Our Souls Magnify the Lord!

​On this fourth and final Sunday of Advent, as we approach closer and closer to Christmas, we focus on the Virgin Mary and her preparation for the very first Christmas Eve, when Christ would be born.
 
As our reading begins, Mary is hurrying to the hill country to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Although neither yet knows about the other, both have become miraculously pregnant. This will be a meeting of perhaps the two most important mothers in all of history.
 
When Mary arrives, the Holy Spirit is definitely swirling around. The child in Elizabeth’s womb, who will become John the Baptizer, leaps in joy at the sound of Mary’s voice. Elizabeth herself is filled with the Holy Spirit and speaks inspired words. Mary responds with one of the most beloved passages in Scripture, the Magnificat. “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my Spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
 
It's a sweet scene. But it is more than that, too. It’s incredibly powerful.
 
I think first about what was happening in Mary’s life at that moment. According to our tradition, Mary was just a teenager, which makes sense when you remember that women married young in ancient Israel. And, of course, pregnant Mary did not yet have a husband.
 
The sequence of events is not entirely clear, but my assumption is that Mary does not tell her fiancée Joseph about her pregnancy before leaving town. Indeed, my guess is, Mary left Jerusalem, in “haste” as Luke tells us, at least in part to get out of town before her pregnancy became visible and caused a scandal.
 
If that’s right, when Mary arrived at Elizabeth’s home, Mary’s future was very much in doubt. It was not obvious that Elizabeth, the priest’s wife, would welcome her young, unmarried, pregnant cousin. Mary’s pregnant presence was surely an embarrassment.
 
But Mary went to see Elizabeth hoping, correctly as it turns out, that Elizabeth would take her in.
 
The real problems would come later. At some point, Mary would have to face Joseph. And since the child she was carrying was not her fiancée’s, Mary had every reason to assume that Joseph would be both suspicious and angry.
 
That fear was justified. Matthew was a good and generous man, but, as Matthew tells us, Joseph’s first impulse was to put Mary away (1:19). What man wants to marry a woman pregnant with someone else’s child?
 
And if Jospeh did put her away, Mary’s life would be hard. Prospects were not bright for unmarried, pregnant teenagers in first-century Israel, no matter how special their child might be.
 
It is difficult for me to put myself in Mary’s place. But this much I know. If I were in Mary’s situation, I would be terrified about the future.
 
But, and this is the point, Mary was not terrified.
 
In a beautiful display of faith, Mary trusts that God will watch over her. More than that, Mary praises God for blessing her with the child she was carrying, the child who made her future so uncertain. Mary says, “The Almighty has done great things for me.” Under Mary’s circumstances, that is an amazing thing to say! A powerfully faithful thing to say!
 
Now, Mary’s case is unique. Mary was carrying God’s child. And though Mary was not much more than a child herself, Mary was clearly sustained by an incredibly mature and powerful faith.
 
But ever since that first Christmas, the Church has invited us to make Mary’s words our own. We just prayed them together. Like Mary’s, our souls magnify the Lord. Our souls rejoice in God our savior. God looks with favor on us. God does great things for us.
 
When we pray using Mary’s words, we claim Mary as an example for us, as one who shows us how we should live the Christian life.
 
The Magnificat would be enough, but Mary’s example goes beyond the words of this prayer.
 
Mary’s example begins when the angel Gabriel first announced God’s plans for her, just before our passage. Mary didn’t know how to take the angel’s words. Mary did not understand how she could become pregnant with God’s child. But Mary responded, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).
 
No angel has ever come to me quite so obviously as Gabriel came to Mary. But, in different ways, God invites each of us to follow Christ. And then we have a choice, the same choice Mary had.
 
Do we respond like Mary? “Let it be with me according to your word?” I’m in. Or do we refuse because we can’t hear, or we can’t understand, or we don’t have the courage, or we are already committed to a different life and simply cannot imagine doing whatever it is God calls us to do?
 
For most of us, it’s a little of both. God calls, and I follow. Sort of. Or maybe God calls, and I can’t bring myself to commit right away, but eventually I come around, more or less. Or maybe I refuse God’s call one time, but I answer a different call from God another time.
 
My answers are not always the best. But always, God calls. And always we have Mary’s example before us, as one who heeds God’s call, and answers with humility and faith, and encourages us to do the same.
 
Mary’s example goes farther. Mary carried Christ in a literal way. Before he was born, the baby Jesus lived inside Mary in the way babies live inside their mothers. For that reason, all generations really will call Mary especially blessed.
 
We don’t carry the Christ child like Mary did. But Christ lives in us, too, if not in the same way. We get that from the Apostle Paul (2 Corinthians 13:5; Colossians 1:27). Christ is in each of us, in a mysterious but still real and powerful way.
 
And like Mary, our calling as Christian people is to birth Christ into the world, so to speak, to share Christ in us with a world that needs Christ.
 
That brings me back to the Magnificat, when Mary’s spirit overflowed with joy at the presence of Christ in her, and at the prospect of Christ redeeming the world. Mary sang out her prayers and praises. That is our calling too. To praise God all year, and particularly to praise God at this time of year, for blessing us with the saving presence of Christ.
 
And so we pray, quoting Mary but also claiming her words for our own, “Our souls magnify the Lord, and our spirits rejoice in God our Savior, for God has looked with favor of the lowliness of us, God’s servants.”
 
Thanks be to God. In Christ’s name. Amen.