We have our mental images of Christmas, which often translate into what our Christmas decorations look like, and I suspect that we more often than not have the "gentle Mary, meek and mild" image for the mother of Jesus. I mean, after all, she was young, probably naive, and she would certainly, to use a phrase I find increasingly derogatory, have "known her place"--as a product of her innate moral goodness. Well, if we consider this passage of Scripture, Luke 1:46-55, "The Magnificat"--Mary's joyous song of praise to God in the presence of her relative Elizabeth--we find quite a bit more of an "edge" than our usual mental image usually holds.
Selected sections of Ryan Cuja's article "Mary's Subversive Song" from the "Red Letter Christians" website, convey this.
"Mary’s words recapitulate the Jewish prophetic tradition of interrogating religio-political systems that oppress society’s outsiders and impoverished. Her song of praise, then, isn’t a submissive canticle of compliance to God’s will as is told from pulpits nationwide every December. Her canticle isn’t lyrically docile. It is praise at its most raw, untamed, and status-quo disrupting form. . . .
"Her words have been seen as a threat to dictators, power brokers, and autocrats for two millennia. They were banned from being read or sung in India during the British colonial administration and in El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980s. Argentina outlawed them during the Dirty War years — the mothers of disappeared children put Mary’s song on public display and, in response, the government forbade the words in public places.
"A song of salvation whose social, political, and economic dimensions cannot be underestimated, Mary’s words portending the end of oppression intimidate the leaders of the domination systems of this world — a threat even more potent coming from a woman.
"Neither a peaceful dove nor a gentle mother as so many of our cultural hymns would have it, Mary’s feminine power was raw, wild, and courageous. Mary of Nazareth is Christianity’s original subversive woman. In tenor with her song, we can enter Advent with a posture of resistance, subversion, the hope of injustice being overturned, and a joyful faith that expects the reversal of inequity."
I submit that if we truly live out the deepest implications and fullest assertions of Mary's words, then more people will get to celebrate a truly Merry Christmas, as more will be "lifted up" and be fully a part of societies everywhere as the values of the lived Kingdom of God assert themselves in the followers of Jesus.
GOSPEL Luke 1:46-55
46 And Mary said,
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
50 His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.’