Luke 1:39-56 Magnificat
Consider young mother and her toddler son, hiding along a ridge above her little town and watching a detachment of the world’s most powerful military force moving along the valley below. Through the centuries that scene probably was played out millions of times on every continent in every century. That mother could be a serf, a peasant, a compesina, or one of the working poor. While she wants desperately to protect her son, she knows how totally vulnerable they really are.
Given the fact that the actual date of the birth of Jesus is in dispute, that mother and son could have been Mary and Jesus fearing for their lives as Roman soldiers marched through Galilee in search of rebels who rose up against their domination sometime in 6-4 BCE. No mercy was shown. Oppression was absolute.
That’s the context for Mary’s wonderful statement known as Magnificat: “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior”. No doubt Luke understood that this very young woman would have been afraid and confused—facing a mystical experience that told her she would be the mother of the Messiah—seeking comfort from her cousin Elizabeth.
She is amazed that God has “looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant”, that He “has done great things for me”. She knows her status before the law- both Roman and Temple. She knows her place in society. She is one of Israel’s anawim, the poor, the wretched, the people targeted by the Romans and disdained by the Pharisees. Still she knows that God loves the anawim; they are God’s favored people. Luke puts her in the long line of prophets and psalmists who cried and cried for justice; who looked to the days when justice will flower on the earth.
When that day happens the powerful will be brought down, the lowly raised up, the hungry filled, the rich sent away empty. Jesus himself opens his ministry (Luke 4:16-30) with a declaration of a new era- marked by liberation, healing, and the coming of God’s justice. Luke’s telling of the Beatitudes (6:20-22) assures us that the Kingdom belongs to poor, the hungry, the sorrowful, and the persecuted.
In a very few days we will once again celebrate the birth that foreshadows that Kingdom’s arrival. The Kingdom is a process that will see Mary’s poem fulfilled. Bringing that process to reality s the task before each of us.
(Jim Bourque)
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