Notes From a Sermon: Third Sunday in Advent
Luke 1:39-55 includes Mary’s song; commonly referred to as the Magnificat.

Magnificat is named after the first line in the Latin: Magnificat anima mea Dominum or “My Soul magnifies the Lord.” Magnifies. Enlarges. Makes bigger. Celebrates.
Christians have historically been uncomfortable with Mary’s Magnificat.
As Mary says, “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.”
When Martin Luther translated the Bible from Latin into German, he left the Magnificat in Latin. Why? Because German princes and royalty took a dim view of the Bible saying the mighty would be brought low. Which rulers wanted to fund the translation of the Bible that had Mary, the mother of Jesus, praising the Lord for bringing rulers down from their thrones?
When Thomas Cranmer translated the Latin Bible into English, he, too, left the Magnificat in Latin, as well. Because it’s best not to tell the people that the Lord wants to bring down rulers from their thrones.
Mary’s song can be considered the first Christmas carol – a song for the season. A song of joy and praise for the Lord in response to the Lord’s steadfast love and commitment to the Lord’s people.
Mary sings a song of hope and joy. Mary’s song is our song, as well. Mary’s song for the Lord is a song from the Lord. A song that wells up from deep within our souls.
Our hearts sing of the Mighty One who has done great things. Whose mercy extends from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds and has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
This is the sort of song the Lord puts into the hearts of the Lord’s people. Do you hear the song? Does your heart sing the song? Do those around you hear your soul singing? Does the sound of the Lord’s song ring in your words, and deeds and actions and thoughts? Ring so loudly that strangers can hear your heart singing?
“If every voice were still,” Jesus says, “the rocks and stones themselves would start to sing.”
Today, on the radio when we’re walking around the store or in the car listening to Christmas carols, we can hear “Marry Did You Know?” It’s a beautiful song that’s been sung by different performers.
“Marry Did You Know?” the song asks.
Yes. She knew. How do we know she knew? Because she sang this song. We know because the Bible tells us she knows.
Here’s a popular, beautify song about Mary and Jesus, and it has the theology of a forgotten, empty box under the Christmas tree on December 26. It’s unbiblical. Plain and simple. Too much “Christianity” in the United States isn’t Biblical.
Too many Christians, here in the U.S. and across the world, are simply Biblically illiterate. They don’t know what the Bible says, and so they believe preachers when they pronounce their opinions and claim those opinions come from the Bible. Too many base their understanding of God, their theology, on what they think the Bible says, rather than what it actually says.
They don’t do what the Bible says to do, and they do what the Bible says not to do.
We have to ask ourselves: which is worse? The person who can’t read the Bible or the person who can read, but doesn’t?
People who don’t understand the Bible get manipulated and used by people who twist Bible verses to justify their own wishes and desires. Which isn’t surprising.
The Bible has been used to control people for thousands of years. Beyond recording the history of the Jewish people, the purpose of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, the Torah, was to dictate how they should live. Indeed, Torah, means “Law.”
Throughout the history of Christianity, the Bible has been twisted by oppressors to justify oppression. The Bible has been used to justify wars and invasions, death and destruction. The Bible was used to justify slavery, across the Middle East, around the world, and right here in the United States.
For centuries, Christian authorities used the threat of eternal damnation to control people who never had the opportunity to read the Bible, to learn for themselves what it says.
By making the story of Jesus about salvation, by focusing on individual salvation and sin, Christian leaders moved the message of Jesus away from justice for all and made it about salvation. And that’s how they have controlled people for nearly 2,000 years.
“The point is about accepting Jesus into your heart,” they said. “The point is about getting into heaven and staying out of hell.”
“Pay no attention to the hundreds and hundreds of verses across the Torah, across the Proverbs and the prophets,” they say, “that tell us that the Lord is focused on justice, not salvation.”
“Let’s hide the words of Mary,” they decided, “because we don’t want to tell people that the Lord brings rulers down from their thrones, lifts up the humble, fills the hungry with good things, and sends the rich away empty.”
