This
passage contains Mary’s Magnificat or
Song of Praise. She offers this song of praise to God for
finding her faithful and choosing her to give birth to the Son of God.
The German theologian Dietrich Bonheoffer recognized the
revolutionary nature of Mary’s song. Before being executed by the Nazis,
Bonheoffer spoke these words in a sermon during Advent 1933:
“The song of Mary is the oldest
Advent hymn. It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say
the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. This is not the gentle, tender,
dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings.…This song has none of the
sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is
instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about the power of God and the
powerlessness of humankind.”
“With
all my heart I praise the Lord,and I am glad because of God my Savior.
God cares for me, his humble servant.
From now on, all people will say God has blessed me.
God
All-Powerful has done great things for me,
and
his name is holy.
He
always shows mercy to everyone who worships him.
The
Lord has used his powerful arm to scatter those who are proud.God drags strong rulers from their thrones
and puts humble people in places of power.
God
gives the hungry good things to eat,
and
sends the rich away with nothing.
God
helps his servant Israel and is always merciful to his people.
The
Lord made this promise to our ancestors,
to
Abraham and his family forever!”
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