Structure and Literary Form
CHAPTER 4 Luke 1:39 – 56
IV. Mary’s praise of God for his mighty intervention for Israel (1:52 – 55)
3. Liberation
The pregnant Mary anticipates Christ’s birth with some fiery political theology — potentates tossed from thrones, the haughty humbled, the rich made bankrupt, the lowly exalted, and the hungry fed. These words from Jesus' mother should keep this baby from simply being gazed upon and adored. They create disturbing ripples that rock the placid waters of the comfortable who think all is right with the world, with God safely tucked away in heaven and oblivious to injustice on earth. Through Mary we hear the insistent voice of the marginalized ringing out a challenge from on high to those entrenched in their seemingly impregnable seats of temporal power.
Mary’s words prepare for Jesus' announcement of good news for the poor (4:18 – 19) and his beatitudes for the poor, hungry, and weeping (6:20 – 21) and the woes on the rich, well-fed, and laughing (6:24 – 25). They make clear that God opposes the powerful who set themselves up as lords and the status quo that grinds the faces of the poor in the dust. As Gail O’Day states, “These songs can only be sung with full impact by people who are not part of the dominant social structure, by people who know what it is to be oppressed and who know that the present social systems are bankrupt of hope… these songs are songs of defiance and thanksgiving.”36 Farris comments, “Only ‘he who is down need fear no fall,’ and only he who is objectively of ‘low estate’ will rejoice that God has reversed human fortunes.” But he notes that interpreting the song as referring “only to the political and economic revolution of the oppressed masses… ignores the stereotyped OT nature of the language.”37
Mary’s words should not be taken as warrant for the more radical approaches found in contemporary liberation theology that puts the spiritual message second to economic and political upheaval and sanctions violence.
Yet neither are these verses simply to be spiritualized. Farris remarks,
“These verses are meaningful not only because they reverberate with the language of the revered tradition.”38 The oppressed expect their lot to be bettered. In the Old Testament narrative, Israel’s liberation from captivity in Egypt is followed by the imperative to root out injustice in all its forms.
God’s purpose is not to kick out the rogues and replace them with a new set of rogues, as if to replace one “-archy” with another (e.g., patriarchy with matriarchy, etc.). It is to transform rogues into those who do good to their neighbors.
As Green correctly recognizes, Mary’s hymn of praise has God as the subject of the verbs. It is therefore not “a revolutionary call to human action but a celebration of God’s action. Indeed, God’s dramatic work is against those who would take power into their own hands.”39 This does not mean that God’s actions do not require human response. Mary responds with faith to the announcement that God is acting, and then she follows through with obedience.
1. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, 347.
2. Richard J. Dillon, “The Benedictus in Micro- and Macrocontext,”
CBQ 68 (2006): 457.
3. Robert C. Tannehill, “The Magnificat as Poem,” JBL 93 (1974): 265.
4. Dillon, “Benedictus,” 459 – 60.
5. See Exod 15:1 – 21; Deut 32:1 – 43; Judg 5; 1 Sam 2:1 – 10; 2 Sam 22; 1 Chr 16:8 – 36; Isa 38:9 – 20; Dan 2:20 – 23; Jonah 2:2 – 9.
6. James W. Watts, Psalm and Story: Inset Hymns in Hebrew Narrative (JSOTSup 139; Sheffield: JSOT, 1992), 187.
7. Coleridge, The Birth of the Lukan Narrative, 75. Many have sought to trace the origins of the canticles, a speculative exercise that produces little help for their interpretation.
8. Nolland, Luke, 1:65.
9. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, 341.
10. Rowe, Early Narrative Christology, 44.
11. A textual variant appears in three Old Latin manuscripts that reads,
“and Elizabeth said.” It appears in three Latin versions: a, b, and ms. 1, which was corrected. It also appears in Irenaeus, Niceta, and Jerome’s account of a remark in Origen (see Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (New York: American Bible Society, 1994), 130 – 31).
12. Martin Dibelius, “Jesu in Lukasevangelium,” in Botschaft und Geschichte (T$uU;bingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1953), 14.
13. Stephen Farris, The Hymns of Luke’s Infancy Narratives: Their Origin, Meaning and Significance (JSNTSup 9; Sheffield: JSOT, 1985), 112.
14. For a chart of all the allusions, see Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, 358 – 60.
15. The verb means here to “declare great” rather than “make great” (see Ps 69:30; Hendrickx, The Third Gospel, 1:124).
16. Farris, The Hymns of Luke’s Infancy Narratives, 118.
17. Exod 6:6; Deut 4:34; 5:15; 7:19; 9:29; 11:2; 26:8; 2 Kgs 17:36; Pss 77:15; 136:12; Isa 63:12.
18. Christian L. Mhagama, “God Does the Unexpected,” International Review of Mission 77 (1988): 210.
19. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, 337.
20. Ceslas Spicq, “ ,” TLNT, 3:394.
21. See 1 Sam 2:7 – 8; Job 5:8 – 11; Isa 2:11; 5:15 – 16; Ezek 17:24;
21:25 – 26
22. See Job 12:19; Ezek 21:26; Sir 10:14.
23. Jerome Kodell, “Luke’s Theology of the Death of Jesus,” in Sin, Salvation, and the Spirit (ed. D. Durkin; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1979), 226.
24. Coleridge, The Birth of the Lukan Narrative, 93.
25. From a two-leaved, hinged, wax writing tablet that folded together to protect the wax.
26. See Stanislas Giet, “Un proc$eA;d$eA; litt$eA;raire d’exposition:
l’anticipation chronologique,” Revue des $EAtudes Augustiniennes (1956):
243 – 49, particularly 248.
27. Schweizer, Luke, 42 – 43.
28. Byrne, The Hospitality of God, 18.
29. Farris, The Hymns of Luke’s Infancy Narratives, 125.
30. Strauss, The Davidic Messiah in Luke-Acts, 97.
31. John T. Carroll, Response to the End of History: Eschatology and Situation in Luke-Acts (SBLDS 92; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 43.
32. Coleridge, The Birth of the Lukan Narrative, 91.
33. Rowe, Early Narrative Christology, 45.
34. Ibid., 46 – 47.
35. Paul S. Minear, “Luke’s Use of the Birth Stories,” in Studies in Luke- Acts: Essays Presented in Honor of Paul Schubert (ed. L. E. Keck and J. L.
Martyn; Nashville: Abingdon, 1966), 117 – 18.
36. Gail R. O’Day, “Singing Woman’s Song: A Hermeneutic of Liberation,” CurTM 12 (1985): 210.
37. Farris, The Hymns of Luke’s Infancy Narratives, 124.
38. Ibid.
39. Green, The Gospel of Luke, 100.