Mary's Manifesto: The Magnificat
Make Christmas Revolutionary Again
I’ve been reflecting this week on Mary (again), and especially on this incredible image created by artist Ben Wildflower:
The words around the image, though somewhat shocking to us, are straight out of scripture, right from the words of Mary herself. I discovered the image in a 2018 Washington Post article written by D.L. Mayfield. Mayfield writes about having to play Mary in her church’s Christmas play:
I was the pastor’s daughter, and there was no one else who could play the role. My cheeks burning in shame, I remember feeling little connection to Mary, the mother of God. I was silent in the play. Mary, in our tradition, was a vehicle for Jesus: a holy womb, a good and compliant and obedient girl.
Much later in life, I was shocked to discover that Mary wasn’t quiet, nor was she what I would call meek and mild.
After reading Mary’s magnificent song, the Magnificat, Mayfield begins to realize that hidden in the Christmas story is a revolutionary manifesto, rooted in the ancient hope of Israel in God’s salvation for the poor:
In all my long years of being in church, of knowing the Christmas story backward and forward, I never heard these verses emphasized. Here, Mary comes across less like a scared and obedient 15-year-old and more like a rebel intent on reorienting unjust systems.
I loved this Mary. Where had she been all my life?
I remember raising this same question when I was in Nazareth on a pilgrimage to the holy land last February. We were visiting the magnificent Basilica of the Annunciation, built over the cave where Mary purportedly received Gabriel’s message of good news. My wife was pregnant at the time, but no one knew it yet. I remember wondering what was going through her mind as she looked into the little grotto, a bare and unassuming place, where Mary learned she too was going to be a mother.
The church contains wall length murals and mosaics depicting Mary from nations all over the world (you can see them all here). As you look around, you see that every culture could see themselves in this young mother from Nazareth. As I took in the breadth and beauty of the art, I wondered, why haven’t I seen this Mary more often? Why, in my evangelical United Methodist Church growing up, did I not hear the Magnificat every Christmas? And when I did, why did its message not sink in?
Perhaps we have grown too comfortable with our images of Christmas, with a quiet and subservient Mary, pondering it all and bottling it up in her heart. It’s possible we don’t like the implications of her song, if you are like me and find yourself quite comfortable, safe, needs met, belly full.
Maybe Mary’s song was put there in Luke chapter one so we would never forget that Christmas began with a shout, a triumphant song of victory, a Whtimanesque barbaric YAWP: that the way things are are emphatically NOT the way things will remain. And wow, isn’t this good news at the end of the day?
I invite you in this season to pray or even memorize Mary’s song if you are the praying type. If you are not, read it slowly and marvel that it made it into the canon of scripture. A peasant girl, crying out for kings to fall, for the lowly to be raised up, for the rich to be emptied and the hungry to be full. With a mom, singing songs like that, is it any wonder that Jesus was so radical?
The Magnficat (New Revised Standard Version)
“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 forever.”
The Magnificat, as interpreted by Eugene Peterson (The Message)
I’m bursting with God-news;
I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.
God took one good look at me, and look what happened—
I’m the most fortunate woman on earth!
What God has done for me will never be forgotten,
the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
His mercy flows in wave after wave
on those who are in awe before him.
He bared his arm and showed his strength,
scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
the callous rich were left out in the cold.
He embraced his chosen child, Israel;
he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
It’s exactly what he promised,
beginning with Abraham and right up to now.