The Magnificent Magnificat: Majestic, Humbling, and in Some Places, Illegal
Mary's Song is the Most Passionate, Wildest, and Revolutionary Advent Hymn Ever Sung - Advent III
The Magnificat
Dietrich Bonhoeffer called the Magnificat "the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung."
This quote comes from his writings while imprisoned by the Nazis. He viewed the Magnificat not as a gentle Christmas carol but as a powerful declaration of God's revolutionary action in the world.
It is no wonder that despot governments have banned the Song of Mary in our lifetime. In the 1980s, the government of Guatemala and the junta of Argentina outlawed the public recitation of the Magnificat.
Under British rule in India, the church prohibited the singing of the Magnificat because of its controversial lyrics. On the final day of British rule, Gandhi, although not a Christian, requested that this song be recited at every location where the British flag was lowered.
Mary’s Magnificat. Luke 1:46ff. What on earth is she talking about? Or, more accurately, what in heaven’s name is she saying?
Mary’s Song and Me
I remember reciting the Magnificat (Latin for the first word of the song, magnify) as a young acolyte at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Nogales, Arizona. The Rector picked me up in the late afternoon for services during Lent. It was often just the Rector and me in the chancel, reading and praying the Evening Prayer.
From time to time, we said the Magnificat together. I learned that it was Mary’s prayer, her song, which she said when Elizabeth greeted her and the unborn baby Jesus. The beauty of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer version of the ancient prophesy is unmatched.
Imagine yourself as a young teen reading her Hebrew poetry. She had been a young teen too when she first thought these words:
The song was a mystery to me. This kind of language was opaque to my young teenage ears, yet her imagery lived in me long afterward.
She spoke about "the lowliness of his handmaiden" - a phrase I barely understood, but somehow, it made me feel for her. The Lord had magnified her, she said with quiet certainty. His arm was strong, she declared, not with the brash confidence of the powerful but with the steady conviction of the powerless. The Lord had "put down the mighty from their seat" and exalted the humble and meek; the hungry enjoyed rich things, and the rich went away hungry.
All of this, she insisted, was not random but purposeful—the fulfillment of an ancient promise made to Abraham. If God had done it in the past, He’d do it again in Jesus. In Mary’s Song, the past is a prologue to the future.
I still remember one phrase that puzzled me: "He hath showed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts."
What Did She Mean?
Who were the proud? What did it mean that he scattered them in "the imagination of their hearts." I had always thought that imagination was a good thing. What could this mean?
It took a Masters of Divinity, a study full of books, years of preaching the Gospel, and a curious mind to finally understand her statement.
(IMPORTANT NOTICE: This is the third of four posts on Mary in the Season of Advent. Look for Advent I: The Women in Jesus Family Tree. Look for Advent II: Mary: What Did She Know and When Did She Know It. If you are reading this, why not go all the way and become a PAID subscriber.)
When Mary sang that God "has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts," she gave us one of the most powerful images in all Scripture. She is talking about the defeat of the proud and their humiliation. She says they will be scattered, too. Not just the people themselves, but their ideas. Their imagination of themselves—important, proud, accomplished, arrogant—will be scattered, thrown into the wind. Gone.
This sweet, restrained adolescent girl said those who live in the castle of their pride and self-awarded importance—who think they are the best, the brightest, and the most deserving—will be brought down to size.
The idea gets clearer. Now, who was she talking about?
The Eternal City and Suffering
Mary lived under Roman occupation, where pride had a very specific face. The Romans imagined themselves as the eternal rulers of a divine empire. They built massive monuments proclaiming their power. Their coins declared their emperors as gods. Their armies enforced their will across the known world.
On his deathbed, Caesar Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome, said it this way:
I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.”
They even called their city Urbs Aeterna--the Eternal City.
But the splendor was built upon immense human suffering. The empire maintained its power through a vast system of over 20 million enslaved people, while conquered territories saw their cultures suppressed and resources plundered.
Mary, Joseph, and their new baby would have to live under that empire. And Mary must have known that her son would have a run-in with the powers that be.
That’s what despots do: they run into people.
Mary Has a Message
But Mary has a message. She was a teenage girl from nowhere special, singing about the God of a tiny ethnic collection of dispossessed Jews without property, without human rights, and, it seems, without a future and who currently eke out their life under occupied Roman rule.
Yet, Mary knew that God, who had given her the child she carried in her womb, had a strong arm. And the child within her womb would grow to be God's arm. And in due time, with the brush of His arm, the prideful, arrogant, self-appointed power lords—important only in their own minds and imaginations—would be swept away, scattered, like a farmer tossing chaff into the wind.
Mary knew God's historic pattern of action (scattering the proud, exalting the humble). And she declares what He will do again through Christ. Mary is using Israel's past experience of God's mighty acts as a template for understanding what He is about to do in an even greater way through Jesus.
She would have known the stories of how God had overthrown despots before - with Pharaoh, with Babylon, with every proud empire that imagined itself invincible.
Now I understand what she meant.
And it humbles me to know that she thought these things as an early teenager—about the same time I started to read them myself.
The Magnificat is powerful. It is revolutionary. It is, as Bonhoeffer said, wild.
LET US PRAY:
MY soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden. For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath magnified me; and holy is his Name. And his mercy is on them that fear him throughout all generations. He hath showed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away. He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel; as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed, for ever. AMEN.
The Rev. David Roseberry, an ordained Anglican priest with over 40 years of pastoral experience, offers leadership services to pastors, churches, and Christian writers. He is an accomplished author whose books are available on Amazon. Rev. Roseberry is the Executive Director of LeaderWorks, where his work and resources can be found.
With the recent fall of Assad this seems quite relevant today. Wish He would clean up Russia, China, N Korea and Iran too.