As I think about Christmas, I think about Mary, a young, poor, young woman betrothed to Joseph, in an arranged marriage. I think of how amazing it is that God called Mary (Mariam) to do something very unusual and a bit surreal! It seems very unusual in terms of those who normally get chosen to do important things by God for God and it’s usually not women!
Christmas focuses mostly on the coming of Jesus, the birth of the Son of God. Yes, it’s quite countercultural, in the sense that God would want to save the world through the faith and trust of a young woman. To actually bear a child who had a deeply spiritual and divine purpose was very radical for the time.
At that time women were the property of men. Daughters had no real say in their futures. Mary was betrothed to Joseph so that’s all okay, except discovering she’s pregnant puts a bit of a spanner in the works, even though God is somehow behind this conception of Jesus (Yeshua). There’s shame, they send her away, but Joseph is given the insight in a dream that he should proceed to marry Mariam. He will need to support her through this and the child will be the son of God. He’ll be part of the story of an incarnation, the son of God coming into the world. Pretty amazing!
Christmas turns upside down the way women are perceived in the world that God actually doesn’t use the same lenses that other people do. It’s about faith and trust.
When I think of the Magnificat, Mary’s song in Luke 1:45-56, she talks about not only being chosen, but about what God’s going to do. The poor will be uplifted, the proud will be scattered, the rich will be sent away empty while the hungry will be fed. The hope of social transformation for not only herself but for all people in the world. She effectively quotes Hannah’s song from I Samuel 2, a prophetic song about her rejoicing in God as her Saviour, who’s going to change the world and bring about a new ordering of things.
Mary trusted God and was willing to actually engage in the process in spite of what it meant for her. This was pretty challenging. Dr Amy-Jill Levine talks about Mary’s trust in Yahweh, “she trusted the ancient prophecies would be fulfilled, to have faith in the divine, in trust and discernment”. (The Gospel of Luke, A-J Levine & Ben Witherington, p40). She recounts that the songs of victory in Hebrew scripture are on women’s lips, recounting Miriam’s song (Exodus 15) Deborah (Judges 5) and Hannah (I Samuel 2) pointing to the house of David and his descendants.
The words of Mary’s song are prophetic, raising up the poor from the dust, blessing Mariam with the great things God has done for her. She recalls how God’s divine mercy traverses all generations, it is handed down from one to another. Mariam proclaims that God has already done all of these things, in spite of all evidence to the contrary and in spite of her present reality.
Rev Dr Wilda Gafney, black American Episcopal priest and theologian in her womanist commentary on Luke 1:53, wrote:-
“God has filled the hungry with good things in the before times and every once in a while in our time. People still go hungry, people still die in squalor, taxed to death by Rome and Romanesque imperial imitators, but God still provides unexpected and unimaginable blessings. Our people will not be starved to death and pass out of existence on God’s watch. Some of us will survive and that is enough. God has helped God’s servant, in our faithfulness and in our faithlessness. God has been faithful. In our history, in our memories, in our scriptures. God has been faithful and it is enough (Dayenu). In Luke’s gospel, the story of Jesus is anchored strongly into the story of Israel.
People talk about Christmas being a time of hope. The 1st century Jewish people struggled, they didn’t know how long this would continue. They hoped for a Saviour, life was tough under Roman occupation. They had no voice at all. Jesus coming would bring about a new era and continues to impact us today in 2024. People who later followed him because of who he was, the incarnate Christ and what he did in lives turned upside down.
Many women in the past have had to do similar things to actually bring about the greater good, not for themselves only or their families, but in fact, for others beyond themselves. She’s become a timeless person in that sense for all women but also for everyone. The elevation of women in the sense of the valuing of them as equals before God had never been experienced before. That’s for everyone. There is a place, a call and a purpose for each one of us and a place for us to have in the Kingdom to be part of the community of God. Turning upside down many of the values and social norms that have been part of the way life is ordered.
At a time in the world when climate change is real and impacting our daily lives, those of our pacific neighbours and our children’s futures; where wars rage, dictatorial powers continue to destroy nations and communities, piles of rubble and innocent people lost, may the words of Mary’s song take on a deeper meaning for us that God has remembered God’s promises to us and will keep them. May we converse with God and never let God forget God’s promises to our ancestors or to us, even when we can’t see the fulfilment of those promise yet, may that be enough to know and live in the love of God who is with us. God remembers and that is enough!! Christmas blessings!
References
- A-J Levine & B Witherington III The Gospel of Luke Cambridge University Press, 2018
- W C. Gafney Womanists Wading in the Word -Website https://www.wilgafney.com/
Rev. Jan Reeve, Uniting Mission and Education
