyful acceptance. After all, her response to the angel bringing the traumatic news of her pregnancy has been a submissive;

“I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.”

Now having visited her much older relative, Elizabeth, herself pregnant with the future John the Baptist, Mary responds to Elizabeth’s words of joy, by breaking into song that;

“My heart glorifies in the Lord.”

All of this is admirable and inspirational. Mary is a powerful example of a woman who is prepared to both trust in and rejoice in God, at a time when most would be filled with fear. And this joyful obedience has made Mary an important figure to many Christians.

But we can hardly stop there. For Mary knows that what is happening is absolutely earth shattering. It is for her. After all this is a young girl living in the backwater village of Nazareth, a place not mentioned in the Old Testament or by the first century Jewish historian Josephus. 30 or so years later, Nathaniel who was one of the first of those who followed Jesus, will have had to overcome his scepticism on hearing of Jesus’ roots to ask whether anything good can come from Nazareth. And yet, this young girl from Nazareth is able to accept that she is to be God’s blessed instrument.

And she accepts it joyfully because of her insights into the nature of God. She knows of God’s dealing with Israel. And so, she bears testimony to the faithfulness and effectiveness of God down through the generations. And she knows to that the nature of God is mercy. In short she knows that God is a good reality whose will she will gladly obey.

But Mary sees God’s justice as that which changes the world. For her the concept of God’s Kingship will not be like the political practice of rearranging which bottoms should be on which of the seats of power. No! She sees God as being far more revolutionary than that. For God’s ways are infinitely greater than human ways. And so as William Barclay puts it, she in Magnificat, envisages three great revolutions.

The first is the moral revolution. Here is the death of pride. To be truly human involves coming to terms with our shared dependency on God.

Secondly, there is the socio political revolution. The powerful use of power to dominate and Lord it over others is challenged. The needs of the lowly have a priority over the wants of the mighty.

And thirdly, there is an economic revolution. The needs of the dispossessed and hungry become prevalent and economic orders that fail to address this stand condemned by God.

In all of this, we are reminded that Christianity is a materialist religion. God takes the material seriously and Magnificat is an unending reminder to us that following Christ means being the sort of transformed nonconformists, who refuse to march to the drumbeat of conformity but who dare to assert the equal preciousness of each and every life. And make no bones about it it, this message is a challenge to our living and to every political, social and economic order. It is a message of dynamite!

Fred Kaan puts it well in one of his hymns;

SING we a song of high revolt;
Make great the Lord, God's name exalt:
Sing we the words of Mary's song
Of God at war with human wrong.
Sing we of God who deeply cares
And still with us our burden shares;
God, who with strength the proud disowns,
Brings down the mighty from their thrones.

By God the poor are lifted up;
God satisfies with bread and cup
The hungry folk of many lands:
The rich are left with empty hands.
God calls us to revolt and fight,
To seek for what is just and right.
To sing and live Magnificat
To ease all people's sorry lot.--

Oh, Magnificat is full of spiritual power, the spiritual power that caused 17th Century Japanese Christians to quietly intone the words af Magnificat as fellow Christians were burnt at the stake. It is an unending affirmation of the Kingdom that will see out the idolatrous kingdoms of our world.

But now, it is all beginning. Christmas, the birth of Mary’s child Jesus, draws near. And with it are the birth pangs of God’s new order. Shepherds - bottom of the pile, ritually unclean and so excluded from so much, - these outsiders will be the first to hear. Soon magi - foreigners of a different faith - these outsiders will come with their gifts. The world is a changing.

And with it comes the news that everyone is now a someone!

Bideford Methodist Church Carol Service - Dec 24th 2006