In our travels through
Christmas music in the Bible, we have come to one of the most famous songs in
the New Testament: Mary’s song (Luke 1:46-55). We Protestants don’t talk about
Mary except at this time of the year. The rest of the time, we pretty much
leave her to the Roman Catholic church, and she fades away into the wallpaper. When
we talk about her at all, we call her “gentle Mary, meek and mild.” That’s the
image of Mary that most of us have. She’s wearing a blue tunic over a white
garment, and her head is encircled by a halo. Her hands are folded in her lap,
her eyes are cast modestly aside, and her expression is quiet. Actually, she doesn’t
have much of an expression at all. No wonder that “gentle Mary, meek and mild”
fades into the wallpaper! But that image isn’t biblical. It actually comes from
the Middle Ages, when many paintings depicted Mary in just that way. In the
Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church taught that Mary was the ideal woman. And
what did an ideal woman look like? Why, she sat down and shut up, she folded
her hands quietly in her lap, and she cast her eyes modestly aside – just like
the pictures of Mary. Ideal women in the Middle Ages were gentle, meek, and
mild. But in those pictures, Mary doesn’t look like she is capable of blowing
her nose, much less giving birth to the Messiah!
That’s not the Mary of
the gospels, though. The Mary of the gospels is strong and capable; able to
deal whatever life throws at her. And Mary had to deal with a lot in her life! From
the beginning, she was thrown every curve ball in the book. When the angel
Gabriel showed up and asked her if she was willing to birth the Son of God,
Mary was still a virgin. Any woman who was meek and mild would have run for the
hills; because pregnancy outside of marriage was frowned upon in those days. In
fact, women were stoned for it! But Mary, strong and capable, agreed to God’s
plan! When she was 9 months pregnant, Mary made a difficult journey to
Bethlehem, bouncing along on the backbone of a donkey; and then she gave birth
in a barn, with no support from family or friends. Matthew tells us that the
whole family had to become refugees in Egypt to escape King Herod, who was so
terrified of Mary’s baby that he slaughtered all the young boys in an entire
town in an effort to get rid of him. When Jesus became a man, she had to watch
him walk away from her when he left his home to become an itinerant preacher. At
the end, she watched him die on a cross. No, Mary wasn’t “meek and mild,” she
was the original steel magnolia! Why, Mary is more like Rosie the Riveter,
strong arm bared and face determined, proclaiming “We can do it!”
This song of Mary’s
reflects her inner strength. It’s a song of victory – God’s victory over all the
forces that would keep us oppressed: the proud, the rulers, the rich. Today she
might sing about God’s victory over Wall Street, over Congress, and over clueless
political candidates; but regardless of the details, it’s the same take-home
message. The people who are in power are unjust and arrogant; but God has
claimed victory over all of them! Mary stands in a long line of biblical women
who sang victory songs of their own. Moses’ sister Miriam was the first one.
She stood on the banks of the Red Sea after it had drowned the Egyptian army,
and led the Hebrew women in a victory song: “Sing to the Lord, for he has
triumphed gloriously, the horse and rider thrown into the sea!” (Exodus 15:21)
The Hebrew judge Deborah sang a song of victory after the Israelites defeated
the pagan general Sisera. “Hear this, you kings,” she sang. “Listen, you
rulers! I will sing to the Lord! I will make music to the Lord, the God of
Israel.” (Judges 5.) Hannah sang, too, when, after remaining barren for years,
she gave birth to a son who would grow up to be the prophet Samuel. Her song is
a lot like the one that Mary would sing many years later: “My heart rejoices in
the Lord; in the Lord my strength is lifted high! My mouth boasts over my
enemies, for I delight in your deliverance!” (I Samuel 2:1-10) Mary carries on
that tradition of women’s victory songs that celebrate what God has done for
them.
We don’t very often sing
victory songs at Christmas time – but we should. Christmas, after all, spells
the doom of the forces of evil in this world. When God came to be with us human
beings as a human being himself, the forces of evil didn’t stand a chance.
Greed, pride, oppression, hate, misery – they’re all doomed! Just as D-Day was
the beginning of the end for the Nazi forces during the Second World War; God’s
incarnation was the beginning of the end of evil. God’s victory is already on
the way, sweeping across our world like Allied tanks swept across Europe on
their way to defeating Hitler. But, just as the Nazi forces fought the Allies
even more fiercely after D-Day, evil is still fighting against God and against
God’s people today. That means that we need to be like Rosie the Riveter, too,
just as strong as Mary was. Like Mary, we need to be prepared to cope with all
the difficult things that life throws at us. Christmas, after all, isn’t for
meek and mild people who quietly fold their hands in their laps and modestly
cast their eyes aside. Christmas is for those people who are sick and tired of
evil always winning the jackpot in the lottery. Christmas is for the folks who
see a homeless veteran begging on a street corner in tattered clothing and say,
“I want to do something about that!” Christmas is for all the people who would
say to an angel who has just suggested some crazy scheme that can’t possibly
work, “Let it be to me as you have said.” Mary said just that when Gabriel
announced her pregnancy; and we all need to say it, too!
UCC pastor and author
Quinn Caldwell reminds his congregation every Christmas Eve:
“If you came to this place expecting a tame story, you came to the
wrong place… If you came to hear of the coming of a God who only showed up so
that you could have a nice day with your loved ones, then you came for a God
whom we do not worship here. For even a regular baby is not a tame thing, and
goodness that cannot threaten complacency and evil is not much good at all, and
a God who would choose to give up power and invincibility to become an infant
for you certainly didn’t do it just so you could have dinner. But. If you came
to hear a story of tyrants trembling while heaven comes to peasants… If you
came for a story of reversals that might end up reversing you… If you came for
a tale of adventure and bravery, where strong and gentle people win, and the
powerful and violent go down to dust, where the rich lose their money but find
their lives, and the poor are raised up like kings… If you came for salvation
and not for safety, then, ah, my friends, you are in precisely the right place.”
(You can read the full text of his remarks in All I Really Want,
Abingdon Press, 2014, pp.110-112. I cannot recommend his book too highly.)
As we move through the
final days of Advent, I invite you to join in singing Mary’s victory song!
“My soul praises the
Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.He has performed mighty deeds with his arm. He has scattered those who are arrogant.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things."
Sing with courage! Sing with joy! Sing your lungs out – because this child changes everything!
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