Previously: Benches
One of my favorite books that I’ve read this year is Hell Is A World Without You by Jason Kirk. It chronicles the exploits of a group of evangelical teenagers in the early 2000s as they navigate faith issues, questions, and relationships. I recognize the experiences from my own brief stint in evangelical circles, which happened around the same time frame: the guilt, the judgment, the insulated culture. In that sense, it’s very well-written.
In a later chapter, the youth group is getting ready to put on their annual Christmas pageant. The girl playing Mary begins to recite the Magnificat, Mary’s prayer of praise from Luke 1:46-55:
And Mary said, “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. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
In the story, our actress makes it as far as the part about bringing down the powerful and sending the rich away empty before she stops and asks, “Wait, Mary said that? Since when?” This inspires a short conversation about how much of the Bible calls out wealthy people for not acting faithfully or generously with what they have, and the contrast between that and what many members of their church believe and how they behave. This finally causes another character to remark, “So that’s why pageant Mary never gets any lines.”
Many stories that we tell during Advent and Christmas have edges to them that, if read with all the filters removed, can be discomforting. This includes Mary’s speech, the paranoia and violent intentions of those in power, the declarations that John the Baptist makes in the wilderness, the difficult journeys of Mary and Joseph, the roughness of the manger scene. There is so much of this story that doesn’t actually lend itself well to the relatively comfortable existence of those who gather to watch pageants depicting these events, most of those edges removed or sanded down.
It can be quite the task to recapture the scandal and challenge of the season. And yet to sit with what Mary and the others are trying to tell us is to begin to understand why it matters.
If you enjoyed this reflection, check out my Advent book, Four Weeks: Reflections for Advent.
Jeffrey A. Nelson 