Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

© 2020, Dr. Tamilio

Finally!  We have a Gospel Lesson that seems to fit Advent and the theme of the day: joy.  Phew!  Thank goodness!  We are not reading about the end of the world or John the Baptist preparing the way.  This reading is part of the whole nativity narrative.  The angel Gabriel has visited Mary, telling her that she is pregnant by the Holy Spirit and is going to give birth to the Messiah.  She is overjoyed by the Annunciation and offers some of the most passionate words in the Gospels by someone other than Jesus.

Every Christmas, I cannot help thinking about Mary and her predicament.  Mary would have been quite young when she had Jesus.  Girls were betrothed to be married as young as twelve years old in first century Palestine.  Many scholars say that Mary could have been as old as fifteen, but that’s about it.  She was a young teenager.  That is shocking to many of us, especially as women marry at a much older age today.

Furthermore, because she was pregnant out of wedlock, her life would have been in danger.  It would have been considered a form of adultery, punishable by stoning.  This was a precarious situation to say the least.

But this isn’t Mary’s reaction.  Instead, she rejoices!

This passage is commonly referred to as the Magnificat.  These are the words that Mary says to Elizabeth when she (Mary) visits her after hearing the news from the angel.  It is an expression of pure joy.  There may have been fear in her heart, but there was none in her voice.  Mary acknowledges that not only is she the person who will give birth to God’s Son; she also joyfully praises God for his power, grace, and glory.

Steven Wedgeworth reminds us that “Mary does not actually occupy much space in the New Testament.”  (This is quite true, if you think about it.)  He continues, “The Magnificat, teaches us something about how she understood God to work.”[1]  Now, we could go in the direction we have gone in the past.  We can talk about how God uses the least likely people to accomplish his purposes.  There’s a long list of them.  Or we could focus on Mary and how she is amazed at how God works in the world, bringing his purposes to fruition.

Ultimately, it is not about us and our qualifications.  It is not about the condition we are in: whether everything is going our way or not.  Rev. Steven Lee, writing about his own limitations, writes, “…God is utterly unimpressed by my résumé.  God scoffs at any attempt by me or you to prove our worthiness.  Our accomplishments do not justify our existence.  Our accolades cannot merit us any greatness.  God is unimpressed by our collection of readers, likes, retweets, friends, connections, or admirers.”  Rev. Lee advises us, “Don’t drink your own cool-aid.”[2]  When we wonder whether or not we are qualified to serve God based on our accomplishments, we are drinking our own Kool Aid.

Now let’s look at the other direction: how Mary is amazed at how God works in the world, bringing his purposes to fruition.  Her song, after all, is a song of praise.  Some translations begin, “My soul magnifies the Lord.”  In another piece he wrote on this passage three years later, Wedgeworth says, “This expression means that Mary’s soul, her innermost being, exalts the Lord.  She makes His name great.  She gives Him glory.”[3]  When we see God at work in the world — when we truly feel as if we have been blessed by God — we thank him, but do we come close to phrasing our gratitude the way Mary does?

The word “magnifies” in this passage is interesting.  The late Roman Catholic Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen used to say that by using this particular word “our Blessed Mother…[is] like ‘a magnifying glass that intensifies our love of her Son.’”[4]  Remember when you were young and would play with a magnifying glass.  You’d walk around the house or you’d crouch on the ground outside and would stare at the intricate details of that which you could not see with the naked eye.  I had a brother who would use it to light things on fire, but that is a story for another time.  Mary’s very soul magnifies the Lord.  In other words, her spirit praises God.  She cannot contain it.

Imagine if we went around this way…  Imagine if joy dripped out of our pores, because we were so overjoyed at God’s presence in our lives.  Think of children opening their gifts on Christmas morning, thrilled that they received the gifts that they wanted.  They scream and shout with utter elation.  Imagine if we went around this way…  This may sound bizarre.  Very few of us walk around — or would want to walk around — appearing like religious zealots.  But Mary is not a zealot.  She’s honest.  She has encountered God in a profound way.  God is using her in a way that no one could imagine: she is going to give birth to God’s Son — the Christ!

None of us are about to give birth to the Second Coming of Christ (as far as I know), but God has entered and touched our lives just the same.  Jesus claimed that he came to make all things new, and that includes us.  That is a cause for joy beyond compare.

Mary certainly had a reason to be afraid, as we said earlier.  We have reasons to fear, too: be it because of viruses like COVID-19, racial and political unrest, environmental or economic concerns.  The list goes on and on.  There is much to be concerned about.

The question is, can we still be filled with joy in the midst of our worry?  The answer to this rhetorical question is yes — yes, because we know that God will be present with us no matter what: to guide us, to love us, to give us hope, to fill our spirits with peace, and to give us unparalleled joy.

Don’t be afraid to let that joy show.  Others will see it and it will make a difference.  “Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., was a member of the U.S. Supreme Court for 30 years.  His mind, wit, and work earned him the unofficial title of ‘the greatest justice since John Marshall.’  At one point in his life, Justice Holmes explained his choice of a career by saying: ‘I might have entered the ministry if certain clergymen I knew had not looked and acted so much like undertakers.’”[5]  Yes, clergy can be that way, too — trust me — but so can’t all Christians.  Some might think that the Word we hear isn’t that earth-shattering; that it’s no big deal; that it isn’t transformative; that it hasn’t changed us; that it hasn’t changed the world; that it cannot produce a joy that changes everything.

Mary knew it could.  So should we.  Let that joy fill you.  Let it flow from you.  I’ll give Jesus the final word: “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11).  Amen.

[1] Steven Wedgeworth, “The Meaning of the Magnificat,” taken online from Wedgewords, December 14, 2014.

[2] Steven Lee, “God Will Use Even You,” taken online from desiringgod.org, June 29, 2015.

[3] Steven Wedgeworth, “The Meaning of the Magnificat,” taken online from christchurchlakeland.com, December 17, 2017.

[4] Taken from ourcatholicprayers.com.

[5] Taken from sermonillustrations.com.