In the midst of everything else about this Christmas season, the secular attachments and the religious meanings; at the very center of it this is a story about women having babies. It’s about pregnancy and childbirth. And today we rest our minds on that.
In Luke’s gospel, it is a story about two women – Elizabeth and Mary – both finding themselves pregnant in the most unexpected circumstances.
Elizabeth, older cousin to Mary and wife of the temple priest Zechariah, is too old for having babies. For Elizabeth, those years have passed and left her empty. She is barren, like other women we have seen in the scriptures: Sarah, the wife of Abraham; Rachel, the wife of Jacob; Hannah, the wife of Elkanah. All these women waited for their turn to come, while they watched their peers’ swelling bellies and glowing faces; they waited, while month after month they came up empty.
Yet, to each of these long-empty wombs, was given a child who would change the world: to Sarah was given Isaac, to Rachel was given Joseph, to Hannah was given Samuel.
God made these women and men wait – and in God’s time and God’s place, they were given a child with God’s plans for them. This is the story of our faith. God will often bypass the expected in favor of the unexpected.
And there is Mary, young girl, wife of no one. Promised to Joseph, but not yet given to him, Mary is a woman with no worldly experience. Sure, she knows plenty about the harshness of the world – I have no doubt. Mary is a Jew in an occupied land. She has seen the intimidation tactics of the Roman soldiers. She knows how her people can suddenly, without warning or explanation, be forced to serve the soldiers by carrying their load for them. And she knows that at the slightest misstep her people can be charged with treason and crucified, their bodies left hanging for days to make sure every Jewish man, woman, and child is terrorized by the sight.
Mary is a young, unmarried woman, a nobody. She is a Jew in the Roman Empire, a nobody. She is a child of nobody, living in the outskirts of civilization. Mary is nobody.
She has no agency of her own, according to the laws of the society in which she lives. She is the property of her father, until such time as she becomes the property of her husband. And as a Jew in the empire, she is in many ways, property of the Romans.
And then Mary, this nobody, is visited by an angel of God and told that she will bear a child, who will be great – the son of the most high! This is the story of our faith. God will so often bypass the somebodies in favor of the nobodies.
Elizabeth and Mary. Two women who have no reason to expect anything, yet God has seen them. And God has lifted them and blessed them.
Mary runs from her home in Nazareth to Judea, to Elizabeth. It seems the better part of wisdom that she did. In spite of the equanimity in her response to the angel – let it be with me according to your word– her head must have been reeling. What does an unmarried teenage girl in ancient Palestine do with this news? Does she imagine her parents will receive it joyfully? Or her fiancé, Joseph? Or anyone in her community? No. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Mary chooses to flee.
She probably joined a caravan of people traveling south toward Jerusalem. That would have been the prudent thing to do – no one with any sense would have taken the journey alone. She would be vulnerable to bandits or maybe soldiers, who would have seen a young girl alone as easy prey. But there is some safety in numbers, as so many others have learned. In a caravan, travelers have the shelter of one another.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth is in her sixth month of pregnancy. No doubt she is feeling all the discomfort and the fatigue of carrying a child, especially in her older body. No doubt, she is, even so far along, still feeling this is too good to be true. Will it last? Will she really give birth to a healthy baby?
Yet, I am also sure Elizabeth is quiet about any doubts she might harbor. Months ago, her husband Zechariah was visited by the same angel who came to Mary and was told his wife Elizabeth would conceive and bear a child. Hearing this, Zechariah blurted out the equivalent of “I doubt that.” And the angel said, “Ok then, we don’t need to hear any more from you.” Zechariah was struck dumb. For the duration of Elizabeth’s pregnancy Zechariah would be mute, so Elizabeth was enjoying a quiet gestation.
And there she is, Elizabeth, in this quietness, this stillness; and Mary steps through her door. “Elizabeth,” Mary calls out, and the unborn baby leaps in Elizabeth’s womb.
I have no idea how well Elizabeth and Mary knew each other. There is a big discrepancy in their ages. They did not live near one another. Maybe Mary only knew Elizabeth from brief stopovers while her family made pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem. Maybe they barely knew each other, but at some time they had seen a soul connection. They had, maybe, recognized kindred spirits in one another, and so when Mary learned of her condition, she thought of Elizabeth.
And when Elizabeth heard Mary’s voice, and felt her baby move, the word that leaped into her mind was blessed. Blessed are you, Mary, among women. Blessed is the fruit of your womb. Blessed is she who believes.
Blessed. You and I are blessed, Elizabeth sings out.
And Mary opens her mouth, too, and sings.
My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.
I have heard that some of the earliest translations of the Bible into the common languages, English and German, did not translate Mary’s song because it would be so offensive to kings – to read “he has brought down the powerful from their thrones!” Better to leave it in Latin and hope they don’t understand it.
But this, dear brothers and sisters, is the story of our faith. God bypasses the powerful in favor of the powerless. God bypasses the rich and the full in favor of the hungry and the needy. God bypasses the proud and lifts up the lowly. And the powerless, the hungry, the lowly sing their songs of joy.
Mary and Elizabeth sing for themselves and for the powerless, the hungry, the lowly in all times and all places. They sing because the children they carry in their bodies will grow up to become powerful voices for the powerless, the hungry, the lowly. They sing because in their lives of suffering and uncertainty and risk, they have been blessed by the hand of the almighty, who is in them and for them – for this is the story of our faith. God is in and for the powerless, the hungry, the lowly.
God’s hand rests on the ones who need him most – the homeless, the hungry, the refugee. God is in and for these ones.
In a world that worships power and wealth, God is in and for the poor ones. In a world where so many people, beloved children of God, are valued so little, God is in and for them all. There are times, it must be said, when this does not come to us as good news. Like kings and others with great power and wealth, there are times when Mary’s words can seem threatening even to us.
But when we remember how our savior came to us … from the bottom, not the top; from the margins, not the center; from the disgraced, not the proud.
Remember …
And in these moments the heavens break open and we see a glimpse of the truth that Elizabeth and Mary knew, the truth that made them sing.
Will we sing with them?
