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It's almost here, isn't it: Christmas! Can you believe Christmas is just four days away! Are you ready? Of course, all of us are ready, aren't we? After all, we've been getting ready for weeks! The Christmas lights are on the house, the light-up plastic Frosty the Snowman is on the lawn. A fresh wreath is hanging from the door. The tree's up, the presents wrapped, Christmas cards mailed. Everything's ready, isn't it? Or, if it isn't, it will be soon. Because Christmas is just four days away.

Christmas being close, you may have come to church expecting a Christmas message. You may have expected to sing your favorite carols to familiar tunes, nice and loudly, in the "key of free." But, that's not going to happen today. Because we're still in Advent, the period of preparation. We need to be careful not to rush the birth of the Child.

So, on this Fourth Sunday of Advent, we consider the assigned readings. The little story about Mary and Elizabeth seems pleasant enough, doesn't it? We can imagine the two pregnant women, cousins, meeting in Elizabeth's country home in the hills of Judea. We can picture their excited, loving embrace. There's that lovely touch: the baby leaping in Elizabeth's womb on meeting Jesus as his greeting to Jesus. Finally, at the end of the passage, Mary breaks forth in magnificent song.

It's heartwarming, isn't it? Or is it? This morning, let's take a hard look at Mary's situation and Mary's song. They may not be as idyllic as they seem.

I wonder, first, if we don't over-sentimentalize Mary. We tend to think of her, in the words of an old hymn, as "Gentle Mary, meek and mild, (who) look(s) upon her little child." Words like "blessed," "Virgin Mother," and "kind" come to mind.

Think about the ways Mary is portrayed. I once checked a Roman Catholic religious articles store for images of Mary. The store had dozens of Marys in stock. I quizzed the clerk. In every single case, Mary is young and slim (no Ultra-Slimfast diet for her!). She's peaceful and beatific. She usually comes with a halo (which, the clerk told me, was detachable). Every Mary in the store has brown hair and blue eyes. Every Mary. The clerk told me all their Marys are made in Northern Italy. Apparently, most people there have brown hair and blue eyes.

Now, Mary may well have been all of the above (except brown-haired and blue-eyed; Mary was Semitic). But, if Mary was serene and peaceful, it was in spite of, not because of her lot in life. Mary's life was a mess.

She was poor. She was young, fourteen, maybe. She was uneducated. She was pregnant out-of-wedlock. Her fiance had lurking suspicions about her pregnancy. Her mother and father aren't mentioned at all. Maybe Mary's parents were embarrassed. Maybe that's why Mary went out of town, without Joseph, for three months, to visit her cousin.

Philip Yancey writes: "Nine months of awkward explanations, the lingering scent of scandal -- it seems God arranged the most humiliating circumstances possible for [Jesus'] entrance, as if to avoid any charge of favoritism." He continues, "I am impressed that when the Son of God became a human being, he played by the rules, harsh rules: small towns do not treat kindly young boys who grow up with questionable paternity" (The Jesus I Never Knew, Zondervan Publishing House, p. 30).

Poverty, scandal, questions at home, Roman oppression abroad, the anxieties of a first-time pregnancy, morning sickness, mood swings, crazy cravings. Then, giving birth in a stable, surrounded by animals, far away from home, with no midwives or female relatives in attendance. Mary's life wasn't peaceful. It was a mess.

But in the midst of Mary's mess, there was a Message. A reminder that God particularly chooses and uses the lowliest and least. A reminder of how God selected elderly, childless Abraham and made him the father of great nations. Of how God chose Moses, a verbally-challenged, "not our kind," never-quite-fit-in-at-the-palace, hot-tempered murderer turned shepherd, and made him the deliverer of God's people. Of how God picked a quarrelsome, rag-tag collection of slaves with an attitude problem to be God's Chosen Ones. Of how God selected the little town of Bethlehem to be the birthplace of the Messiah. God has been lifting up the least and last for a very long time.

Then, in the most astonishing reversal of all, the great God who made everything became almost nothing. Philip Yancey writes again:

... The Maker of all things shrank down, down, down, so small as to become an ovum, a single fertilized egg barely visible to the naked eye, an egg that would divide and redivide until a fetus took shape, enlarging cell by cell inside a nervous teenager ... God emerged in Palestine as a baby who could not speak or eat solid food or control his bladder, who depended on a teenager for shelter, food and love.
-- The Jesus I Never Knew, p. 36

Mary realized that God chooses and uses what is least, lowly and little: like her! When she understood this, she forgot her worries and began to sing:

My soul [glorifies] magnifies the Lord ... For [God] has looked with favor on the lowliness of [God's] servant ... [God] has shown strength with [God's] arm ... [God] has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; [God] has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty ...
-- Luke 1:46-48a, 51-53 NRSV

Mary's song is Good News for the "least" among us: for the homeless man sleeping in a shelter; for families with no health insurance who wait in line at a clinic; for the five million Americans who spend over half their pretax income on housing -- often substandard; for the father who works two minimum-wage jobs and the mother who works another to provide for their kids. It's Good News for the thirteen million hungry children in America; 1.4 million in Massachusetts.

