I want you to take a moment and thing about the good news that we call the nativity story. We all know what it means right? It’s a story that not only forms the basis of our Christian understanding of Christmas, but also finds itself embedded into western culture in a superficial way. It’s not often that we acknowledge that the entirety of the narrative is counter cultural – not only for the time when it happens but also for our time as well. The messiah is born turning everything upside down, and everything happens in places we’d never expect. A teen girl, pregnant under mysterious and seemingly impossible circumstances, says “yes” to an angel who offers her God’s life-disrupting dream. A young man, confused by the situation he finds himself in, says “yes” to God even when his actions, will go against the cultural and family norms of his time. And the Messiah is born in a stable, nestled in hay, surrounded by the noise and smell of animals in a remote unimportant village.
Nothing of this story is as we would expect. Everything about Jesus’ birth pushes back against what the world values – power, prestige, control, strength. Instead, God chooses to enter human form thereby choosing the smallest, most fragile form for love.
This is what Mary sings about in her song of revolutionary joy – otherwise known as the Magnificat. It is a song that has inspired generations of faithful disciples to hold onto hope amid the chaos of life. Here, in the presence of her cousin Elizabeth, Mary sings of a God that lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry, scatters the proud and upends every assumption about who or what matters. Her joy is not naïve… it is rooted in her trust in God, in the songs and stories of her ancestors, in a daring joy that defies the broken systems of the world.
And what is at the heart of this risky joy?
Love
A love that comes in the form of a tiny infant.
A love that is nurtured as a child.
A love that grows into a radical, boundary breaking justice and inclusion.
A love that is the core of discipleship.
This is a love that refuses to be contained by limits – not by ability or economic status, not by gender expression and sexual orientation, not by race or ethnicity. This is the kind of love and joy that sees the God spark in every neighbour, transforming the world one small act at a time.
You won’t be shocked to hear that this is the kind of love Fred Rogers embodied every time he appeared on our TV screens. You could argue Fred Rogers lived and taught a Magnificat shaped faith in his quiet, unassuming interactions with the world’s children. Michael Long, who wrote the book Peaceful Neighbour, describes Rogers as “quietly counter cultural” in the way he used his gentle demeanor and his focus on kindness and emotional understanding as tools of resistance. In the book The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers, the author points out that Rogers understood his vocation in the world to be that of love, specifically to “let every person know they are loved and capable of loving.” He knew deep down that joy comes not from circumstances or possessions but rather from connection – joy grows in the holy act of seeing and being seen. “What changes the world,” Mr. Rogers once said, “is the idea that love can abound and be shared.”
The United States in the 1960s saw the Civil Rights Movement exposing the cruelty of racism, segregation, and race-based violence, and the country was in an uproar of division. So, in 1968, when Mr. Roger’s Neighbourhood premiered on public television, in the midst of this civil rights uprising and on the cusp of the Vietnam war, Fred Rogers had to make a decision as to how to deal with the issues not only of his nation but of the world. Thankfully, he and his team did not ignore the issues of the world, but instead decided to face them head on using his quiet, kind, revolutionary ways.
From the very start of Mr. Roger’s Neighbourhood a character named Officer Clemmons was a regular member of the cast. And who did Fred Rogers choose to play this character? A Black, and as it happens, gay man. A black man as a TV police officer long before this was anywhere near socially acceptable or even safe. In 1969, when Black Americans were still being barred from public pools or forced out of pools due to intentional over chlorination, Fred Rogers decided to write a scene for his children’s show that made a bold declaration.
On a hot afternoon in the Neighbourhood, Mister Rogers is outside cooling his bare feet in a wading pool and as Officer Clemmons passes by, Mr Rogers invites Clemmons to cool his feet with him. Two men – one black, one white – sitting side by side with bare feet in shallow cool water. Fred even offered to share his towel with Officer Clemmons.
A simple scene – at least to our 2025 eyes – but for a time when black folk and white folk couldn’t swim together let along use the same water fountain, this scene held an action that shouted “this is what love looks like.” And love, when it crosses the boundaries we set up, sparks joy – holy and dangerous. Rogers and Clemmons reenacted this same pool scene 24 years later as a way to ensure a new generation received the same lesson on welcome and love.
This is Magnificat Joy – joy that stands against injustice and makes room for all.
In the mid 1990s, Esquire magazine ran an article entitled “Can you say…Hero?” which tells the story of a young boy with cerebral palsy who deeply believed he was unloveable due to mistreatment by others in caring roles. He believed that because he felt unloveable by people, then it only made sense that God couldn’t possibly like him either. The trauma due to the actions of others ran deep in this boy.
But he LOVED Mister Rogers.
After some time, the boy had the opportunity to actually meet his hero Mister Rogers, but in the moment the experience was so overwhelming for him that he began to hit himself. In an effort to calm him down, the boy’s mom moved him to a quieter room away from the production stage. In this kind of situation any other celebrity would have been just moved on to the next thing on their busy schedule, but not Fred Rogers. He patiently waited for the boy to return, and when he did, Rogers knelt down and while looking right at the boy said, “will you pray for me?”
No one had ever asked the boy to pray FOR them, most people just prayed over him. But there in this moment, the boy realized Mister Rogers thought his prayers mattered, and if his prayers mattered them maybe HE mattered too. Later, when someone asked Rogers why he had made the request, he said “I asked because I believe anyone who has suffered like that is very close to God.”
This is Magnificat Joy – the joy of being seen, valued and lifted up.
Finally, in 1981 Jeffry Erlanger, a young quadriplegic, was a guest on an episode of Mister Roger’s show. Fred and Jeff talked about his electric wheelchair, about disabilities, and about how everyone needs different kinds of help in life. They laughed and sang together. Fred told Jeff, “You make everyone’s day bright just by being you.”
Michael Long notes that this wasn’t a teaching moment – it was a loving moment. A moment in which Jeffry was more than just an interesting visitor to learn about, he was a true member of the neighbourhood.
Decades later, when Rogers received the Daytime Emmy’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Jeffry surprised him on stage. Fred’s face lit up with unmistakable joy – the joy of friendship, of connection and of a love that had endured.
This is Magnificat Joy – a joy that celebrates the beauty of everybody, every story.
Joy – the kind of joy that Mary sings about – is not cheerfulness. It is not the denial of hardship nor is it blind optimism. It is resistance.
Mary sings because by saying YES to God, she knows that the Holy One is about to tip the world toward justice and restoration, She knows that she is the one who will birth this joy. Fred Rogers sang of joy because he believed that every child deserved to know they are loved. Jesus grew up, lived and ministered sharing compassion, welcome, truth-telling, and he sang joy as he gathered the most unlikely of people into God’s beloved community.
This is the joy that changes the world.
And God dreams for, yearns for us to know this joy.
We struggle with this a bit – but you likely aren’t surprised by that. Love like this is hard in a world where division, hate, violence, fear… dominate the world’s story. But – we take these four Sundays in Advent to remind ourselves that God’s joy does not depend on the world being perfect, but rather it depends on the offering and receiving of love. We are the place where God plants joy so that it can grow and thrive in the world.
Fred Rogers once said: “I believe that appreciation is a holy thing – that when we look for what is the best in the person we happen to be with at the moment, we’re doing what God does all the time. So in loving and appreciating our neighbours, we are participating in something sacred.” And I would add, we are participating in the revolutionary joy at the heart of Mary’s song.
This is the heart of Advent joy. More than that, this is the heart of the Christ who comes to us in human form, sharing the joy of God with creation.
Amen.
