“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour…”

You can get over-familiar with sacred texts. They can become like unrestored old master paintings, covered in a dark brown layer of varnish – beautiful in a safe, decorous way; familiar, unchallenging. I’d like to remove a bit of the varnish this morning, by focusing on that word “rejoices”. It is the usual translation of a Greek word which is a whole lot stronger and gutsier than “rejoices” might suggest. This is not restrained, dignified rejoicing – this is the letting out of a yell of joy, an unrestrained cry of exultation. “My spirit whoops for joy at God my Saviour”. And suddenly we see not a serenely meek Raphael Madonna, but a big-hearted, full-blooded teenage girl shouting “Yay!” and punching the air in delight. 

And I use the word “Yay!” advisedly, for the reason that we focus on Mary when we celebrate the fourth Sunday in Advent is that she said “Yes” to God, was willing to accept the consequences and received the Grace and the strength which empowered her to say “yay!”

That is astonishing, when you consider Mary’s position at that moment in her life. Mysteriously pregnant in a society in which women who conceived children out of wedlock risked being stoned to death. Uncertain of the future, not yet knowing the strange, terrible, heartbreakingly surprising dance that her unborn son would lead her in – to the foot of the cross, to the empty tomb and beyond. Yet she speaks as though God’s saving work is already accomplished – piling past tense upon past tense…

“He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.” 

That repeated use of the past tense offers us a clue as to why Mary was able to say a full-throated “yes” to God’s purposes for her. She had been brought up in the Jewish faith. She was practiced in prayer. She was familiar with the Hebrew scriptures – the Magnificat riffs on the Song of Hannah in the first book of Samuel and also on Psalm 113 which includes this verse:

“He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap…”

This context of faith and devotion helped her to assent to God’s purpose for her. It was a context of faith in which it was possible to tell her story to Elizabeth knowing that she would get a sympathetic hearing rather than condemnation and scornful rejection.

That is the context that we seek to sustain in this place, aware that our beliefs and practices are not as widely shared in this country as they were sixty years ago. While we aren’t in the perilous situation in which Mary found herself as a result of saying yes to God’s calling, we do live in a culture where religious belief attracts scorn, ridicule and critical hostility. Yet there are signs that the secularist tide is turning. One of the outstanding podcasts of 2024 was by the Christian commentator Justin Brierley. It’s called The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God and it’s based on a book with the same title. It explores the ways in which the militant atheism of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and others which was very influential in the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11 has given way to a more thoughtful and receptive attitude to religious belief and the fact that Christianity is attracting new converts among the educated classes in Britain and the USA who have previously poured scorn on it.

This is encouraging news for us as we seek to share the Gospel; to be “yea sayers” in a culture which still has plenty of “nay sayers” but which is now becoming more receptive to what we have to share. 

Mary’s full-hearted “yes” to God and the “yay” of delight that she expressed in the Magnificat were the responses of an exceptional and saintly person to a supremely important calling. The lesson for us is that her “yes” and her “yay” were possible because her knowledge of scripture and her prayerful life had made her receptive to God’s calling. Those means of cultivating receptivity – prayer and reading the Bible - are open to us. To say “yes” to them can enable us to discern and respond to God’s calling and say “yes” to that. And that in turn will make it possible for our “yes” to become a “yay”.