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Dear Friends:

As we enter the season of Christmas, we declare with Mary, “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.”  (Luke 1:46-55)
The promise of this season of peace, of joy, and of God and humanity fully reconciled reverberates with our heart’s longing.

The promise of peace and joy are irreversibly intertwined with God’s reign which dawns in the birth of Jesus. That is why Mary’s song rejoices in the overturning of injustice and in God’s faithfulness in restoring the poor and oppressed to wholeness and full participation in God’s beloved community.  The chants of “We are the 99”; the videos of protestors being brutalized in Egypt and Syria; and the faces we see filled with fear in light of the economic uncertainty that grips the globe – all these give contemporary force to the hope present in Mary’s faith in God who “has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; [and] has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.” 

Mary’s song reprises Hannah’s song (I Samuel 2:1-10) – a song uttered as thanksgiving for a reprieve from barrenness.  How strange a song to be found upon the lips of Mary, a young girl who has never tasted the bitterness of years of unrequited longing for a child!  But Mary’s song rises not from her own barrenness but from her identification with Israel’s barrenness.   As she sings, she is Israel longing for redemption.

The good news of Christmas is that the One who chooses a manger for his natal throne; the One who gathers round him shepherds and kings, angels and the beasts of the field is the One who declares God’s new covenant in love with all humanity and creation.  This Child in his maturity will fully identify with us in our barrenness and brokenness.  In his inaugural sermon he will echo the spirit of his mother’s song, not as longing, but as fulfillment of God’s promise to redeem humanity:  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19) 

To all who yearn for God’s reign of love known in peace and justice on earth as in heaven, may the joy of Christ’s coming fill your hearts with hope and with the power of his redemptive love.  

Yours in Christ,

A. Roy Medley, General Secretary
American Baptist Churches USA

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