Our Song of Faith today is the Magnificat. It’s a little out of place because this text is associated with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and none of our readings today are about Mary. Our Advent readings usually don’t get to Mary’s story until the fourth Sunday in Advent. This year that’s the morning of Christmas Eve! But the lectionary always gives us the option of using the Magnificat on the third Sunday. So we’re using it – and I am preaching it – today. 

What is the Magnificat? That name is given to this text based on its first word in Latin, the language the church used in liturgy for 1000 years or so. “My soul magnifies the Lord…”

This song comes from Luke’s Gospel. If you know a Nativity story, you know Luke’s story: he has the baby in the manger, the shepherds and the angel choir; and so on. 

In Luke chapter 1, after the angel Gabriel invites Mary to become the mother of God and she agrees, she goes to visit an older relative, Elizabeth. Elizabeth is also miraculously pregnant, after yearning for a child for decades. When Elizabeth hears Mary’s greeting, the child in her womb – the baby who will grow up to be John the Baptist – leaps for joy! Elizabeth says to Mary, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” 

And in response, Mary speaks – or sings – the Magnificat. Luke’s text doesn’t identify it as a song, but it clearly borrows language and structure from the psalms and other ancient hymns of Israel, and the church started treating it as a song and chanting or singing it very early – so I think it’s reasonable to assume it was a song, right from the start. 

The Magnificat is one of the best-known Christian texts. It’s been spoken and sung all over the world for nearly 2000 years. It’s deeply important to many, many people. Let’s spend a little time getting to know it better, today. 

In Luke’s Gospel, Mary proclaims these words spontaneously. But the book we’re reading for our Advent book study, The First Advent in Palestine, Kelly Nikondeha imagines Mary and Elizabeth spending days and weeks together, walking and talking and wondering what their pregnancies mean, and Mary’s song taking shape during that time. 

Nikondeha calls our attention to the ways the Magnificat alludes to earlier Scriptural songs. She invites us to imagine Mary growing up as a child and young woman living in Galilee under Roman occupation, with all the poverty, struggle, vulnerability and simmering potential for violence that that entails. Nikondeha suggests that perhaps Mary grew up hearing and singing the holy resistance songs of her people and her faith – and specifically the songs of four fierce foremothers, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, and Judith. 

One of the things that fascinates and delights me about the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, is that in these ancient texts from a very patriarchal society, we hear women speak relatively often. Their voices and visions matter – even as the text itself shows us how little power or autonomy they were given at the time. 

The earliest woman whose song resonates with Mary’s Magnificat is Miriam, the sister of Moses. 

Miriam is the wily older sister who, as a child, helped save her baby brother’s life – watching over him as he lay in a basket among the bulrushes in the river Nile. As an adult she is part of the leadership team for the Israelites on their wilderness journey, along with her brothers Moses and Aaron. 

Exodus 15 names her as a prophet, describing her musical leadership after the Israelites pass through the Red Sea to freedom: “Then the prophet Miriam… took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing… 

And Miriam sang to them: ‘Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.’

Over a thousand years later Mary will sing, 

“God has shown the strength of his arm!”

The echo is faint, it’s true. But in Miriam’s song we see our earliest example of a Biblical woman singing a song of triumph and hope. And: Mary’s name, in Hebrew? Maryam. 

She bears her foremother’s name. 

The second song that echoes in the Magnificat comes from the Book of Judges. We had this story earlier this fall! 

Deborah, a fiery woman, is Israel’s leader during a time when they have been conquered by a neighboring nation, Jabin.

God has Deborah call a man named Barak to lead Israel’s army and throw out the invaders. With God’s help, the attack is successful; Jabin’s soldiers scatter and flee the country. 

Their general – Sisera – runs away seeking safety. He comes to the tent of a man named Heber, a neutral party in the current war. Heber’s wife, Yael, welcomes Sisera. She gives him some milk and a blanket, and promises to keep watch while he takes a nap.

Then, while he sleeps, she hammers a tent peg through his head, killing him. When Barak comes by, she shows him the man he seeks. 

This story is told in the fourth chapter of Judges, then told again in the fifth chapter of Judges, in the form of a victory song attributed to Deborah and Barak. Biblical scholars think the song is likely very old, passed down through generations, and that the narrative version may have been written based on the song. 

This song retells the battle and Sisera’s death; there is not much overlap with the words of the Magnificat. But! 

