Minister
Luke 1: 46-55
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There’s a moment in the carol What Child Is This? that almost slips by without us noticing. We tend to focus on the phrases “this, this is Christ the King,” or the pastoral images of shepherds, angels, and fields. But the carol asks a question we sometimes forget to ask in church: What does it mean that Jesus was the Son of Mary?
We talk easily about “Son of God,” or “Son of Man” big theological categories. But “Son of Mary” brings Jesus right back down to earth. It reminds us that before he ever spoke a parable, or healed a wound, or turned over a table in the temple, he was cradled, fed, taught, corrected, comforted, and held by a very human woman who said yes to one of the most precarious invitations a person could receive. And then…astonishingly…she sings. Most of us would not break into song at this moment!
She sings a song of justice, a song of cosmic reversal, a song that praises God while also proclaiming an upturning of the world order. It is a song that both comforts and confronts us.
What kind of child IS this? A child raised by a mother who knew joy and hardship braided tightly together. And that feels honest to me. Because joy, real joy…is not a denial of hardship. It is what rises in us in spite of it, sometimes because of it, and often when we least expect it.
Mary’s joy isn’t naïve. Mary doesn’t sing the Magnificat because everything is easy. She sings because she trusts – somewhere deep in her soul – that God is still at work, even in the messiness of her situation.
Let’s remember her context. Mary is a young, poor, unwed woman in a society where pregnancy outside marriage could have led to abandonment, shame, or death. She is living under oppressive Roman rule. Her people carry generations of trauma. And then she sings:
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour…”
This isn’t Hallmark-card joy. This is defiant joy. Courageous joy. Justice-soaked joy.
It is joy that looks hardship in the face and says, “Nevertheless, God is doing something. And I will dare to rejoice.” And maybe that is the kind of joy we need right now.
It’s not lost on any of us that this Advent arrives during a time when joy feels hard to come by.
Locally, we’re grieving the rising cost of living that forces families out of the city they grew up in. We’ve seen growing encampments, tents popping up in unexpected places, signs that people are falling through every crack the system allows.
In our congregations and extended families, illness, strained relationships, and loss seem to sit a little heavier this year.
Globally, war continues in places like Ukraine, the Middle East, Sudan. Climate events – fires, storms and now flooding again – it feels relentless.
And then, of course, there are the personal griefs each of us carry quietly. Missing someone at the dinner table this year. Relationships ending. Friendships drifting. Careers shifting unexpectedly.
Concerns about our children. Invisible anxieties. Unexpected diagnoses. The “quiet sadness” that we don’t always speak aloud.
Joy doesn’t always feel within reach in times like these. And yet, Mary’s song rises. It rises as a reminder that joy isn’t always about being happy. Joy is often about being awake – awake to God’s presence in the realness of our lives.
Some of you know parts of my story, and others may not. Years ago, when my marriage unexpectedly ended, I remember feeling like joy was something that belonged to other people. I was completely devastated but kept on keeping on. My daughters were not quite 2 and 5 at the time. So I didn’t have a choice – I kept showing up, parenting my children, being the very hands-on Mom that I was, taking care of what needed to be done – but inside I felt disconnected from the spark that used to animate my life.
I remember thinking, Well, maybe this is just what it is now. Maybe joy is something I had once, and now my job is simply to keep going for the sake of the kids and the responsibilities that remain.
But then – unexpectedly – there was this ordinary, unremarkable day when I was with my kids. It was not very long into this new state of my life. We weren’t on a trip. We weren’t doing anything special. I don’t even remember what the joke was. But something struck us funny, and we all burst out laughing – big, uncontrollable laughter and giggles. The kind that leaves your stomach hurting afterwards.
And in the middle of that laughter, it dawned on me: Joy returns. Not because circumstances become perfect. Not because everything is resolved. But because the heart remembers what it’s capable of.
It sneaks in. It grows slowly. It rises through cracks. It surprises us.
