4 Advent
Luke 1:39-55
As many of you know, we are expecting our first grandchild in the coming
months. When our daughter recently visited us she and Kathy talked much about babies and pregnancy. I found things to do in the garden!
It is not that I am not interested in such things as ultrasounds, babies kicking, birthing plans and the latest ideas on infant nutrition. It is simply that after an hour or two, I feel the subject has been thoroughly covered!
And if two expectant mothers meet up, you can be certain that the politics and the weather will never come up.
The story in today’s gospel is such a story. It is a story of two expectant mothers, meeting up. They are cousins.
And neither one of them expected to be expecting.
Elizabeth is the oldest woman anyone had ever heard of having a baby. She is probably in her sixties. She and her husband Zechariah had stopped hoping and praying for a baby decades ago. Her pregnancy is, in fact, so improbable that her joy is also tinted with embarrassment. The women of her village surely will think she is not actually pregnant. Perhaps she has a tumour or growth. So she secludes herself in her home. She stays out of public sight – until there can be no doubt that she actually is expecting a baby.
And Mary? Well, if her cousin Elizabeth is the oldest woman in the land who is expecting, Mary is certainly among the very youngest. She is still a teenager. She has been engaged but not yet married.
And if Elizabeth’s pregnancy is improbable, then Mary’s is impossible.
She is not married. She has not known a man. She is still a virgin. But, of course, no one is going to believe that story. So she, too, wants to stay out of the public view in her village. The trip to her cousin Elizabeth’s home, about two day’s travel away, is a good excuse to be away for a few months.
And there is something else unusual about these two pregnancies.
Both had been announced by an angel.
An angel had appeared to Elizabeth’s husband Zechariah when he was in the temple in Jerusalem serving as one of the priests. When the angel tells him that their prayers for a baby had been answered he could have forgiven for thinking that the prayers of he and his wife, or perhaps God’s response, had gotten lost in the divine post. That was decades ago. They had not prayed for a baby in many years. Nonetheless, the angel told Zechariah that he and his wife Elizabeth would have great joy in the birth of a son and that many others would rejoice as his birth as he would do great things in the sight of the Lord because the spirit of Elijah would be upon him. For a first century Jew, and one trained in the scriptures as Zechariah was, there was little doubt what the angel was saying. His son was going to be the forerunner who prepares the way for the Messiah.
When Zechariah pointed out that his age and the age of his wife made this, well, rather improbable, and asked for a sign, the angel responded sternly. The angel announced that he was not just any angel, but the archangel Gabriel who stands regularly in the presence of the Almighty. There was no mistake about the message. And if Zechariah wanted a sign, he would have one. He would not be able to speak a word until his son was born!
When he returned home, we imagine that through a series of signs, gestures and writing he got the whole story out to Elizabeth. And sure enough, just as the archangel had said, Elizabeth became pregnant.
But the archangel Gabriel was not done with his tasks. Six months later he had another visit to make, and another announcement. This time in a village in Galilee. There he came to a young girl named Mary. He told this young girl that even though she was not yet married she was going to have a son, and that she should call him Jesus, for he would be great and would rescue his people and would be called the Son of the Most High.
Like Zechariah, Mary also had questions. Perhaps by this point Gabriel was thinking, ‘Why can’t they simply believe what I tell them.’ But perhaps after the experience with Zechariah he was expecting questions. And the most obvious was this: ‘How can this be,’ asked Mary, ‘since I am a virgin?’ It was a perfectly reasonable question.
And Gabriel goes easier on Mary than he did on Zechariah, who as a trained priest serving in the temple should, after all, have known better than to ask God to ‘prove it’.
The sign Gabriel gives Mary was that of her cousin Elizabeth. He told Mary that even though her cousin was now an old woman, and well past her child-bearing years, she was in fact six months pregnant.
So the angel leaves and Mary hurries to visit Elizabeth.
So Luke’s Gospel begins with a double annunciation, two stories with the Archangel Gabriel announcing the birth of a very important child. This is then followed by two birth stories. The account of the birth of John the Baptist to Elizabeth and Zechariah is followed by the more famous story of the birth of Jesus.
