What If Mary Meant It?
At Advent, we ache for the reign of our King through solidarity with the poor and oppressed.
A few years ago, I saw a couple of tweets that really made me “Ho, ho, ho!” They said something like,
Mary did you know… that you were advocating for Cultural Marxism when you said that God had “brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble”?
Mary did you know… you were just being sociologically woke when you said “he has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty?”
These tweets were making light of how frequently conservative evangelicals reject the social teachings of Scripture because they are identified with some liberal social agenda. Such rejection is rooted in an overspiritualization of the gospel and the teachings of Jesus that deny social and bodily implications for the good news we believe. Any mention of the poor and oppressed in the Scriptures should principally be interpreted as spiritual poverty over our sin and nothing more.
The verses these tweets referred to are from Mary’s Song, the Magnificat, which she sang as a response to being chosen by God to give birth to the Messiah. In Luke 1:52-53, Mary sang:
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
A typical evangelical reading of this passage would interpret Mary’s words exclusively in spiritual realities. In such a reading, Mary’s words are, at most, a metaphor that uses pictures of earthly realities to teach deeper spiritual truths. Jesus does not bring down actual rulers of earthly nations, but he humbles the proud and self-righteous and exalts those in spiritual poverty over their sins. Jesus does not give any preferential treatment to the economically poor and oppressed but will fill the spiritually hungry and reject those who think they are spiritually rich. Advent, then, is a time for individual Christians to remember our spiritual weakness and to wait for Jesus to redeem us from our sins once and for all.
But what if there is more to Mary’s words than we have given her credit for? What if Mary actually meant what she sang? What if Jesus does intend to deal with the socioeconomic poverty and oppression of this world by taking a stand for the poor against those who crush them?
If this is the case, then Advent is more than a period of waiting on Jesus in some abstract and spiritual sense. No, Advent is a time for us to ache and groan for the reign of our King. It is a time to cry out over our sins and the injustices we often contribute to. It is a time for us to take a stand on the side of the vulnerable against the strong, for this is where Mary told us we would find Jesus working in the world.
Most scholars of Luke’s Gospel agree that more than Matthew, Mark, or John, Luke emphasized Jesus’ prioritization of those who were on the margins of society. In his commentary on Luke, Leon Morris rightly identified how Luke gives a significant place in his narrative to women, children, the poor, and the disreputable. Morris takes no issue with clearly and emphatically stating that “[i]n general Luke concerns himself with the interests of the poor.”[1]
Joel B. Green has articulated how significant this emphasis in Luke is for the call to discipleship in this gospel. In Luke’s Gospel, “Genuine ‘children of Abraham’ are those who embody in their lives the beneficence of God, and who express openhanded mercy to others, especially toward those in need.”[2] The greatest danger to our souls, according to the Third Evangelist, is not sin in the abstract but money and the temptation of power. “Within the Third Gospel, the chief competitor for this focus stems from Money—not so much money itself, but the rule of Money, manifest in the drive for social praise and, so, in forms of life designed to keep those with power and privilege segregated from those of low status, the least, the lost, and the left-out.”[3]
However, just as Luke was not concerned with mere abstract spiritual realities, he was not merely concerned with earthly realities either. This tendency to pit spiritual justice against social justice is a reductionistic product of a Christianity that is too comfortable with power and material goods and must be decisively rejected.
