“Surprisingly unknown”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Sunday, December 22, 2024
Luke 1:39-55 (Forward, p. 54) CEV p. 1055
How I wish that we could remove the curtain of time and distance on occasion and get to know certain figures from the past. That is, to not just know about them but also to learn of their past, their motivations, and their thinking. Among these people, for me at least, would be the Virgin Mary. I’d love to know about ‘how she ticked’.
Of course, from the testimony of the four gospels we have some clues, some splendid clues. We learn, from our first ‘meeting’ with her at the Annunciation, that she had a unwavering faith in God--that she was willing to submit to Him and His will--even when she simply had no idea of just what that would entail. And we learn that she also had an unwavering faith in her son, Jesus, even when she didn’t understand Him, much less know what He’d do—as evidenced by the episode at the wedding in Cana of Galilee.
But then, her song of praise, the Magnificat—I do believe that it was from her—reveals another side, a relatively unknown one, to her personality. She clearly sees herself as the undeserved beneficiary of God’s grace and mercy, one that apparently has overturned the ways that things ‘have always been.’ One has to wonder whether something of personal experience factors in here, perhaps from being young, or being a woman, or being from the ‘backwater’ of Galilee, or being of very humble, ordinary, ‘despised’ origins. (We certainly know that she and Joseph were not at all affluent, being able to give only the sacrifice of the poor—two pigeons—at Jesus’ dedication--see Luke 2:24). Or perhaps the sentiments of the Magnificat stem from her nation’s sense of being overrun and trampled upon by proud and powerful enemies. Either way, whether it speaks to personal liberation or national liberation, it is still powerful—a powerful hymn to God’s overriding love and purposes. As such, it is a wonderful reminder to us, that regardless of our personal or communal setbacks or problems or distresses, that God is still there, and still at work. So, perhaps Mary is still something of a mystery, something of an unknown to us, but this much she knew—and told us. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Forward notes: “My soul magnifies the Lord” (verse 46b).
“Today, in the magnificent song of Mary, we hear her sing of hope for the future, of a world changed. She sings of a time when justice and equity will be real and present in the world. She sings a song of protest and defiance in the midst of chaos. She sings of a world put right by a God who calls the lowly and not the proud.
“And we are called to join in the singing! No wonder Jesus spent most of his ministry hanging out with the unknowns and the untouchables. He had Mary as a mother. Mary sings, and singing can be an act of resistance.
“The enslaved knew this. When they sang spirituals, they were both praising God and protesting the masters who locked them out of worship but couldn’t keep them out of the promise of deliverance. The civil rights leaders knew this, too, singing songs like “We Shall Overcome,” when so many in society didn’t give them a chance to advance their cause of justice, let alone triumph.
“Mary’s song is our triumph song. How can we keep from singing?”
Moving Forward: “What song will you sing?”