Luke
1:39-55
I still remember
the moment. I was four. It was December and I was old enough to be
totally in tune with all the excitement surrounding Christmas. I knew that sometime soon I would be getting
presents. Presents, that perhaps, were
in my house right at that moment. And
given that my parents were nowhere in sight it seemed like a perfect
opportunity to investigate. I began my
search. Quietly, I opened up closet
doors and looked inside. Then I tiptoed
into parents’ room and spied under the bed.
Next I opened some cabinets searching every nook and cranny. Until finally I peered behind a couch and
saw a thin box slid between the back of the couch and the wall. My heart began to race for I knew I found
something. And pulling it out into the
light I saw what it was my gift! - a Dressy Bessy doll. Very likely the reason I remember all of this
so vividly is because of the intense feeling that rushed through me at that
moment of discovery. It wasn’t joy. It wasn’t excitement. It was crushing disappointment. Not because I didn’t want Dressy Bessy, I
did. But because I had ruined the
surprise - the wait was over and with it gone was the delight of anticipation.
Today on this
fourth Sunday of in Advent our wait is almost over, but I trust no one will experience
crushing over that. In a little more
than twenty four hours from now our Christmas Eve services will commence as we
celebrate the coming of God in Christ into the world. Our reading this morning reflects our being
on the cusp of Jesus’ birth as we listen to part of Mary’s story. Really we are jumping into the middle of her
story. Mary’s life has just been completely disrupted. The angel Gabriel has just appeared out of
nowhere to announce that Mary will conceive and give birth to a son. She will name Jesus and he will be God’s
Messiah. It’s a lot to take in. And perhaps that is the reason why Gabriel
mentions, somewhat as a postscript, that Mary’s aged and barren relative,
Elizabeth, is now miraculously with child and in her sixth month - which means
that Mary is not alone.
Seizing on this
news, Mary sets out in haste to journey to Elizabeth’s house. And when she arrives, the baby in Elizabeth’s
womb (whom we know to be John the Baptist) leaps for joy. Filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth
exclaims, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your
womb. And why has this happened to me,
that the mother of my Lord comes for me?”
Mary responds with her own proclamation, “My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.…”
She goes on to extol the mercies of God who has reversed the world’s
status quo - the proud have been scattered, the lowly lifted, the hungry
filled, and the rich sent empty away.
Yet as beautiful as Mary’s song of praise is all she needs to do is walk
outside to see that, sadly, the world falls far short of this vision of
justice, harmony, and fullness.
Doesn’t that ring
true for us as well? Tomorrow as we
celebrate the good news of Jesus’ birth with songs of peace, joy, and love we know
that strife, sadness, and hatred still have mighty strongholds in our
world. Indeed, it is an odd and
sometimes confusing land that we, with Mary, Elizabeth, and all the faithful,
inhabit. We rejoice in the wondrous things that God has
done while at the same time wait for the promises of God to be fully
expressed. We proclaim that God’s
Kingdom has come while recognizing that it is not totally here yet. We know that God with us as we believe that
God is also coming to us in new and fresh ways
Our life of faith is one that is lived in the tension and the mystery of
this already-and-not-yet world.
Mary and
Elizabeth know well how to live in this place of paradox that embraces both the
rejoicing in what is and the waiting for what surely will be. They do this, with God’s help, by looking
beyond the circumstances that present right in front of them. When Mary visits Elizabeth early on in her
pregnancy her condition is not obvious.
Yet Elizabeth is able to recognize not just that Mary is with child, but
that Christ resides within her.
Elizabeth sees Christ in the other.
And Mary magnifies the Lord. Now
when something is magnified the thing itself does not become bigger, but
magnification does alter one’s perception, it enhances the ability to see. Mary magnifies God by her words and
deeds. She helps us to better see and
experience God’s presence in our world.
And we, too, are called and gifted by the Spirit to do the same - to
recognize Christ and magnify God - all the while rejoicing as we wait.
Beyond the
initial greeting, we are given no details about Mary’s visit with Elizabeth
except for one thing, she stayed for three months. And that’s an important part of the story
because it means that neither woman was alone in her waiting for the promises
of God to unfold. Faith never flourishes
in isolation. We need one another. During Advent, and all the seasons of our
lives, we are to wait for the fulfilling of God’s promises together, in
community. For it is in community that
we hold each other up when one of us is in need. In community we encourage one another, we
pray for one another, we serve one another, we love one another. And sometimes when there’s no apparent fix to
a situation, we sit in the dark with one another, waiting together for God’s
light to shine. For it will shine.
Jesus is the
light of the world and with his coming we know that love can, does, and will
prevail in all times, in all places, in all relationships, in all
circumstances. That is why we rejoice. And that is why the wait is worth it. It only took that one time finding of my
present to learn the lesson that part of the joy of Christmas is actually found
in the wait. As we celebrate the great
gift of God with us this Christmas may we also discover the joy in the
wait. For we can rest in faith and trust
that in God’s time, all of God’s promises will surely be fulfilled.
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