9 December 2007

Luke 1:39-45

We are spending Advent here at Chalice with Mary, the Mother of Jesus. There are few chances, in our male-dominated scriptures, for a female figure to shine as Mary does, especially during this season. Last week we heard, and saw, the Annunciation; the communication between Gabriel, the angel, & Mary informing her that she would become the mother of God’s child.

This week we get the next installment of Mary’s pregnancy; the visit that Mary makes to Elizabeth. Mary and Elizabeth are kinswomen; relatives in some way. Mary has been sent by Gabriel, you might remember from last week’s reading, to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth has her own story to tell, which Luke does recount to us earlier in his gospel account, prior to the annunciation. Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah are childless and beyond normal childbearing years, which makes this meeting all the more poignant.

Zechariah, Luke tells us, is a priest and while he was serving in the Temple had his own visit from the angel Gabriel. Gabriel came to tell him that he and Elizabeth would have a child whom they would name John. Zechariah at first doesn’t believe Gabriel and, in consequence, is made mute for the duration of the pregnancy. And indeed, Elizabeth and Zechariah did conceive. And it was in the midst of this pregnancy, six months into it in fact, that Mary came to visit.

So our actors today are these two women: one the young girl, just of marrying age, which was apparently pretty young in those days, and the elderly woman who should be past her child bearing years. Both are miraculously pregnant: Mary by God Godself and Elizabeth in her old age.

It’s interesting to note how this story is recounted. Both Elizabeth and her in-womb child react to Mary upon her arrival, without knowing yet Mary’s miraculous story. Elizabeth, we are told, in fact was filled with the Holy Spirit when Mary greets her.

Now, Elizabeth, we know is carrying John: John who would become known as John the Baptist. He, the one who would prepare the way for Jesus with his calls for repentance in the desert, is being carried by Elizabeth. He would have his own disciples and followers and make enough of a fuss to cause him to be jailed and executed by Herod. But that’s a story for another time in the year.

Right now we’re focused on Mary and Elizabeth, meeting in that small hill town in Judea. What can this meeting mean to us, some 2,000 years later? Why should we bother with these two women, both probably poor and insignificant in their own culture?

Well, because God has made them significant. God has come into their lives and raised them up. God doesn’t care about their cultural standing. God has special jobs just for them and cares not one whit about their social standing. God did not pick out a queen to bear either Jesus or John. God did not go to the wealthiest class to find women to be the mothers of these two important figures.


The General Minister and President of our denomination, Sharon Watkins, in the video we just watched, spoke of hope in the Middle East. Hope for a brighter future; hope for peace and an end to strife. In many ways, today’s story is similar. For what is a more hopeful time than pregnancy? During this time, one hopes for the future in a personal way: will my baby be a boy or a girl; will it be healthy; how will she or he grow up?

In much the same way, we are in the same situation. I know of a minister several years ago, who got in trouble by getting up in the pulpit during Advent and proclaiming, “People of God, we’re pregnant.” I doubt that I would get into the same trouble as she did for making such a proclamation here. But it’s true; we are pregnant as God’s people; pregnant with the hope of which Rev. Watkins spoke. Pregnant with anticipation of the way things will turn out in our world.

As someone said to Rev. Watkins during her trip to the Holy Land, we don’t have the luxury of losing hoping. It’s as true for us, as Christians awaiting the coming of our savior, as it is for those who deal daily with the violence of the Middle East. As we await, we do not have the luxury of losing hope. We must hold onto hope, as do those in Israel and Palestine, as do those who are pregnant carrying new life in their bodies.

People of God, we are indeed pregnant. And our pregnancy is one in which we shall wait, hopeful for the outcome and for God’s realm on our earth. Mary and Elizabeth knew of that hope. Both were graced by God and knew that they had hope not just for their family but for all of humanity.

As we remember Mary and Elizabeth meeting in that small hillside village all those years ago, let us live in the hope in which they did and watch for the Holy Spirit to come over us and lead us to leap with joy for the coming of the one who will save us.