December 22, 2024
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott
Luke 1:39--55
Here we are, a few days before Christmas, and finally we move into more familiar Advent territory, although John the Baptist is still here—but in this Gospel, he’s in utero, so he’s not calling anyone the offspring of a viper, at least not in language we can hear.
This Advent, we will have no angel Gabriel appearing. By the time we get to today’s part of the Gospel, the pregnancies are under way for both women, two very improbable, well nigh impossible, pregnancies.
In verse 7 of the Gospel of Luke, we meet Elizabeth and Zechariah. They are, and I quote, “very old.” Her pregnancy is not just improbable. This is no geriatric pregnancy, that we sometimes hear about in the twenty-first century, those unlikely pregnancies that happen to pre-menopausal women. Elizabeth’s pregnancy happens in a womb that has no potential for life.
No potential for life—and yet, here she is, pregnant. Elizabeth’s experience is not the first time that we see this miracle in the Bible: the Old Testament has a few examples of older women who become pregnant. But unlike those women, Elizabeth doesn’t have to do anything: there’s no petitioning God, no promises of what kind of dedicated life the baby will have. In fact, Elizabeth’s lack of involvement can unsettling.
Mary’s pregnancy is like non other in the Bible. Richard B. Vinson says: “But whereas Zechariah and Elizabeth are typical characters in a stock plot—the aging righteous childless couple longing for a baby—Mary is not. There are no biblical examples of young unmarried women who get the happy news that they will have a baby through God’s direct intervention” (p. 35).
The centuries have seen similar debate about Mary: did she have agency? When Gabriel appears to her, could she say no? She has questions, to be sure. But she says yes. Most Bible scholars agree that she could have refused. Barbara Reid says, “Just as Jesus invites disciples but cannot compel anyone to follow him (see Luke 18:18-25), so God’s power needs Mary’s receptivity in order to accomplish the divine will. Gabriel is not delivering a decree from a dictatorial patriarch but an invitation from One who is able to work through those who have a disposition of hospitality toward God” (p. 27).
I love the idea of hospitality to God. I love the idea of this hospitality as a very different kind of call story. Let’s consider the scene as it is presented today. A younger pregnant woman goes to visit an older pregnant woman. Neither of them should be pregnant: it’s too early for Mary, and it’s too late for Elizabeth. We have two very different women, yet God has need of them both. I love the way this Gospel shows that even the impossible can be made possible with God: barrenness will come to fruit, youthful inexperience will be seen as a blessing.
I also love this Gospel for its contrast to the reading that we’ll get on Christmas Eve. There’s no angel choir—just two women, coming together to create community. We have Mary, the first to say yes to Jesus. And Elizabeth, the first to witness that the Messiah is here—and let’s not forget John, who is also testifying. And I love that the first act of witness is so very embodied, and so very embodied in a female body.
I admit that I am biased. And yet, it’s an aspect of witness that we don’t see often. Elizabeth and Mary are the first to proclaim the Divinity of Jesus—but their mission is very different from the one that Peter and Paul will claim for themselves. Instead of going to make disciples, they stay put, to create community.
I love this story because it reminds us that God doesn't choose those who are already ready and waiting for the call. Imagine how many lives could have been changed if the earliest Church had emphasized this aspect of a call, this being worthy in God’s eyes even if one is not worthy in the world’s eyes. Imagine if we had centuries of the message that God loves us before we’ve done anything special at all, and even if we never live into our full potential in the eye’s of our society, God will see our value.
Imagine if the church had given emphasis to Elizabeth, along with Mary. I love the message that we're not too old, that our hopes and dreams might be answered after all. We're not cast away if we're not a young woman, like Mary, with years ahead of her to be of service to God. The definition of fertility enlarges.
In a culture like ours that worships youth and beauty, it is good to remember that God doesn't discard us when we might think we've outlived our usefulness. We may look at our past decades and sigh over what we have not achieved. God looks at us and sees so much potential.
We’re also not cast away if we’re young with limited options. Here is Mary, very young with no past job history of being a mother, and yet God sees her potential. God comes to a distant outpost of a huge empire, to an unmarried woman who lives in a small village in that distant outpost. God sees something in her that the rest of us would not see before the miracle.
I love this story as evidence that two generations can come together in support for each other. I love the small community they form. I also love the idea that they take time for rest, a time to incubate. Thousands of years before anyone mentions the phrase “self care,” we see it in action. The next time you have trouble sleeping, thinking about all you have to do the next day, meditate on Mary and Elizabeth, and how they show us the value of rest and retreat.
We’re living in a culture that’s always full of praise for the newest and shiniest thing, and church, well, church certainly isn’t new. But the story of Mary and Elizabeth reminds us that community is so important, and recently much of the shiny new parts of society prove to be very isolating. People are lonely, people are yearning. And here, too, the message of this Gospel rings out across the centuries. Mary knows that she needs support, and she knows that her older relative will also need support. They come together.
This morning, I'm feeling most inspired by the possibility of the impossible. The world tells us that so much of what we desire is just not possible. Even churches hear this message that we will never attract the next generation, that we don't have enough money, that we can't have an impact, that our dreams of social justice will never come true, and that the world is on fire, so humanity has no future anyway--in short, we live in a culture that tells us we are doomed. We swim in these seas, and it's hard to avoid the pollution.
Along comes this day late in Advent which proclaims that the not only is the impossible possible, but the impossible is already incubating in an unlikely womb. It's much too easy for any of us to say, "Who am I to think that I can do this?" The good news of today is that we don't have to be the perfect one for the task. By saying yes, we make ourselves the perfect one.
Today, on this last Sunday in Advent, as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, let's remember that God's dream is bigger than anything that the world can offer us. Let us return to those dreams and look for the ways that we can say yes.
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