I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself though as we are still in the season of Advent. Advent is often described as a season of waiting, but what if the real question isn’t whether we’re waiting, but where we’re waiting? This week, I want to listen closely to Mary’s song and her unsettling claim that God looks with favour on the lowly. Not the impressive. Not the powerful. The lowly.

As we trace Mary’s story and song, we’ll explore why God so often seems to meet people not at their strongest, but at their most exposed, and why that truth is both comforting and deeply disrupts the stories we tell about ourselves.