"God will lift up the lowly. God will fill the hungry with good things." If you're hungry, homeless, or hurting, then Mary's song is Good News for you!

But is Mary's song Good News for most of us here this morning? I wonder. Mary's Song is a very scary song to me. Listen again: "[God] has shown strength with [God's] arm, [God] has scattered the proud ... [God] has brought down the powerful ... and lifted up the lowly; [God] has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty."

James Harnish tells the story of a tourist in the Holy Land who bought a ceramic nativity set in Bethlehem. As he was boarding the plane for his return flight to America, the tourist was stopped by a security guard. The guard looked through his luggage, and asked him to unpack the nativity set.

The tourist took out the figures of Mary and Joseph, the angels, the shepherds, the Wise Men and the Baby Jesus. The guard insisted on putting each figure through an x-ray machine.

"Why?" the tourist asked. "It's a ceramic nativity set, after all!" The guard answered, "Ah, these figures could contain explosives." (An Explosion of Joy, December 24, 1996, Tampa, Florida). How right he was!

We Americans are "sitting pretty at the top of the world's economic pyramid" (James F. Kay, Christian Century, December 10, 1997, p. 1157). We are seven percent of the world's population and own 49 percent of the world's wealth. We are a nation that obsesses over being overweight, while one-third of the children in Asia and half the children in Africa suffer from malnutrition. On the average, each of us here this morning has an annual income equal to that of 58 Haitians. We are the richest, most powerful, and most well-off people that ever lived.

So, for us, Mary's words are explosive. Mary raises and praises a God who will overturn everything. We who are so comfortable on top are in danger of ending up on the bottom. No wonder John the Baptist, no friend of the status quo, leapt for joy in his mother's womb when Jesus came near.

Mary doesn't sing the Magnificat with malice. She's still gentle. But, Mary is not "meek and mild." Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, this poor, uneducated, pregnant-out-of-wedlock teenager tells it like it is. She reminds us of a theme that runs throughout the Bible: God's justice. That God is coming. That God will balance the scales and right all the wrongs.

So, do we dare sing Mary's song with Mary? Frankly, it's not easy for me. I have a comfortable home, two cars, a good job, health insurance, and a pension plan. I have enough food to eat to meet my needs. And, probably more than is good for me. Mary's song is "so pointed it sticks in my throat," wrote James Kay recently in Christian Century magazine (December 10, 1997). I know what he means. Most of us would prefer a nice, quiet Christmas carol, something soothing, like "Silent Night, Holy Night," over Mary's Magnificat. We don't want to hear a freedom song that threatens our comfortable world.

Still, I know in my heart that God inspired the Magnificat. I know in my heart that the great reversal will come. I know in my heart that I must begin to learn it and, more importantly, to live out what Mary sings.

It's unfamiliar to me. Fortunately, we have Mary to lead us. Like Mary, who was poor, you and I can learn to recognize the poor. They're around us. But we often prefer not to see them. Like Mary, who felt her lowliness, we can learn of our lowliness: the things we have done, the good things we have left undone, that have created pain and suffering for others.

Like Mary, who stood for the poor, we can learn to stand with and for the poor. You and I can feed the hungry and clothe the naked and shelter the homeless. A lot of that we can do right through our church. And if we can no longer do it ourselves, we can pray for those, and support those, and fund those who serve the poor for us. And not just at Christmas, when giving is easy, but all year. With Mary as our model, we can recognize how much the poor like her have to teach us. They have so much to give, if we would only get close and let them give.

So, sing your freedom song, Mary. Sing it loud and sing it strong, and we'll do our best to follow. Ultimately, your song is for, not against, us. We who sit up high and comfortable need to be knocked down before we can be lifted up. We need to be confronted with the truth before we can begin to change. We need to see how poor we are in spirit before we can ever become rich in giving. And we, too, need to be set free: free from an obsession with possessions. We need the freedom to care and the freedom to share.

So, let's take Mary's song to heart and try to live it. Let's let the great reversal be in our hearts and in our lives, now, before God's Great Reversal comes. Then maybe, just maybe, we will be ready for Christmas. Ready to welcome the Christ Child, who came to us poor, who stands for the poor and for the poor in spirit, like those of us who are hoping to change.