Advent Devotion: December 12, 2024
Placing Promise
by Amos Disasa
Scripture – Luke 1:50-52 “His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. 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”
Reflection
These words, sung by Mary, are excerpted from the first Christmas carol, a hymn we’ve come to know as The Magnificat.
Still, I think the manner we typically tell the Christmas story does a disservice to the ordinariness of Mary. She is a heroine, but only because she was willing to risk everything: her relationship with her parents, her engagement to Joseph, her stature in the community, and her expectations for the future. Before she was Mary the mother of Christ, she was just Mary; young and afraid, like ordinary people tend to get when it’s announced by an angel that you are pregnant with the fulfillment of a promise.
The promise is that God will use us to bring down the mighty. We were born to give birth to that promise. We are all Mary. The promise that God looks with favor on the lowliness of servants is ours to bear. The promise that the Mighty One has do great things is ours to bear. The promise that God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly is our’s to bear. The promise that God has filled the hungry with good things is ours to bear. We are all Mary, pregnant with promises that God will keep. Today we are reminded that God’s promises can be ignored, but they cannot be changed.
We may think that there are other more likely birth mothers of God’s promise, that we are not one of the descendants forever filled with the potential to scatter the proud and fill the hungry with good things; that creation can’t possibly be praying and waiting on the advent, the arrival, of the promise pregnant within us. But know this: If God is willing to go with ordinary Mary, then I'm confident that inside each of us ordinary people is an extra-ordinary gift that’s powerful enough to magnify the work of God
Placing Promise
by Amos Disasa
Scripture – Luke 1:50-52 “His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. 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”
Reflection
These words, sung by Mary, are excerpted from the first Christmas carol, a hymn we’ve come to know as The Magnificat.
Still, I think the manner we typically tell the Christmas story does a disservice to the ordinariness of Mary. She is a heroine, but only because she was willing to risk everything: her relationship with her parents, her engagement to Joseph, her stature in the community, and her expectations for the future. Before she was Mary the mother of Christ, she was just Mary; young and afraid, like ordinary people tend to get when it’s announced by an angel that you are pregnant with the fulfillment of a promise.
The promise is that God will use us to bring down the mighty. We were born to give birth to that promise. We are all Mary. The promise that God looks with favor on the lowliness of servants is ours to bear. The promise that the Mighty One has do great things is ours to bear. The promise that God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly is our’s to bear. The promise that God has filled the hungry with good things is ours to bear. We are all Mary, pregnant with promises that God will keep. Today we are reminded that God’s promises can be ignored, but they cannot be changed.
We may think that there are other more likely birth mothers of God’s promise, that we are not one of the descendants forever filled with the potential to scatter the proud and fill the hungry with good things; that creation can’t possibly be praying and waiting on the advent, the arrival, of the promise pregnant within us. But know this: If God is willing to go with ordinary Mary, then I'm confident that inside each of us ordinary people is an extra-ordinary gift that’s powerful enough to magnify the work of God
