Mary’s Magnificat: The Christmas Song We Need in 2024
In its 2021 Christmas special, the hit television show “The Chosen” tells the story of Jesus’ birth. It frames the retelling around an elderly Mary seeking to relay the words of her “Magnificat” to Luke, who was compiling sources for his Gospel account of Jesus’ life. The “Magnificat” is a well-known song, now found in Luke’s first chapter, which young Mary exclaimed to her cousin Elizabeth regarding the news that Mary would conceive and give birth to the Son of God.
Mary’s song tells that, through her, God is sending a Savior to earth. Though the words are well-known, we often miss the political element and, thus, the political ramifications of Christmas. This salvation ultimately redeems the individual, body and soul, for eternity. But Mary speaks also of the restoration of communal and individual justice. These statements allude back to the witness of the Old Testament prophets and the Psalms—the ancient hymnbook of the Hebrew people. They also held significant application in 2023 America as well.
To begin, Mary declares God’s kingship over the nations, singing, “He has shown strength with his arm.” References to God’s arm and its strength often referred to God’s kingship over the world, especially His particular people. The Prophet Isaiah wrote, “Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him.” God does not merely save us from the earth, a point that belittles our Divinely-ordained roles as citizens in political communities. Christ’s coming presents a central act in God’s ongoing restoration of a right political life.In our increasingly post-Christian culture, we tend to think that human beings drive history or that we are subject to vague forces that repackage ancient paganism or subject us to blind chance. Christmas tells us that God ultimately presides over the affairs of nations and has broken into this world as part of bringing His plan to fruition.
Next, the Magnificat gives three particular restorations Christmas will further, restorations with clear political import. First, “he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.” In their pride, human beings often believe the limits of their power come only from the extent of their will and imagination. It is the Tower of Babel played out on repeat. As God did in that story in Genesis, so now He will scatter those proud men to humble them. Jesus will undermine the pride of the Jewish ecclesiastical elite—the Pharisees and the Sadducees—by himself acting in humility.
Second, Mary sings that God “has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of humble estate.” Again, Isaiah declared, “By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding; I remove the boundaries of peoples, and plunder their treasures; like a bull I bring down those who sit on thrones.” King Herod believed he was mighty and put his trust in his political power. The same could be said of Caesar, emperor of the Roman Empire within which Jesus was born in a lowly outpost. But Herod would fall, and Rome would be conquered by the Son of God, born as a baby to a simple carpenter and his wife, in a stable with only a manger in which to sleep. God teaches us that His conception of who should and truly does hold political power is not how humans often see it.
Third, Mary says that God “has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.” We live in a time of unprecedented economic power in a few corporate heads—the Jeff Bezoses and the Elon Musks. This financial clout results in political might as well. But Jesus’ birth promises that God does not see right or good through this economic lens. A couple so poor they would have to give the cheapest offering—doves because they could not afford to offer a lamb—raise God incarnate Himself. Jesus' own ministry would be to the poor and the social outcast, with the rich and powerful, the ones who struggled the most to understand His ministry, much less to follow Him as their Savior.
In shaking these political and economic norms, Jesus would point toward the restoration of justice and right lost in the primordial Garden of Eden. Thus, Mary likely remembered in her words another passage from Isaiah, this one foretelling her own story:
“For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon[d] his shoulder,
and his name shall be called[e]
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end”
This Christmas, we celebrated with Mary the mercy God showed the world in Jesus. This act is one of mercy, not just for God’s people Israel but, as the Angel would tell the shepherds, for “all those with whom he is pleased!” Christmas, as an act of mercy, promises peace. Peace between God and man, yes. But, through that peace, a peace between nations and neighbors as well. In our war-torn times, that is a message we need to hear in 2024, a message political in nature and comforting in its content.
