This week, in preparation for a series of Christmas messages my husband and I are doing at church, I have been studying the song of Mary, found in Luke 1:46-55.

Did you know that when William Temple was Archbishop of Canterbury (1942-1944)  he instructed missionaries in India never to read this passage, called the Magnificat, aloud in public whenever unbelievers were present, because in a country like India, with its caste system and poverty, this portion of Scripture, taken out of context, could cause an uprising?

So, what was it that was so revolutionary about this song, sung by a poor young Jewish maiden?

Somehow, Mary knew that the birth of her son would turn the world upside down, and she describes some of these revolutionary changes in her song.

Listen to these words (Luke 1:51-53):

"He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.  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."

The coming of Christ upsets the proud of this world.  It lifts up the humble.  And the gospel goes out first to the poor, the hungry, the needy, the hurting, the homeless, the forgotten people of the world.

Jesus' coming would revolutionize the world, by transforming lives, one life at a time.

And God chose to begin this revolution in the most unlikely of places with the most unlikely of people.  He didn't choose to send Jesus as a conqueror to Rome.  He didn't choose to send him as a king to the Temple in Jerusalem.  Instead, He chose to send him as a baby, born in an obscure village.

Jesus took a lowly, downtrodden girl, and raised her up to receive the highest possible honor a Jewish woman could hope to attain.  Jewish couples fantasized that they might one day parent the long-awaited Messiah.  But God didn't choose a rich family, or one well-established in Jewish society.  He chose what was probably the most unlikely person one could think of for this honor, a poor young teen, stigmatized by her illigitimate pregnancy.

And with this humble, insignificant birth, the world's greatest revolutionary was born!  The world may not have realized it, but this was the beginning of a revolution that would turn the world head over heels!  Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

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