“God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” --Luke 1:52-53

“Where are these words coming from? She is no politician, no revolutionary; she just wants to sing a happy song, but all of a sudden she has become an articulate radical, an astonished prophet singing about a world in which the last have become first and the first, last. What is more, her song puts it all in the past tense, as if the hungry have already been fed, the rich already freed of their inordinate possessions. How can that be? Her baby is no bigger than a thumbnail, but already she is reciting his accomplishments as if they were history. Her faith is in things not seen, faith that comes to her from outside herself, and it is why we call her blessed.”
--Barbara Brown Taylor, from “Magnificat” in Mixed Blessings

In addition to the Hildegard of Bingen book, Mary Elva loaned me Sacred Journeys: A Woman’s Book of Daily Prayer last week. The above lines are reprinted in that text. I thought it would be a good way to start off the third week of Advent—by reflecting on Mary, one of the last great prophets and the mother of Jesus.

Because yes, although we don’t often acknowledge her as such, was the Virgin Mary not a prophet? Her song of praise in the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) echoes the words of the prophets before her in its emphasis on an overturning of the established order and its promise of Israel’s salvation from God. She is the first prophet of the New Testament, the first to announce the message of God’s salvation from bondage of the corrupt and unjust systems of this world. Telling, isn’t it, how the lives of two Marys frame the gospel of Jesus Christ? This Mary announces Christ’s radically redemptive work before it happens—Mary Magdalene is the first to proclaim its completion at the Resurrection.

The Virgin Mary is often portrayed as meekly submitting to God’s will, and yet her acceptance of the angel’s mission is an act of boldness. Far from passive submission, Mary chooses to seize God’s opportunity to make a difference in the world, to take center stage in this Incarnation drama. She partners with God for the creative work of the fully human and fully divine, Jesus Christ. But even that decision, that creativity, leads to a period of waiting.

Christians emphasize anticipation during Advent, and there is no better analogy for such waiting than that of a pregnancy. Perhaps we’re in a time of pregnancy now. We can see the future God is calling us to, we carry it within our own hearts and souls, but we simply have to wait a little longer for God’s purpose to be fully born. So many of you have laid out creative paths to justice, decisively answered God’s call. But the pregnancy of such hopes can seem long.

May Advent be a time when you see that work growing and coming closer to fruition, when you live with the faith of our foremother Mary that such things not only will happen, but are already upon us.

Kelsey

Did you know that in the 1980s in Guatemala, it was illegal to read "The Magnificat" in public, because of that same prophetic truth? Thank you for reminding us of this truly startling and exhilarating piece of Scripture...