'In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."
And Mary said: "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, the promise he made to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever."'
--Luke 1: 39-55
Picture the scene: a young woman, no older than 15 or 16, becomes pregnant. Though engaged, she’s not yet married, and she lives in a society that will at best alienate and at worst criminally condemn her. Her parents named her Miriam, which means Sea of Sorrow, and now it would seem she’s living into that name. Her fiancée has two options: surrender her to the religious and political authorities to be dealt with appropriately, or quietly leave her and the child what’s coming, meaning they will be without protection and without any means of income and sustainability. Oh, by the way, that second option is actually considered the righteous and honorable thing to do. Don’t you think this young woman would be terrified? Do you think there is any way that her situation would leave room for hope to persist?
Nevertheless, that is exactly what happens. God’s hope persists. She persists. She seeks solace from another woman who knows what she’s going through, an elderly cousin, herself in the middle of a highly suspicious pregnancy. Her cousin might very well be the only person who won’t think she’s crazy, so she makes haste to go see her, not singing any songs of praise for her pregnancy, not yet, but holding her fear and trepidation, together with the smallest morsel of hope, which is at last allowed to blossom when she crosses the threshold of her cousin’s home and is greeted not with scorn and ridicule but with blessing. “Blessed are you,” her cousin says to her. “Blessed are you.” Hope persists, and the young woman sings her glorious song, magnifying God.
The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Elizabeth
It shouldn’t have happened that way. Hope should not have been able to persist in her life, given the circumstances, yet in her song we hear of a world filled with hope, a world that God is turning, not upside-down, but rightside-up. Mary, as her name appears in Greek, sings into existence a vision of a world transformed by a very persistent God. The proud are scattered, the powerful are brought down, the lowly lifted up, the hungry are filled, and the rich are sent away empty. It makes no sense in a world that offers little to no hope for the poor, the lowly, the hungry, or the not-yet-wed pregnant teenager. But blessedly, God does not play by the world’s rules, and despite a society that would tell her to stay in her place, Mary sings her song, and the hope for a world set right by a God of truth, justice, and love, a hope that was preached by the prophets of old, a hope that her own son will embody, persists.
Over time Mary’s song would be called Magnificat—taken from the first word in the Latin version—and be given special status as one of, if not the greatest, hymns of the Church. Perhaps it is because it embodies the persistent nature of God, the reality that the world is, in fact, being turned, and in that turning there is hope. Throughout history the poor and oppressed have found hope in Mary’s song—which, it should be noted, is the longest set of words spoken by a woman in the New Testament. Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated at his cathedral’s altar by the Junta government in El Salvador, drew comparisons between Mary in her song and the poor and powerless in his own country. Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, himself martyred by the Nazis, called the Magnificat, “the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary hymn ever sung!” And even in our own Episcopal Church, seminarian Jonathan Daniels heard the Magnificat one night at Episcopal Theological Seminary in Boston, and the next day headed down south to Alabama to aid in the civil rights moment, where he was shot and killed. They each heard Mary’s song as a cry for hope, not optimism. Optimism looks behind us to find comfort in what we’ve experienced before, but hope, the kind of world-turning, musical hope of Mary, looks ahead to what our persistent God promises: a world in which all injustice, all pain, all despair is reconciled to God, and all is made right. It’s no wonder that the Magnificat was actually banned by many authoritarian regimes because it loudly and proudly proclaims the magnificence of God’s Kingdom, not any of our own making. Perhaps we need to do more casting down of the mighty and lifting up of the lowly in the face of authoritarians in our own time.
But I can tell you, brothers and sisters, that maintaining this hope, allowing it to persist, is not something we can do alone. It’s too big. The world is too dark, too violent, too broken for our hope alone to fix it. I suspect Mary knew this. This is why she goes to Elizabeth. Often times when we hear the story of Mary leading up to Christmas we get Gabriel coming to her saying she will bear a son, then she immediately jumps into her song of hope and praise. But this does not happen. She needs the comfort and consolation of a person knows knows and trusts. She needs someone else to tell her it’s ok, to give her a blessing, and to just let her know she’s not alone. It is then that Mary sings her song, after she is met with that welcome from Elizabeth. That little seed of hope that she carried with her from Nazareth to Ein Karem in the Judean hill country—which is not a short hike!—bursts forth into song when she is greeted so graciously by her Elizabeth and her unborn son John.
You may not know it, but you showing up to church each week shows that you believe in the persistent hope of God that Mary’s song proclaims, yet you also understand that such hope is made all the more real when we make haste to seek one another out, to gather together in prayer, in song, and in mealtime. This is why the Church exists, so that we remember that salvation isn't something we get to alone, but it is in community with one another. The Church is where those who are vulnerable, tired, worn out, and scared, much like Mary, find one another and have their own seeds of hope blessed. In seeking out one another, blessing one another in our moments of fear, we can sing our hearts out for the persistent hope of our God who is turning the world rightside-up, offering good news to those who so desperately need to hear it. It is, quite simply, revolutionary, to think that in a world like ours, a world of injustice and division on a scale more massive than any of us have seen, hope could persist. But Mary’s song is one that we need to hear, year after year after year We need to hear the hope it proclaims, and we need to seek out and find one another and sing with all of our hearts to the God who is lifting up the lowly, scattering the proud, and filling the hungry. One of my favorite seminary professors once said that if we can’t pray the Daily Office of Morning or Evening Prayer, that we could sing or say the Magnificat, because it’s a Divine Office unto itself, with the whole message of our faith wrapped up in Mary’s song of praise, echoed unto eternity.
Not so meek and mild, huh? No, Mary, trampling the serpent beneath her heel, is strong in her willingness to be vulnerable. No silent member of the nativity scene, or an obedient vessel for God’s arrival on earth. Hers is the voice crying out through the fear, calling us all to persist in God’s hope for a world where powers and principalities are undone by the magnificent Kingdom of God. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us.
