Mary and the Magnificat

It’s that most wonderful time of year! The time to tune your car radio to play 24/7 Christmas songs and get a head start on the holiday cheer! Maybe you’re groaning, but I love that for the final six weeks of the year we get to deck the halls and jingle the bells! 

Of course, I also deeply appreciate the advent-ness in these songs too; the hope and joy in many of these hymns that have been sung for hundreds of years. Songs like O Holy Night calling us to wonder at the glory of the birth of Christ, or O Come O Come Emmanuel giving voice to our longing for the Messiah to come and put the world to right again. These songs definitely put me into the right posture of anticipating the birth of Christ. 

But there’s one song that I just can’t stand - that I turn off as soon as it comes on the air. That song is Mary Did You Know, and I contend that it is one of the most offensive Christmas songs ever written! And the very simple reason is because…well actually, Mary did know! 

Mary was the first human to know! That’s the whole point of the beginning of the Christmas story; Gabriel, a literal archangel, reveals to Mary that through the Holy Spirit, she would miraculously conceive a child who would be the saviour of all humankind. That’s the sort of thing you remember!  And we know that she knew because immediately after this revelation, the Gospel of Luke records Mary’s Song, the Magnificat, where she sings out in wonder about it all!

So to me, Mary Did You Know is offensive, because at best it's a lazy biblical interpretation that skips the beginning of the nativity story and disregards the enormous faith that Mary had. At worst, it’s man-splaining the life and role of Jesus to his actual MOTHER! 

Now, if you like this song, that’s fine. Maybe you choose to hear it as rhetorical questions to Mary. Or perhaps you’ve heard one of the recently re-written versions that take a better view on Mary’s integral role in the nativity story. Whatever you think of the song, what’s important is to pay attention to what Mary did know. 

What Did Mary Know?

After Mary hears and accepts the angel’s message, she sings out her thanks and praise to God in the words recorded in Luke 1:46-55 (take a pause here to read this passage). 

We see in the first lines that Mary knows that it’s Creator God who deserves the glory and whose holiness will be demonstrated by the righteous acts that are to come. The very character of this Mighty One is reflected in these acts of love and preservation to those he has long promised to be with. Now that with-ness is going to be embodied in the very real body of a baby who will grow up to become the means of this communal salvation.

Mary seems to already know about what modern liberation theologians have called ‘the preferential option for the poor’. In Mary’s words it’s clear that the mighty arm of God will uphold the poor and humble, and cast down those who exploit out of an attitude of superiority; their conceit and tight-fistedness will be turned away and scattered to the wind. 

In proclaiming these reversals, Mary is echoing the prophets and psalmists. She represents the Israelite longing for a Messiah, while also becoming the first proclaimer of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. From the very beginning, this is a gospel message of transformation and liberation. It is clear that the long-held covenant-keeping hope of generations of Israelites would be fulfilled through a coming kingdom that would be marked by love and mercy instead of power and oppression. 

Ultimately, Mary knows that the God of Israel, the God of her ancestors, and the God who has just overshadowed her so she might conceive a child - is a faithful God who keeps his promises, and has a cosmic plan for the whole of creation to be put to right again.

We should also pause and consider that these words are coming from a teenage girl, who was probably both terrified and awestruck by the task she’d been given, and who would have known how unlikely she was to be part of any grand stories. So she likely also knew how powerful it would be for the Messiah to be so ordinary. This ordinary-ness matters because the ordinary do matter to God, and finally a saviour is coming who would be just as ordinary as the rest of them - who would see them and be with them. Mary’s Song says ‘the Mighty One has done great things for me’. This is not some lofty ruler on a far off throne who isn’t concerned with the small affairs of small people; this is a God who cares deeply for even the most vulnerable. 

What are the implications of what Mary knew?

Mary is singing about rulers being cast down, and the humble lifted up. That’s something you sing when your people are being oppressed. She sings about the hungry being fed; this means there must have been enough hungry people around to notice! She sings of the rich going away empty; this must mean that it was common for the rich to take more than they needed. 

So, Mary’s Song isn’t just about offering mercy to the poor, it’s also very much about judging the corruption and exploitation that caused the poverty and oppression. In a God-honouring society, there should be enough to go around. There should be a pursuit of shalom and desire to see the flourishing of everyone in the community - but that wasn’t what was happening (in their time or in ours!) This was not just because of Roman occupation, or other powers that had been wielded over the Israelites in the past. Mary is singing an Israelite song for the benefit of Israelites ears. They, like us, were just as capable of exploitation as their oppressors. They, like us, were in need of salvation from the oppression they experienced, but just as much, needed liberation from their own sinful natures that did not always love God with their whole hearts, or seek out the shalom of their neighbours. 

Mary’s Song is also deeply political. The rulers that will be thrown down are very real people in Mary’s world. Any who heard her song would understand that she was saying that Jesus would supercede Caesar. In saying yes to giving birth to Jesus, she’s also agreeing to all of the risk and revolution involved in an empire being turned upside down. She is saying yes to God’s Kingdom truly coming, with the deep hope that the brutality of the empires of this world would finally be reversed and restored on a path towards the goodness of what all of creation was made to be! 

Finally, Mary’s Song is inherently social; it’s a communal story that demonstrates the breadth of the gospel across generations. The Israelites are repeatedly told that their role as God’s chosen people isn’t just because they’re somehow special-er than all the other people, it’s so they can be a light to enlighten the nations. Their long-held teachings of shalom, caring for creation, glorifying God through bearing the love, grace and justice of his character - these were all meant to show the other nations the way to live a God-honouring life. Now it is culminating in a Messiah who would pay the ultimate price to save us all from sin and death. This isn’t just for Mary, her family, or her nation - it’s for everyone, for all of time. 

Why should what Mary knew matter to us? 

As the first person to sing out the good news that a coming Messiah would save all of humankind, Mary is likely the first evangelist. Mary was the first to have Christ living in her; literally as a baby, but also through the presence of the Holy Spirit making it possible for her to be with child. Therefore, long before the disciples or the day of Pentecost, Mary lived and spoke as the first one who was empowered to share the gospel. I wonder if that’s how she was able to imagine all of the revolutionary things her son would do? Not just because she was part of a community that longed for salvation, but perhaps she got a foretaste of that liberation herself before anyone else did, and then was evermore filled to overflowing with gratitude that her song burst out!?

I hope that Mary cherished these things in her heart and that the Spirit was a comfort to her throughout the difficult times. When Jesus was teething, when they lost him on the way to the temple, when he went off to the dangers of his adult ministry, and especially when he came to the cross, I hope she was able to rely on these promises just as much as when she first heard them, and that she continued to be assured that God would be faithful. 

In the same way, I hope that we can hold on to God’s promises in these days when our world is still so very much in need of liberation, and where Mary’s Song still has political, social and spiritual implications for our own lives. I hope that we can know in the same deep sort of knowing that Mary had, that we serve a faithful God who upholds the marginalized while overthrowing those who oppress. I hope we are vigilant for the ways in which we’re capable of being the oppressor ourselves, and to always be looking towards God’s shalom and the saving work of Christ as our centrepoint. 

I hope that in this Advent season, we know that God’s promises will be fulfilled to us through a baby in a manger who will extend God’s mercy to put the world to right, from Abraham all the way down to us. I hope his transforming love is extended through each of us as we are empowered by the presence of Christ’s Spirit in us too, as we participate alongside Mary and many saints after her, in the ordinary yet revolutionary work of seeing God’s upside-down kingdom come. 

This piece was originally published on the Christian Courier.