Some years ago I taught a class during Advent on the mother of Jesus. called "There's Something about Mary" (I may need to reprise that sometime here at IPC.) During the class we looked at how Mary has been portrayed in art and in music:

"Gentle Mary meekly bowed her head," according to one hymn.

"Gentle Mary" laid her child in a manger, says another. "In the Bleak Midwinter" speaks of the "maiden's bliss."

"Mary was that mother mild," we sing in "Once in Royal David's City."

Ah, gentle Mary—mild, meek, the handmaiden of the Lord, head bowed in reverence. Can't you see her there on so many paintings, stained glass windows, icons and Christmas cards?

There's certainly scriptural support for this view of a demure mother of Jesus. When Mary asks. "How will it be that this child will come to me'?" the angel answers, "the power of the Most High will overshadow you." It's that word, overshadow. Gentle Mary, meek and mild, will be diminished even further by God's power, who will overshadow her.

But then... there's this song.

It's an improvisation of the song Hannah sings in the Old Testament after the birth of her son Samuel. But it is not a sweet lullaby. It is a battle cry, bold and defiant.

God 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.

Does that sound meek and mild to you?

- MaryAnn McKibben Dana, "A Holy 'No,'" a sermon on Luke 1:39-55, in response to the Newtown massacre, 12/16/12, published in A Good Word, an e-book edited by Landon Whitsitt, 2012, p. 160.