Peter Jackson’s third hobbit installment is out, and I’ve very little inclination to go see it. I’ve loved the book and the rest of Tolkien’s middle earth story since college. But the films get The Hobbit all wrong. It’s not just the extraneous elements and silly action worked into the films. It’s that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of Tolkien’s vision in the ridiculous weight and length given to battle scenes in the films.
Part of the genius of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is their fine display of a theme that grows out of Tolkien’s Christian faith. That theme is the victory of the small and weak over the great and powerful. It shows up in Bilbo’s usefulness to the strong and experienced dwarfs and in the revelation of the dragon Smaug’s tiny unarmored spot to little Bilbo, then to a little bird, then to a rustic bowman named Bard, who fires an arrow into that weak spot. It’s no surprise that Peter Jackson fails to comprehend that theme of weakness conquering strength and has to transform Bard the Bowman’s simple arrow into a machine launched wood and steel missile.
You could say that Tolkien’s whole hobbit cycle is an extended meditation on our sermon text this week, Mary’s song in Luke 1:46-55. The previous three Sundays of Advent each given us a psalm with a theme of restoration, in which I’ve seen God’s work to restore those traditional gifts of Advent, hope, peace, and joy. Now as move from the psalms to the greatest of the canticles (all those biblical songs which are not psalms), I believe we can see how God chooses to restore love in our world. He does it by showing His love in unexpected directions and ways.
In her song, spoken in response to being hailed as blessed by her cousin Elizabeth, Mary first reflects on God’s favor to her despite her lowly status. Though Mary is engaged to a man descended from King David, and may herself be of that lineage, she and Joseph are clearly poor, distant descendants of the great king. So she expresses her praise and joy because God “has looked with favor on his lowly servant,” and “has done great things for me.”
Mary so well understands her lowly position that her thoughts and song immediately turn from her own self to the favor that God is showing to all lowly people through her, so in verse 50, “His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.”
Then verses 51, 52 and 53 each take up that hobbit-like theme of God overcoming the great and powerful in favor of the humble and weak. No, it’s not that God somehow hates the rich and powerful. It’s that in His love He wants to restore the balance of the world by uplifting those who have been forced down and make it plain that His love is the true power behind the universe. And He constantly hints at the force of love and His plan to restore it completely to our world by working through small and powerless people, like Mary.
Verses 54 and 55 show that this great reversal and restoration through the small and weak is the way God has been working all along. It’s according to a promise God made to another at-the-time insignificant person whom Scripture regards now as the father of faith, Abraham. As our text from Romans 16:25 and 26 says, this whole process of love working in mercy toward those who are lowly is the great mystery of salvation revealed through Jesus Christ. It’s that mystery which Mary is celebrating in her song.