For hundreds and hundreds of years, missionaries have focused on the souls of poor people, and ignored the unjust systems that kept people in poverty.
“Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day,” the saying goes, “but teach him to fish and he can feed himself forever.” But who owns the fish? Who owns access to the water? Who controls which people have the opportunities to fish and which people don’t?
This isn’t some modern, social justice, liberation theology dreamed up by academics and theologians. This is what the Bible says.
In Luke chapter 4, Jesus stands up in the synagogue and reads from Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Jesus is quoting a prophet sent by the Lord 600 years before him to proclaim “good news to the poor, release to the prisoners, liberation for the oppressed.”
If we believe the message of Jesus, the words he uses and the scripture he quotes, then we ought to be focuses on liberation for the oppressed and the poor. But that threatens the oppressors and those that exploit the poor, that threatens the engine powering the world, and so the focus shifted to salvation and our souls, and not systems of exploitation.
This shift in focus happened so long ago, that most modern Christians have difficulty hearing the actual words of the Lord.
Russell Moore is the Editor in Chief of Christianity Today, before that, he was President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and, before that, dean of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Moore was forced out of the seminary after criticizing Donald Trump.
Moore has said that, “multiple pastors tell me essentially the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount parenthetically in their preaching—‘turn the other cheek’—to have someone come up and say, ‘Where did you get those liberal talking points?’”
“What was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, ‘I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,’ the response would not be, ‘I apologize.’ The response would be, ‘Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.’ When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.”
Welcome to the party, Russell.
The “crisis” has been going on for nearly two centuries.
The “crisis” is how Christians have intentionally misinterpreted scripture to control others.
Russell Moore, and other Evangelicals like him, see the world as souls who are either damned or saved, because they ignore the parts of the Bible they don’t like.
The word justice appears in scripture hundreds and hundreds of times across thousands of years.
When the prophet Micah asks the Lord what he should do, should he bring offerings or sacrifices? The Lord says “I want you to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with me.”
During the Crusades, British kings believed the Lord called them to travel to the holy land and convert or kill Muslims and Arabs while reclaiming holy, Christian sites.
Jesus says, “I’m here to liberate the oppressed,” and many modern Christians hear, “have people say the ‘sinner’s prayer,’ and accept Jesus into your hearts.”
Let me make it plain and jump to the bottom line.
If interpretation of scripture victimizes people, if it exploits the poor, if it’s bad news for the weak and helpless, if you think Christianity is about who is in and who is out, then you’re missing the message of Jesus.
If your interpretation and application of scripture brings freedom, and liberation, and joy, then it’s the good news and the message of Jesus. Today’s advent candle is the candle of joy. The joy that the Lord offers.
“Joy does not come from positive predictions about the state of the world,” wrote Henri Nouwen. “It does not depend on the ups and downs of the circumstances of our lives. Joy is based on the spiritual knowledge that, while the world in which we live is shrouded in darkness, God has overcome the world. Jesus says it loudly and clearly: ‘In the world you will have troubles, but rejoice, I have overcome the world.’
“The surprise is not that, unexpectedly, things turn out better than expected,” says Henri Nouwen. “No, the real surprise is that God’s light is more real than all the darkness, that God’s truth is more powerful than all human lies, that God’s love is stronger than death.”
“Alas for those that never sing,” wrote Oliver Wendell Holmes, “But die with all their music in them.”
Let us sing the songs of the Lord, this Christmas. Like Mary, let us sing. And let the whole world hear.
For other articles, visit:
Notes From a Sermon: “What do you want me to do for you?”
The Clark Doll Study Documenting the Damage of Segregation
Do Christians Need to be Reminded that Racism is Immoral?
Notes from a Sermon: Mark 7: 24-37
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Pastor Jim Meisner, Jr. is the author of the novel Faith, Hope, and Baseball, available on Amazon, or follow this link to order an autographed copy. He created and manages the Facebook page Faith on the Fringe.