And I think Mary, standing at the edge of uncertainty, knows this too. Her song isn’t naïve -it’s rooted in trust that God’s promises do not evaporate when life gets hard. Joy is not cancelled by difficulty.
In fact, joy often springs up right through the difficulty, like new green shoots through dry ground.
Something else Mary teaches us is that joy isn’t separate from justice. The Magnificat is not a gentle lullaby. It is a bold declaration that the world is going to change:
“God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly…”
Mary imagines a world where the hungry are fed, the marginalized empowered, and oppressive systems dismantled. Her joy isn’t personal satisfaction – it’s rooted in the vision of a world remade by love.
Which means that for us, joy isn’t meant to be hoarded. Joy is meant to fuel us. To motivate our compassion. To push us toward generosity and kindness in a world that desperately needs it.
Consider the countless people in our local community who extend joy through acts of justice every single day:
We sometimes think joy is a private emotion, but Mary shows us that joy is also a public act, a refusal to let despair have the final word.
There is an important distinction to make: Joy is not the same as being cheerful. Cheerfulness comes and goes. It depends on how we slept, what the news says, whether traffic was annoying, whether our family is getting along.
Joy is deeper. Joy is what remains underneath the waves of life. Joy is what steadies us even when we can’t muster a smile. Joy is the conviction that God is in the story, that love is stronger than fear, that hope is still alive even when it is quiet.
One of the most powerful things Mary teaches us is that joy doesn’t wait for everything to be okay. Joy can exist while we are grieving, while we are afraid, while we are rebuilding our lives. Joy doesn’t erase hardship; it holds us through it.
Where Is Joy Showing Up Today? If we look closely, joy is showing up all around us, even now, even here:
Joy is not blind to the brokenness of the world. Joy sees it, and sings anyway.
So what does it really mean to say that Jesus is the Son of Mary?
It means that Jesus is shaped by a woman who knew hardship, who lived under occupation, who said yes to a future she didn’t fully understand, who trusted God enough to risk her life and her reputation, and who sang joy into being long before she knew what the road ahead would hold.
It means that the One we follow was nurtured in a household where joy and struggle were intertwined, where trust was not theoretical but lived, and where love was not gentle sentiment but courageous action.
It means that Jesus comes to us not as someone detached from human experience, but as someone born into it, held by arms that trembled, raised in a home that likely had more questions than answers, taught by a mother whose faith gave her the strength to sing in difficult times.
What child is this?
A child whose very existence says that joy is possible in impossible circumstances.
A child who grows into a man committed to lifting up the lowly, feeding the hungry, healing the wounded, and proclaiming that love is stronger than any empire.
A child who invites us, even now, to practice that same courageous joy, in our world, in our communities, and in our lives.
So how can we proclaim a deep joy “in spite of” hardship in our time?
We start small. We start honestly. We start by noticing moments of grace.
We proclaim joy by showing up for each other. By singing even when our voices crack. By laughing again after seasons of heartbreak. By remembering that joy does not depend on everything being perfect.
We proclaim joy by working for justice, feeding the hungry, advocating for the vulnerable, caring for the earth, standing with the marginalized. Mary’s joy was not separate from her hope for justice, and neither is ours.
We proclaim joy by trusting that God is still moving in our lives, even in the moments when we feel lost or weary.
And we proclaim joy by believing that – just like that day with my kids – joy will return. It may come quietly. It may take time. It may surprise us in the middle of something ordinary. But it returns.
As we move deeper into this Advent season, may we hold onto Mary’s kind of joy:
A joy that is honest.
A joy that is courageous.
A joy that is shaped by God’s vision for the world.
A joy that rises, not because life is easy, but because God is near.
May we remember that even in our hardest seasons, joy is not gone. It waits for us. It emerges when we least expect it. It holds us through the night, and then invites us to sing again in the morning.
This, this is Christ the King, the Son of Mary, the child of joy, justice, and hope.
Amen.