In the song, Yael is named “Most blessed of women.” Almost exactly what Elizabeth calls Mary – and a phrase only used three times in the whole Bible. 

Yael, most blessed of women, using her feminine gentleness to soothe a general to his death! 

Mary, most blessed of women, accepting risk and stigma to carry God in her womb! 

The echo calls to the fore the courage of Mary’s choice. 

The third song – the one the Magnificat echoes most closely – is the song of Hannah, found early in the first book of the prophet Samuel. Hannah is one of two wives of a man named Elkanah. Hannah has no children, and it makes her deeply sad, even though Elkahah loves her tenderly. And the other wife, Peninnah, has many children, and is mean to Hannah, adding to her sadness and anger.  

One day while the family is visiting a holy place, Shiloh, to make sacrifices to God, Hannah goes to pray privately that God will grant her a son. Her prayer is granted, and she becomes pregnant at last. She names her son Samuel: God has heard. When her child is old enough to leave home, she gives him to the priest of Shiloh to serve at the holy place. 

Samuel grows up to become one of Israel’s greatest prophets. 

Committing her son to God’s service, Hannah prays, “My heart exults in the LORD; my strength is exalted in my God!”

There are many close parallels between Hannah’s song and Mary’s. Hannah sings, “Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry have plenty… The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap.” 

But there are also significant differences. Hannah’s song is angry. It reflects the bitterness of her rivalry with Peninnah: 

“Talk no more so very proudly,
let not arrogance come from your mouth… 

The barren has borne seven,
but she who has many children is forlorn.”

Hannah and Mary’s songs are the most similar, in many ways. Hannah, like Mary, is an ordinary woman, not a leader; a pregnancy is part of the story; and there’s no military context at stake. But the similarities only make the differences stand out more.

Hannah’s song does that very human thing where our prayers spring from our own personal gratitudes and grievances. The Magnificat, somehow, is more universal, more able to transcend its original context to travel the world and the centuries. 

That phrase Most blessed of women! points us toward the fourth song that hums as a harmony line under Mary’s melody, the song of Judith, from the book that bears her name.

The book of Judith is in the Apocrypha, a set of late pre-Christian texts, most originally written in Greek, that are set apart from the rest of the Old Testament. Many of us don’t know it well, but there are some great stories in there.

Judith is a pious widow who lives in a town called Bethulia. She was once a famous beauty, but now lives a very simple life of prayer. However, the town is under siege. The Assyrian army is marching across Judea towards Jerusalem, which has just been rebuilt after the Babylonian Exile. Everyone is terrified that the Assyrians will destroy the city and loot the Temple again. Bethulia lies in their path, but it’s just an ordinary small town; how could they stop this terrible army? 

Judith decides to take matters into her own hands. She dresses in her finest clothes and goes out to befriend the Assyrian general, Holofernes. She tells him that she’s defecting from the town because they’re clearly doomed, and isn’t he a nice handsome general? 

It’s a great story – one of these years we’ll do it as a Scripture drama! – but eventually, she gets him drunk and cuts off his head. The Assyrians flee, and Jerusalem is saved. 

And when Judith returns to the city with the head in a bag, one of the leaders of the town says, “O daughter, you are blessed by the Most High God above all other women on earth!” 

Like Miriam and Deborah before her, Judith sings a victory song: “Begin a song to my God with tambourines, sing to my Lord with cymbals. For the Lord is a God who crushes wars…” 

Her song re-tells her story, then ends with a hymn of praise:“O Lord, you are great and glorious… you have mercy on those who fear you.” 

Judith and Mary might both be quoting Psalm 103, where there’s a similar phrase; or maybe Mary is quoting Judith, when she includes these words in her holy song. 

The Magnificat adds a few more words: 

“You have mercy on those who fear you in every generation” – 

From Judith to Hannah; Deborah and Yael to Miriam; and beyond. 

Nikondeha writes, “Grafted into generations of women practicing liberation through subversive songs and solidarity, Mary was formed by song, and then she composed song, creating a legacy, weaving herself into the unwritten genealogy of women who birthed the sons and daughters of Israel…. Hers was… a prophetic chorus born of solidarity with many matriarchs.” (66) 

Why does the Magnificat matter? Why has it been so important to so many people, for so long? That’s a big question, and you could probably fill a library with books about this text. 

