By Garrett Vickrey
Luke 1:46b-55
Be convicted. We need this song of Mary. We need it before we give another gift. Before we shop for that last gift. Before we meet at the manger.
We need to be reminded by Mary of what this season is all about. We need to be reminded that the best start to the Advent season is not Black Friday but Thanksgiving. If we start with thanks rather than the entitlement mentality of the consumerist craze of the buy more, care less culture, then we put ourselves in the right posture to receive the hope, peace, joy, and love of the Advent Season is all about.
Chances are we’ve fallen off the advent bandwagon at some point and we need to remember Christmas through the eyes of Mary… or the shepherds. Christmas isn’t about your family. Christmas isn’t about your kids. It’s not about your church. It’s about the light of the world—the one true God coming to us in the flesh.
Mary’s song reminds us that Christmas is for the hungry. Those who don’t have enough to eat. Those who don’t have a roof over their head. The poor and oppressed. Christmas is for people hungry for meaning and purpose. People hungry for a place in this world. That’s all of us at some point. But, the Christmas story reminds us that it was only the hungry who showed up at the manger.
If you are going to Bethlehem this Christmas show up hungry. The only road into town goes by the lepers and day laborers watching the fields. They need your coat. They need a couple dollars for a sandwich. And we need their hunger… for justice and for a savior.
Our souls will magnify the Lord when we give like he does.