4th Advent C, 12/21/2003 Susan J. Barnes
Luke 1:39-49 St. Matthew’s, Austin
Ladies and ladies: wonderful news--in case you’ve missed it. The popular culture has recognized that women were part of the New Testament story! From Dan Brown’s problematic page-turner, The Da Vinci Code, to the cover story in Newsweek two weeks ago on Women in the Bible, the central role of women in the gospel story has finally come back into focus--only 1900 years after the story was told. Patience is a virtue.
So it’s a perfect time to be entering the third year of our Sunday lectionary cycle, and to be reading Luke for the next year. Why Luke? Because Luke, the third gospel--more than any other-records the actions, the words and the thoughts of the women in Jesus’ life--from the very beginning.
You remember that the gospel of Mark, the first written, begins the account of Jesus’ life at the baptism; as does the fourth and last, John. Luke and Matthew both tell of Jesus’ miraculous conception, but Matthew does so from Joseph’s point of view.
Only Luke tells us about Mary. And Luke does so at lavish, loving length. In Luke we read about the Annunciation: the Archangel Gabriel’s coming to Mary to reveal God’s plan for Mary, and Mary’s acceptance of God’s plan. From Luke we will read here again on Wednesday night and Thursday morning the Christmas story, the magical account of that Silent Night in Bethlehem. Luke ends that by telling us, “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart”.
In between those two stories lies today’s, which--like the Annunciation, the birth in the manger and the visit of the shepherds—is only found in Luke.
Called The Visitation in the iconography of art, this story is the visit of Mary, newly pregnant with Jesus, to her cousin Elizabeth, who is six months pregnant, with John the Baptist.
The women come to their meeting as a study in contrasts. Their meeting is a revelation by the Holy Spirit in which they recognize the reversal of their roles. It is a fulfillment of the heart of the gospel according to Luke. And it is a beautiful metaphor for our lives as
children of God.
First the contrasts:
While Mary is a very young woman, and a virgin, Elizabeth is married and beyond the age to bear a child.
While Mary’s pregnancy might have been cause for shame and scandal, Elizabeth’s pregnancy removed the shame of barrenness that she had borne all her married life.
While we know nothing of Mary’s social situation, Luke tells us a lot about Elizabeth’s.
A descendant of Moses’ brother Aaron, she belongs to the religious establishment of the Jerusalem temple. Her husband, Zechariah, is a priest in the temple, where he received the news from the Archangel Gabriel that they would have a son. Indeed, there are
Old Testament parallels here; their late-in-life pregnancy recalls that of Abraham and Sarah, as the dedication of their son John the Baptist to God recalls that of Samuel in Judges.
But the contrasts, the differences between Mary and Elizabeth disappear when the two women meet. The Holy Spirit fills Elizabeth. The child in her womb leaps in recognition that Mary’s own pregnancy is of God, that the child in Mary’s womb is the Messiah. In that instant, their roles are reversed. Elizabeth, whose age and social status would normally make her the superior one in the encounter, defers, instead to Mary.
With great humility, Elizabeth recognizes that it is she who is honored by the visit. “And why has this happened to me,” she asks rhetorically, “that the mother of my Lord comes to me?”
This reversal of roles is fulfillment of the heart of the gospel according to Luke. Mary first puts it into words in the hymn that follows, saying that God “has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.” Jesus will deliver the same message on his debut in the synagogue in chapter 4 of Luke, when he reads from
Isaiah declaring that he has been annointed to bring good news to the poor. As we go through the gospel in the next year, Luke will repeat the theme through story after story that God cares especially for the last, the least, and the lost.
Among the many lessons this story has for us, let me focus on one. This is it:
God will choose whom God will choose as an agent of God’s purposes in the world. Here God made the most unlikely choice between two very unlikely women. Elizabeth, though one long barren and past child-bearing age was married. A good and righteous woman of standing in the religious community, she might have been--like Sarah--the candidate to be the mother of the Messiah. But God choose Mary, who was
young, simple, and single.
Remember the words of John the Baptist in last week’s gospel from Luke:
“God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” It is God who ennobles, God who ordains, God who has the first and the last word. Those of us privileged by birth, by education, by position, by wealth would do well to heed Elizabeth’s example. If we do, rather than standing on our own presumptions and entitlements we will be open to the enlightenment of Holy Spirit, alert to the holiness that God bestows upon others—however unlikely we might have thought it--and be humble in the face of God’s choices and actions in the world. Be alert! Be ready to receive Christ no matter
who is the Christ bearer. That is one meaning of Advent.
Finally, though, in spite of their differences in background, age, and life situation,
in spite of the reversal of their roles, Mary and Elizabeth share the most important reality there is. Each of them has surrendered her life to bring into being, to give birth to, the will of God. When they meet they recognize that shared reality in the most powerful, poetic dialogue in the New Testament. And their meeting, their shared reality, is a
powerful metaphor for our lives, as well.
It is a fact of biology that every woman is born equipped to carry a child, eventually to give birth. Some of us have, some of us will; in the end, though, some of us cannot and some of us don’t. But every human being, every child of God is born equipped to receive and carry Christ within us, to give birth to the spirit of God in our own lives
and in the world around us. Every one of us can, if we will follow Mary and Elizabeth. If we will say “Yes” to God’s call.
When we become Christ bearers, all other differences disappear: nation, race,
tribe, age, gender, orientation--even affiliation--yes, lion and lamb, Republican and Democrat, Longhorn, Aggie, and Sooner, come together in love and respect. The same is true when we become Christ seekers, when we fulfill our baptismal vow to “seek and serve Christ in others, loving our neighbors as ourselves.”
So, as we look forward to the Christmas season, let this be our resolve. Let us surrender to God’s will. Let us joyfully bear Christ, let us bring Christ’s love into the world, and let us seek and serve Christ in everyone whom we meet.
