Mary, the Prophet of Advent

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight oh Lord- my strength and my redeemer.

Have you noticed the lights in our own downtown Macon? I take my family every year to the unveiling so to speak with the big Macon Pops music show. It is, simply- in a word- magnificent. All these sparkling lights, musicians in their element- who by the way don’t get to rehearse but the day of just so you know, and so many people coming from far and wide to gather and watch the glory of it all. 

I wonder how many of them are familiar with the Magnificat? I’m going to guess not many, though I could be wrong, but that guess is based on the fact that while I was not raised in an evangelical setting even I was unaware until I was an adult. It may have even been one of Bishop Wright’s podcast episodes that first brought me to some awareness. 

Of course I know the basics: Mary is visiting her cousin Elizabeth- and Elizabeth, also miraculously pregnant, feels the leap in her womb of John the Baptist upon meeting Mary with Jesus in her womb. And Elizabeth speaks to Mary about how wonderful how magnificent she is being the “most blessed among women”. And for many the story ends there. A passive role for Mary, who has accepted Jesus into her womb.

For so long we simply stop there. Mary is often given no real agency of her own, no voice, simply being a passive vessel for the Lord’s work. How many other women have been reduced to the same? 

Except Mary isn’t passive, and the Magnificat show us this. She is actively using her voice- not just to talk about this wondrous event alone but also what will come of the world as a result. She starts out talking about herself, yes: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; *

   for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. 

From this day all generations will call me blessed: *

   the Almighty has done great things for me,

   and holy is his Name.”

But going on she says: “He has mercy on those who fear him *

   in every generation. 

He has shown the strength of his arm, *

   he has scattered the proud in their conceit. 

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *

   and has lifted up the lowly. 

He has filled the hungry with good things, *

   and the rich he has sent away empty. 

He has come to the help of his servant Israel, *

   for he has remembered his promise of mercy, 

The promise he made to our fathers, *

   to Abraham and his children for ever.”

Do you hear it? It is a message for us even today. God has scattered the proud, He has cast the mighty from their thrones- filled the hungry with good things. And has remembered His promise of Mercy. It should come as no surprise that there were efforts to suppress this message. 

We know that that power seeks to keep power- especially in the face of the truth being spoken so boldly. Let alone a truth spoken by a brown, unwed, pregnant, teenage girl. Engaged to a carpenter. It’s not hard to draw the parallels to those who are being rendered voiceless even today: blue collar workers, people of color, pregnant women, and those who are fleeing Empire. All of these people are a threat to the Empire of Christian Nationalism- which I would propose we stop calling it Christian Nationalism and instead call it something that people can better understand: Christian terrorism. For what is more terrifying than the words of God being manipulated to tear us apart? 

David Gate is quoted as saying that to ignore Mary’s agency here is “the ancient equivalent of telling a woman “we love what your body can do for us, but we have zero interest in your mind.” And once you see that, once you feel the sharpness of that old pattern, it becomes impossible to unsee how much of Christian tradition has queitly sidelined the only person in the enire nativity sotry who actually speaks with clarify about what God is doing.”

Mary here takes agency- she is the prophet of Advent in this moment, as we are awaiting the birth of her Son. She has this bold vision of what is to come because she said Yes to God. And by saying yes to God, she is bringing forth the person who would be called the Light of the World.

And while our downtown Christmas lights are in some ways shining beacons during this darkest time of year, when I was growing up we didn’t have them. We didn’t have these large and glorious and even extravagant displays of light and even- in some cases- wealth. When we drove around to look at Christmas lights it was through neighborhoods. And often our nightly drives would take us to neighborhoods that my parents would not have deigned to drive us through at any other point in time. Impoverished neighborhoods. Places deemed unsafe. Probably not much unlike where Mary and Joseph would end up- giving birth to the Christ child not in a plush hotel suite but in a stable. A manger filled with hay. 

The parts that they don’t say out loud is that this teenager and her carpenter spouse would have been surrounded not just by farm animals but also by their stench. Their unwashed bodies. Flies. Mary sweating it out through labor in pain – and very likely in fear. 

A single, squaling baby – possibly a 6 pound baby – crying for his mother’s breast. I imagine Mary in this barn, exhausted, on the run, trying to figure out how to feed the Christ child. Perhaps not unlike many of our neighbors at food pantries, living in humble abodes, trying to figure out how to make that can of beans stretch. Perhaps putting up a single strand of lights- to emerge from the darkness of winter. 

Do you see it? It is a message for us even today. Not only God has scattered the proud, and  cast the mighty from their thrones- filled the hungry with good things. Not only has He remembered His promise of Mercy. But in this moment he has given His message through this girl – and she has taken agency in this moment. We too can take agency. We are called upon to do God’s work with Him. We are to do for our neighbors as we would do for ourselves. I can’t help but to think of this as I watch our neighbors being starved in all parts of the world- those near and far. I can’t help but to think of this as women are dying from lack of healthcare, and are told “quiet, piggy” when they are simply doing their jobs. I can’t help but to think of this today- on the day of the 13th anniversary of 20 six and seven year olds being gunned down in what should have been a safe place: their school. The day after two Brown University students were gunned down at their place of learning, and the same day of a targeted shooting of Jewish people in Australia. And I ask myself, what agency do I take?

The Light of World comes to us not in a place of glory but in the lowliest place imaginable- and it was shepherds who first heard the good news of His birth. His birth by way of a girl who was being forced from her home by Empire. 

And she gives us this vision of what’s to come. Of Empire being toppled, of the poor being fed. No wonder nations would ban the use of the Magnificat. Mary is the prophet of Advent, proclaiming to us from the mouth of a poor, unwed, brown teenager the glory of what is to come.