But in between these two stories we have the meeting of the two unexpectedly expectant mothers.
Apart from Zechariah and Joseph, they are the only ones who know what God is about to do. And while it is not yet clear what Zachariah or Joseph are thinking at this point, it is clear that both Elizabeth and Mary not only understand what God had promised, but they believe it.
God had promised that both births would bring joy, and joy is certainly the dominant feeling when the two women meet.
We are told that the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leapt for joy when Mary came to her door. Elzabeth took this as a sign that this was the Messiah for whom her son would be preparing the way.
And, filled with the Spirit, she speaks: ‘Why have I had this honour, that the mother of my Lord should come to visit me? For as soon as I heard your voice the child in my womb leapt for joy. Blessed is she who believed that the prophecy of what has been promised by God would be fulfilled.’
Now, it would seem that there must have been some conversation between Mary and Elizabeth before these words are spoken, for Elizabeth knows of the message to Mary and Mary’s response to it. And she immediately confesses faith in Messiah, her Lord, who is still early in his first trimester. Talk about getting in early to confess faith in Jesus!
Then we have the famous response of Mary, called Mary’s Song, or the Magnificat, after the opening words of the song.
Every Jew, and certainly every Jewish woman, would have immediately recognized echoes of the song of Hannah, mother of the prophet Samuel.
Hannah had prayed to God asking that he look upon his lowly handmaiden with favour, in words virtually identical to those of Mary. And Hannah begins her song with ‘My heart exults in the Lord, my strength is exalted in my God.’ It was a favorite story and song of Jewish women.
And Mary would have known the song well, and in her excitement at the confirmation of the angels announcement through Elizabeth she responds with humility and praise. She responds with joy.
And the joy is not just for her. In a series of couplets, in Hebrew style, with echoes of not just of Hannah’s song, but of many of the Psalms, Mary lists the many ways God is about to turn things upside down. The lowly will be lifted up, with the haughty will be brought low, the hungry will be fed and the rich will go away empty.
God is not just coming into the world to make a show of things. God is coming into the world to change things.
And her song ends with praise of God who remembers his people and who shows mercy.
After this Mary remains with Elizabeth for three months. We are not told if she leaves just before the birth of John or just after. Luke does not want the stories confused, stories he certainly has gotten from Mary herself. The interlude of the meeting of the two expectant mothers has taken place. It is time for Mary, now clearly starting to show her own pregnancy, to return home and bear the weight of the gossips. And it is time for Elizabeth to give birth and for Zechariah to finally be able to speak.
The nativity narratives are about the move from birth announcements, to the story of two births.
But we should not pass over this meeting of the two expectant mothers in the midst of these accounts too hastily. For it is here that the mothers take centre stage. It is here that they both have a voice. It Is here that, taking comfort in one another’s company, and comparing their stories, they both confess an unwavering faith in God and in what he is about to do.
It is here that perhaps the only two people on earth who not only know what God is about to do, but really believe God is about to do it, come together.
And their mood? It is not one of fear or apprehension, but of pure joy.
Elizabeth and Mary know what God is about to do. They are preparing to give birth. And they are also preparing for the dawn of a new age.
And they are both overjoyed. They are the first to feel this joy. But they will not be the last. The joy at what God has done and continues to do through coming among us in human flesh continues to reverberate in our own time and in our own lives.
How do we prepare for Christmas? How to we prepare for the coming of God in flesh among us?
With only a few days left before Christmas we might be thinking of the shopping we need to do, the presents left to buy, the travel arrangement to make, the cards to send. But in the midst of everything else there is really only one way to prepare for Christmas, for the celebration of the birth of Jesus, of God among us. And that is the way that Elizabeth and Mary have shown us.
We prepare with hope, love, peace and joy, just as they did. For it is hope, love, peace and joy that God has brought into the world and into our hearts through the birth of Jesus. Any other response misses the point of Christmas.
Amen.
Pastor Mark Worthing.
Port Macquarie.