Our third installment in the series of "Four Original Christmas Carols" takes us to the scene of the Annunciation, Mary having just received some bracing news. After Gabriel had spoken, this is what Mary said, or more likely sang (Lk 1:46-55):
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children forever.
Mary’s song of praise is a masterpiece of scripture and theology. She weaves together multiple Old Testament Scriptural threads into this song that is both old and new. Some scholars say that this is obviously something generated later by Luke or his community, and placed in Mary’s mouth, because no peasant teenager could have ever come up with anything so exquisite. I think they’re pompous snobs. But exquisite it is! It contains clear references and quotations from the Song of Hannah in 1 Samuel. Hannah was Samuel’s mother, and though her son was not conceived by the Holy Spirit, it was a miraculous birth of its own kind. Hannah’s response was a song of praise. If you read 1 Samuel Chapter 2, and then Luke Chapter 1, and compare the two songs, you’ll see the echoes are not subtle. Mary is quoting, adapting, and building on the song of her ancient kinswoman Hannah.
That by itself is a point worth lingering on. Mary sees herself as part of the Big Story, part of the unfolding plan of salvation that began with Adam and Eve after the Fall, through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses, Hannah, Samuel, David, Josiah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Judas Maccabaeus, all of them. God has been doing great works, sometimes big flashy miracles and sometimes subtle unnoticed blessings, from generation to generation.
Hannah was a figure from the distant past already when Mary sang. Hannah probably seemed about as distant in the past to Mary as Mary does to us. But Mary is working with a big perspective, a long view, a sense of unfolding history that connects her to this ancient woman and to others beyond number. She calls herself a lowly servant, but she also knows that she’s a lowly servant in the service of the Living God, and that makes her mighty. Not mighty in the worldly way, like the conquerors and tyrants and meddlesome martinets of every generation. Those mighty frauds God has cast down from their thrones. It is the lowly He has lifted up. Mary is happy to count herself among them.
Are you? Do see yourself as really part of the great story? When you read these Bible stories, and consider the unfolding plan of God’s salvation, does it seem like a tale of another people in another land?
Or does it seem like a story about your great-grandparents?
I can tell you a story about strangers a long time ago and you may or may not be interested. But if you happen to know that these people are your great-grandparents, you have a different kind of interest. I think we should feel that same immediacy, that same involvement, with the stories of Mary and Hannah and Moses. It’s the story of God’s people. It’s our story. Mary’s response to Gabriel shows that she got that, and we should too.
Mary’s song marvels at that story. Like Hannah before her, she marvels at how God turns things upside down and defies expectations. He chooses the people you wouldn’t expect. You wouldn’t have picked Moses the stutterer and killer to face down mighty Pharaoh. You wouldn’t have picked Jesse’s smallest, least experienced, least remarkable son to be the greatest of Israel’s kings. You wouldn’t have picked an unmarried teenager to be the vessel of salvation and Mother of God. And you probably wouldn’t have picked you to be a Saint. That’s just the way God seems to do things.
One of the best things that could happen to you on this great Feast of Our Lady, at the dawn of the 2014th Anno Domini, is to discover your own connection to Hannah and Mary and the whole story of salvation. To really profoundly feel yourself being called by God to great things, amazing things, miraculous things. To realize deep in your soul, like Mary, “I may be nobody in the estimation of the world, but God has done great things for me and lifted me up.” Realizing that can give you the courage and the power to change your life. Remember how highly God has valued you. Remember the greatness to which God is calling you. Not the false greatness of the world, of esteem and wealth and power and fame, but the real greatness of holiness. Put that behind whatever resolutions you might have, and decide right now that whatever the coming year brings us, our souls will magnify the Lord.
“The Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name.”
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