Mary’s song has become the song of us all: the Almighty has done great things for me. Mary’s hope has become our hope: the hope of a holy revolution in which the inequalities and inequities and unfairnesses of this age are flipped like the tables in the temple, upended and leveled by the merciful justice of God. Mary’s rejoicing has become our own.

And it is in the gentlest, subtlest, quietest of ways that God’s kingdom comes: the division of a cell, and another. The first flutterings of a foot against a ribcage, which Elizabeth translates as John jumping for joy at the approach of the embryonic saviour. God’s reign is one of new life, not of destruction; God’s revolution is one of love.

This is a revolution that will stretch us. If we are in solidarity with Mary this morning – and we have sung her song together, so we’d better be – if we are with Mary then we know that this revelation of God’s reign comes with fear as well as with delight, with nausea as well as with rest, that it will stretch us, even tear us, even as we breathe with it, and bear down with it. That a sword will pierce our souls with grief at the enormity of love that has come into being, a love that will sweep before it all that we otherwise knew to be true.

The Collect that we pray this morning asks God to make in us a mansion worthy of Jesus’ abiding. We think of that line from the Gospel of John that we hear, too often at funerals, but which applies at all times: In my father’s house are many mansions … and I go there to prepare a place for you. 

The fourteenth-century mystic Meister Eckhart, here translated and interpreted by Matthew Fox^[i], asked, “What help is it to me that Mary is full of grace, if I am not also full of grace? And what help is it to me that the Father gives birth to his Son unless I too give birth to him?”

In uniting ourselves with Mary and her song, with Mary and her blessing, with Mary and her greeting, we take to ourselves that responsibility, that calling, that joy of preparing a mansion for Jesus within our own lives, within our own world.

Mary ran with haste into the hill country of Judea to take comfort and courage from her cousin, Elizabeth. The region was dangerous, and under occupation, and then as now it is easy to see the map overlaid with political power struggles and obliterations. And under the blanket of the news, of the maps, of the raids, of the violence, women and children run to one another to wonder how, in this world, in this time, in this place, in this barren landscape will they grow love? How will it live? How will they live?

Mary ran with haste to Elizabeth, and John the foetus jumped for joy at hearing her. Already, Mary’s voice had been altered, had been fused and infused with the one she carried, had been filled with grace, and with the salvation that grew within her. John heard the harmonics of heaven in her greeting, and he leaped at the sound. And here, the dye was set, and he would spend the rest of his life preparing the way for Jesus, for the coming of God with us, for the revolution that Mary sang.

And if Mary’s song has become our song, then we, too, have joined our chords with the never silent, yet-to-come voice of Jesus, the living Word of God. That should make us good news, the kind that causes that inner leap within the person who hears us coming; does it?

Bearing Jesus into the world is not only a matter of inward preparation, but of moving heaven and earth to make a world worthy of having such a child born into it. A world in which they can grow in love and in safety, each one knowing herself to be made in the very image and likeness of God. A world without violence or terrorism. A world without school shootings. A world in which their health is worth more than money or influence. A world in which they do not have to dig their way out of the rubble of the wars we have made. John heard the challenge, Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight …

Mary, full of grace, sang not only for herself, the Almighty has done great things for me, but also for the proud spirits in need of disruption, and the poor spirits in need of nurture and nutrition; her song is not hers alone, but it belongs to us all.

Her call is not hers alone, to bear Christ into the world, to bring to light the joy of God’s mercy and love, which is our salvation. 

Blessed and blessing are we, when our souls proclaim the greatness of the Lord; the Almighty has done great things for us, and holy is God’s name.

Amen.

Readings for the Fourth Sunday of Advent in Year C: Micah 5:2-5a, Hebrews 10:5-10, Luke 1:39-45, 46-55) Canticle 15