But I can say a little about why the Magnificat is important to ME – at least the reasons that I can put into words. 

I like that the Magnificat gives us a look at Mary. There are bits about her in various places in the Gospels, but this is the most we ever hear from her directly.

There are various ways to imagine how this song got written: maybe Mary composed it herself, maybe Luke wrote it for her, maybe some combination of the two – Luke receiving something passed on from Mary, who was part of the Christian community after Jesus’ death, and then expanding it based on his own poetic standards. 

Regardless: This text tells us who the early church knew Mary to have been. 

And bringing that other chorus of older voices to sing their harmonies under the Magnificat reminds us what a fierce and powerful song it is. 

Mary was not chosen by God for sweetness, meekness, or compliance. Mary was chosen, perhaps, because she was someone who could envision a better world. Who believed that God would collaborate with humanity to bring that better world into being. Who was willing to put her reputation, her family, her very body on the line to be part of it. 

I value the Magnificat because, like the later chapters in Isaiah – with their oracles of binding up the broken-hearted, liberty for captives, comfort for those who mourn, and rebuilding ruined cities – this text envisions God’s mercy, God’s salvation, God’s justice, for everyone who needs it, and not just for God’s people Israel. 

This isn’t a song celebrating military victory and the destruction of enemies. Instead Mary sings of the hungry fed and the lowly lifted up – and yes, those who have more than their share brought down to a more human level. When she does name her hope for her people, it’s a hope for rescue and redemption. 

I have heard from folks that it can be hard right now to read Scriptures that talk about God’s salvation for Israel, and even more so God’s vengeance for Israel – when a modern country also called Israel is bombing a civilian population on our daily news.  I understand; I’m struggling with some of the more militaristic psalms these days, myself. 

It is good for us to remember that none of these are the same thing: Ancient Israel, culturally and politically; God’s people Israel, religiously and theologically;  the Jewish people, past and present; the modern nation-state of Israel; and the Netanyahu government currently ruling that state. 

It’s not that there aren’t relationships and overlaps among these things. Of course there are. But it’s complex and nuanced. And unless we have the will and capacity to really dig in, it’s best to simply tell ourselves, It’s complicated, and try to be careful about our assumptions. 

The Israel of Mary’s song and Mary’s hopes is different in many ways from the Israel of today’s news. It is not incidental to the Nativity story that Israel – Judea – was under Roman occupation when Jesus was born. 

In fact it seems to be pretty central to how God intended the whole business: to come among us as a child born into poverty, born as a member of a misunderstood and often persecuted religious minority, born into the constrained and humiliating life of a conquered people. 

Empire, occupation, and domination are the context for Mary’s yearning for the redemption of Israel. In that light this song carries hope for anyone living under those burdens today. 

I love the Magnificat because it sits squarely in the tension between the already and the not yet of Christian life and faith. “Already/not yet” is a way some Christian thinkers talk about the idea that in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God’s new, transformed reality has already begun. The Kingdom of God has come near. Yet there is also a sense of a fulfillment yet to come: the Eschaton, the Second Coming, that new heaven and new earth where righteousness will be at home. And in the meantime we live with the painful reality that despite Mary’s bold proclamation, the mighty still dominate the lowly, many still live with hunger, and so on. 

But that somehow doesn’t make the Magnificat seem false or wrong. Instead, for millennia, people have sung and prayed it as a way of leaning into the already/not yet, with urgency and hope. 

Finally, I love the Magnificat because it’s a song. I also make up songs sometimes, and I respect the power of song. I like reading the Magnificat, but I really like singing the Magnificat. 

And I especially like singing the Magnificat in a way that brings forward that urgency and yearning, the fierce hope embedded in this text. A few years ago St. Dunstan’s discovered the Canticle of the Turning, a paraphrase of the Magnificat written in 1990 by a poet named Rory Cooney, and set to a traditional Irish tune. It’s become, I think, an important song for many of us – one that gives voice to our own yearnings for God’s future. We’ll sing it at the end of our worship this morning. 

When we use the words of the Magnificat, in public worship or private prayer, whether we sing it or shout it or sigh it – may it continue to unite us with Mary, with Luke; with our faith-ancestors back to the time of Miriam and Moses, and beyond, and with the millions who have shared these words in the intervening centuries. 

And may it continue to form us as God’s people dwelling in the tension between struggle and hope, fury and faith, grief and promise. Amen.