4 Advent 2012

Advent 4, 2012

If you ever wondered about the back story to such albums as the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Cream’s Disraeli Gears or The Wailers’ Catch A Fire, I have good news for you. There exists a whole series of videos called the “Classic Album” series, and includes a number of classic rock albums from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. In fact, I’m the proud owner of the video about Nevermind the Bollocks, an album by a particularly infamous punk band from the 70’s…

Anyway, what is great about this series, as well as other series like it, is that the artists themselves, or people close to the production of the album talk about how it came about. They talk about everything from the story behind the songs to how they were written and recorded. What this does, of course, is makes us appreciate the album and songs that much more, because we get a whole extra dimension to the work.

Obviously, for all of its novelty, this isn’t the first series to do something like this…in fact, this is just one example of a much more respected tradition. After all, musicians and music historians have travelled the world, and pored through documents trying to piece together the stories behind certain pieces of music and their composers. Like the “Classic Album” series, the work of such people offers a new depth to the music.

Now, certainly we could say the same thing about writers, artists and almost any other thing in the world. But the reason I mention music first is because, as it turns out, the largest part of our Gospel reading today happens to be a song—one which you might have recognized from our prayer book as the Magnificat.

The reason it’s in our prayer book is because it is one of a number of ancient songs used in Early Church worship called canticles; and all of them but one (the Te Deum) are taken directly from Scripture. In fact, the Magnificat, is one of the eight most ancient Christian hymns, and is likely the earliest Marian hymn.

Now while this song only appears in Luke’s Gospel, it is reflective in form of the hymns of praise in the Psalter, and has a similar structure to pre-Christian, contemporary Jewish hymns. The Magnificat also has some allusions to the Song of Hannah (the Prophet Samuel’s mother) in the First Book of Samuel—a song likewise offered by a woman surprised and thankful to be a mother.

And while scholars are not really sure whether or not Mary actually composed and sang this song, Luke’s Gospel has her almost prophetically proclaiming the hope and promise that the Child Jesus portends. So, in a sense, we see here a kind of back story to the Magnificat beginning to emerge.

However, there is a whole lot more to the context of this song than just what we’re given in the earlier section of this first chapter of Luke’s Gospel. Because if we were to add in all of the contextual background to this canticle, we would definitely have quite a picture of what this canticle means for all of us.

Without going all the way back to Genesis, we already know that things went bad in Creation at some point. We also know that from the various stories, both good and bad, that God continued to call humanity back to right, loving relationship with God. From kings, queens, prophets, judges, priests and soldiers—even a donkey, we’ve heard the call of God to God’s People to return and be made whole. And among these people were questionable, and even shady characters—but all of them played their part in bringing to fruition the promise that God made to Creation, to Abraham, to Moses, to David, to Isaiah, to Joel, to Micah and all of those many people waiting in exile.

What’s interesting is that Matthew’s Gospel reminds us that even some of those questionable characters were even ancestors to Jesus—at one point even mentioning that King Solomon was the son of King David and Bethsheba, the wife of Uriah (ouch.).

 But even in the stark honesty that surrounds it, we see how Mary’s song is one of triumph and hope. Because just as it is in our lives today, there is a whole lot of good and bad that come together to make us who we are now, even  in this moment. What this affirms for us then is not only the incarnation of all that makes us who we are, but is also the confirmation that we also participate in this song with Mary, and it becomes our song as well.

It becomes our song in so far as we as Christians participate in the history and story from which this song emerges. As the Body of Christ, we are adopted by this history of God’s people, Israel to become part of this continuing work of salvation that is initiated in Jesus Christ.

Of course, this is to say nothing of how the Magnificat is the song of our humanity as well. Because as we share a common heritage in our race’s parents, we also share in the perfection of humanity that is Jesus—and so, it is out our diverse histories and experiences that we join Mary in giving praise to God for the promise of Jesus Christ—the one who is our hope and  our salvation.

But along with this commonality in humanity and hope that we find with Mary, we also find our own places in the continuing salvation history of God. In effect, as we claim our own salvation in Jesus Christ, and claim our common history with God’s people, we find that our own personal story becomes inter-woven with the story of Mary, even the story of Jesus, and of course the whole story of God. So that in the end, what we find in learning about the back story of the the Song of Mary, is much of our own story.

Because the back story to the Magnificat, is the story of God’s promises being fulfilled through Israel. It’s a story of God’s salvation being drawn like a thread through history using some unlikely characters. It’s a story which manifests in the center of time, but illumines all of time. Because the story of Mary’s Magnificat is the story of humanity. It is our reminder and call to always hold fast to hope, because God is faithful. And it’s our reminder that each of us plays our part in bringing about hope in this world as we work to continue Christ’s work of salvation in the world.