More about this series

Each Advent season, Christian communities return to Mary’s song, often called the “Magnificat” because of the first word in its Latin translation: Magníficat anima mea Dominum (“My soul magnifies the Lord”). It’s a kind of chorus for the church, an annual refrain: an angel visits an ordinary young woman, gives her good news of great joy – and she lifts her voice to sing!

Advent means “coming” or “arrival.” It’s a season of anticipation, of actively waiting and preparing for Jesus to arrive, and to usher in a new world. In Bethlehem, yes, and also everywhere else, too, including our homes, our lives, our neighborhoods. Mary’s song, then, is about that day long ago; and it’s also about all of us, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. 

The Christian year begins with this four-week season of looking ahead. You might think we’d kick off the new year with the trumpets of Easter, the wonders of Christmas Eve, or the fires of Pentecost – but instead we start deep in the shadows of despair, war, sorrow, and hate. For it’s precisely there, after all, that God has promised to arrive – and so it’s precisely there that God’s church is called to light candles of hope, peace, joy, and love.

Our candles might seem small at first. And they are. Like all great journeys, transformations often proceed with small steps, little by little. One candle lights another. And as those lights gather and shine, with Mary, we can magnify them: notice them, extol them, lift them up for all to see. That’s what “magnify” means – and that’s what Advent means, too. It means gathering, and singing, and together becoming a great Magnificat.

For Mary doesn’t sing alone. She sings with Hannah, and Elizabeth, and Miriam, and Shiphrah, and Puah, and Rizpah, and Ruth – and all the other people who magnificently “magnify” God’s mission of love and grace, generation after generation, blazing the trail to Christmas morning and beyond. In this Advent devotional, we’ll focus on a few of those magnificent women who cleared the way for Mary, and who can inspire all of us to join in the song of God's salvation, where the lowly are lifted up, the mighty are brought down from their thrones, and the hungry are filled with good things.