Radical Inspiration – Luke 1: 46-55

A text – Luke 1:46b-55

1:46b “My soul magnifies the Lord,
1:47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
1:48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
1:49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
1:50 His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
1:51 He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
1:52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
1:53 he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.
1:54 He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy,
1:55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

A reflection:

This passage of scripture gives us a window into Mary, the mother of Jesus. She has been visited by an angel, told she would become pregnant with the Son of God, and a couple of months later visits her cousin Elizabeth and speaks this eloquent speech to her.

Mary must have been an extraordinary person for God to have chosen her to be Jesus’s mother. You may believe Jesus had an immaculate conception from God and was born to a virgin. Or you may believe that Jesus was simply a child destined from the beginning to grow into the man who would love God, heal many people and teach many more, die a tortured death, and be raised by God from death into new life. But whichever belief about Jesus you may lean into, you have to know that his mother, Mary, was an amazing woman who comes to us in this passage with a message for anyone who thinks God always supports the strong.

God looks on the lowly ones and blesses them, she says. The Mighty One has done great things for me. God uses power to scatter the proud, brings powerful people down, lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry, sends the rich away empty, and always, always keeps promises, she says.

It may have been hard for Mary as her son grew into his ministry and began saying these very things to the powerful of his day, to Rome and to the Jewish faith leaders. Saying things like this would get you into trouble. Mary said them while pregnant with her son, and her son said them in his ministry. These radical notions about God and his faithfulness to the lowly, these truths about God proclaimed aloud to thousands eventually got Jesus killed. And then that faithful God who lifts the lowly raised Jesus from that demeaning death to life, a life Jesus now calls us to share eternally. Jesus’s inspiration was not only God his heavenly Father. His inspiration was also surely his mother, Mary.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for Mary and her words about you. Thank you for her inspiration of her son, our Lord Jesus, who died to be raised and to offer us that same fate when we die, so that we might share life eternally with you. Amen.