Mary's Upside-Down Song

Mary did not stay home long after the angel left. She hurried south, out of Nazareth and into the hill country of Judah, to her cousin Elizabeth's house. (That was several days of walking, mostly uphill, with the biggest secret in the world and no one to tell.)

Gabriel had said that old Elizabeth, who had never been able to have children, was going to have a baby too. Mary wanted to see that for herself.

She came through the door calling, "Elizabeth! Hello!"

At the sound of Mary's voice, the baby inside Elizabeth leaped. Filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth shouted.

"God has blessed you more than any other woman, and he has blessed the child you will have! Why would the mother of my Lord come to visit me? The moment I heard you say hello, my baby jumped for joy!"

That baby would grow up to be John the Baptist. (Before he was even born, he was already jumping for Jesus.)

Old Zechariah could not join in. He had doubted an angel's message, and he had not said one word since. He nodded a great deal.

"You believed God," Elizabeth told Mary, "and everything he promised you is going to happen."

Then Mary sang. (Turn a cup upside down, and whatever was at the bottom ends up on top. Mary sang about God doing that to the whole world.)

"My heart is singing how great the Lord is.
I am glad all the way through
in God, who came to save me.
He looked at me, his servant girl,
a poor girl from a poor town,
and he did not look away.
From now on, every family in every year to come
will call me blessed,
because the Mighty One has done great things for me.
Holy is his name!

His kindness goes on and on,
year after year,
for everyone who honors him.

He has stretched out his strong arm.
The proud and their clever plans
he has scattered.
He has pulled kings down off their thrones
and lifted the lowly up.
He has filled hungry people with good things
and sent the rich away with nothing in their hands.

He has helped his people Israel.
He remembered to be kind,
just as he promised our fathers long ago,
Abraham and his children, forever."

Mary sang it all as if it had already happened. She was that sure of God.

She stayed with Elizabeth about three months, then walked home to Nazareth.

But when Mary got home, nothing in the world had flipped over yet. Caesar sat on his throne in Rome, King Herod sat on his in Jerusalem, and hungry children still went to bed hungry. Mary's song was waiting for someone to sing it with his whole life.

The baby she carried grew up and did. He looked at his followers and told them, "Happy are you who are hungry now, because you will be filled." A rich young man walked away from him sad, holding on to his money and nothing else.

Then the King Gabriel had promised went lower than anyone has ever gone. He died on a cross. On the third day God lifted him up out of the grave and above every throne. The lowly one lifted up was Mary's own son, Jesus.