The Iron Maiden

When we think of Mary, a girl of 14 or 15, we imagine she was a child like the young adolescent girls we know, but in her culture she was a young woman, old enough to have a husband and a family. She was also a child of a politically oppressed people, steeped in the revolutionary scriptures of the Old Testament. Perhaps we need to imagine her as we might imagine a young Moslem woman in the Palestine of today. Indeed, the verses we are about to consider suggest that she has hopes and dreams for her people, very political hopes and dreams.

Upon becoming pregnant, Mary went to visit her relative Elizabeth and stayed with her till after Elizabeth’s son, John, was born. This was a woman who’d been told the child she would bear “will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah,… to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." Elijah was a prophet of the Old Testament, but he was also the leader of a rebellion, a man of battle. 1 Kings 18:40 There is something going on here that we traditionally miss. There’s a very real political tension here that Luke certainly understood, as did his first century readers.

What follows Elizabeth’s greeting of Mary is the passage we call the Magnificat. It’s beautiful poetry, but it’s not simply a hymn to be sung in church. It’s a declaration, a manifesto, composed of Old Testament texts drawn mostly from the Psalms, expressing the hopes and dreams of a dispossessed and suffering people. If we will read the following verses through this lens, especially 50-53, we will see why Jesus was feared and hated even from infancy, why Herod sought to kill him, and why the Roman and Jewish establishment eventually did.

Luke 1:46-55 And Mary said:
"My soul glorifies the Lord
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations
will call me blessed,
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me —
holy is his name.
50 His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
55 to Abraham and his descendants forever,
even as he said to our fathers."

This young girl, Mary, is not the trifling little flower some have imagined, but a woman of strength and substance. This is a revolution that will shake the world to it’s foundations. And the battles are not just metaphors, they're the real thing. Both these babies, John and Jesus, will die violent deaths. The rich and powerful don’t go down without a fight.