The writings of Reformed theologian Herman Ridderbos, widely regarded as some of the most significant in our understanding of Scripture's single redemptive story, can help us find unity where so many want to inject division. In his work on the kingdom of God, Ridderbos said that in “the first part of Jesus’ preaching of the kingdom of heaven he repeatedly qualifies the gospel as that of the poor.”[4] Jesus’ ministry to the poor must be read in light of the Old Testament notions of the “poor” and “poor in spirit.” Such a reading finds support both for external oppression as well as the humility of the individual being oppressed. Throughout the Old Testament,
The “poor” or “poor in Spirit”… represent the socially oppressed, those who suffer from the power of injustices and are harassed by those who only consider their own advantage and influence. They are, however, at the same time those who remain faithful to God and expect their salvation from him alone. They do not answer evil with evil, nor oppose injustice with injustice. That is why in the midst of the ungodliness and worldlimindedness of others, they form the true people of God.[5]
This kingdom, proclaimed in the “gospel of the poor,” must be determined by the social location and the spiritual fidelity of God’s people. “The poor” do not institute a mere universal economic ethic, nor is this language symbolic of abstract spiritual sorrow over sin. Rather, by taking Jesus at his word in his teaching on the kingdom of God, we must conclude that the poor have always been “in contrast to those who have fastened their hope upon this world” and “expect the salvation God has held out to his people as ‘the consolation of Israel.’”[6] Such a people can expect “the deliverance (from oppression) to which God’s people (his elect) may lay claim as the salvation promised by their king.”[7]
In other words, “the poor” are those who ache for the reign of their King and the administration of his justice. According to Ridderbos, “[n]owhere is the nature and the specific significance of the connection between the ‘kingdom of God’ and ‘the poor’ brought home to us in a clearer way than in Mary’s hymn.”[8] In this song, like the rest of Luke’s gospel, the literal poor and oppressed represent those most receptive to the kingdom of God. They not only know their spiritual poverty but can see the need this world has for the reign of King Jesus. The invitation of Mary’s hymn, indeed of Luke’s gospel, is for the people of God to have solidarity with the poor and oppressed as we long for the reign of our King.
Seen in this light, Mary’s Song is a declaration of the subversive reversal that King Jesus has begun and will complete when he returns. C.S. Lewis described a kind of ferocity latent in Mary’s Song: “There is a fierceness, even a touch of Deborah, mixed with the sweetness of in the Magnificat to which painted Madonnas do little justice.”1 As Green also notes, Mary’s Song is exemplative of a central theme in Luke’s Gospel: “The opponents of Jesus, and therefore of God’s purpose, are portrayed as persons who grasp for social respect and positions of honor, who exclude the less fortunate and socially unacceptable from their circles of kinship, who enjoy the power that accompanies their privileged status.”[9] Mary praises her God because this Son will “work in individual lives (like Mary) and in the social order as a whole in order to subvert the very structure of society that supports and perpetuates”[10] these injustices.
As the story of the New Testament unfolds, we discover that this is precisely what Jesus has done. He has conquered not only the earthly powers of oppression but also the spiritual oppression of sin and death by “humbling himself to the point of death” and claiming exalted victory in his resurrection (Phil 2:7-8). He has dug up the malignant roots of sin by breaking its power over us and pouring out his Holy Spirit on his own (Hebrews 2:14-15; John 16:7-11). He has organized his church by calling them from all the nations into a new, reconciled humanity where peace, justice, and righteousness reign, a testimony against the exploitive powers of this age (Ephesians 3:7-11). In all of this and more, Jesus has brought us into the light of his kingdom so that we might participate with him in subverting oppressive powers and inviting people into salvific liberation (Matthew 6:10; Luke 4:18-19).
If we take Mary at her word, Advent is not a time of abstract waiting but a time for the Church to cry out for the reign of their King while taking sides with the vulnerable against the oppression of the powerful. It is a time for us to examine our lives, where our idolatrous materialism and lust for social influence are complicity in the disordered exploitation that causes our neighbors to suffer.
Come, King Jesus, and perform mighty deeds with your arm!
Scatter those who are proud and lust for riches, prestige, and influence!
Bring down those rulers that crush the poor!
Forgive us of our idols and release us into service of our vulnerable neighbors.
Remember us in your mercy.
Keep your promises to us, just as you did to our ancestors.
Amen
[1] Leon Morris, Luke: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 3, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 51.
[2] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997), 23.
[3] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, 24.
[4] Ridderbos, The Coming of the Kingdom, 187.
[5] Ridderbos, The Coming of the Kingdom, 188-189
[6] Ridderbos, The Coming of the Kingdom, 189.
[7] Ridderbos, The Coming of the Kingdom, 191.
[8] Ridderbos, The Coming of the Kingdom, 191.
[9] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, 104–105.
[10] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, 105.
C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, 6. Thanks, Fred, for the late addition. A perfect sentiment for this essay.
What if being poor means both materially AND spiritually poor?