The Advent journey
Advent 4, 21st December, 2003
The Rev'd Dr Craig D'Alton
Assistant Priest, St Peter's, Eastern Hill
It is not all that unusual for a favourite visitor to be greeted warmly – especially an unexpected one who has travelled some distance. However Mary's journey to Elizabeth, the first of many journeys in a life seeming continuously on the move, leads to the most extraordinary and overwhelmingly joyful exchange. Two expectant mothers greet each other not with intimate coo-ings and discussion about the virtues of prams over pushers, formula over breast-feeding, but with Spirit-inspired exclamations and, in the passage immediately following that which we have just heard, one of the most definitive songs of praise in the entire canon of Scripture.
"Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb", cries Elizabeth. "My soul magnifies the Lord," replies Mary. Her lowliness is to be fulfilled in blessedness, and great things are to be done through her. She is to do what no man can – she is to be the agent of God's en-fleshment.
It seems appropriate, this Sunday before Christmas, to reflect briefly on this first journey of the woman who made the whole show possible; she whom Elizabeth and countless subsequent generations have called Blessed. And I wonder whether, in Elizabeth's response to Mary's arrival, we might find some few things on which to base our own response to her bringing the promise of God to our own hearth and home.
Mary sets out with haste. Why, we are not told. Presumably having heard from the archangel Gabriel that Elizabeth, like Mary herself, is with child she wishes to share with her kinswoman both the joy and the fear of her new and unexpected condition. The haste implies perhaps even a sense of panic, and the desire to be with someone who might understand. Mary, newly pregnant and still unmarried was, to say the least, in an uncomfortable place. Seeking out her relative she seeks familiarity and comfort; a sympathetic ear and a reassuring voice. She does what we all do when confronted with the shock of life-changing circumstances: she runs. Such running can be metaphorical – we may retreat into self, we may hide from reality, we may lash out against the truth. But in Mary's case she literally runs away from her home; not into an abyss, but off to a place where she hopes she might find understanding and acceptance.
And at last she arrives. Elizabeth hears her call out as she enters the house, and both she and her child are filled with joy. The child, the future John the Baptist, leaps in his mother's womb. Is it Mary herself who prompts this response, or is the child whom she carries? We are given no firm clue at first. But Elizabeth is more than direct. She draws no distinction: both Mary and her unborn child are blessed. Her first response is of joy and blessing. Joy at the very sound of Mary's voice. No message has been spoken, merely a greeting "Hey, Lizzy, I'm here!" But the response, before a single question is uttered, verges on the ecstatic: Joy at the voice of her kinswoman; joy at the power of reunion; joy, benediction, and the outpouring of love.
How often are we so truly joyful? How often does blessing flow out from our hearts? How often do we let such raw emotion govern our response to those whom we love? Perhaps, as in this case, it comes out most readily after long separation, when we meet again that beloved relative or friend from whom time or distance has separated us. But how rare, how precious!
The joy is there too, because Elizabeth has clearly had news of Mary's condition, and would appear even to know that her son is the Lord. Her joy is personal, but it is also spiritual. She has at least a fairly strong hint of what is afoot. And such joy – born of love, faith, and revelation, wipes away Mary's disgrace, as Elizabeth's own pregnancy wiped away the social disgrace of her previous barrenness. These two who should not be pregnant – the barren and the unmarried, meet in an embrace which over-rides the social stigmas of their day and accepts each for what they are – beloved and blessed of God and each other. Here indeed is a challenge for any in the Church who seek to exclude; who place social mores before the joy and acceptance to be found in the love of God. Could the moralists of our Church – and they are many and growing in number – ever embrace the pregnant maiden and call her blessed?
But after the joy subsides, there comes at last the question: why? Why have you come to me? Me, of all people. The babe has leapt for joy, and the mother feels humbled, or at the very least confused. "Why have you journeyed from Nazareth to Judea?" Mary's response, in the words of the Magnificat, is definitive. She who perhaps began her journey in haste and fear has, upon arrival, founds its true meaning and purpose. That purpose is praise – magnifying the Lord, rejoicing in God, singing his praise for his mighty acts, his mercy, his strength, his grace, his help, his keeping of the covenant. There is strength here, perhaps even an element of relief. This journey is about announcing fulfilment, not about running away. The birth will move salvation history into a new time. God with us, born of a woman, whose song remains ours, just as Elizabeth's greeting remains ours to her.
"Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb." But also Elizabeth's other words: "Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord:" Mary, the one whose belief leads to the consummation of prophesy; Mary, who as an icon of the whole church at prayer shows us this example: that we too must believe, in order that the words spoken by the Lord to us may also be fulfilled.
Mary's journey to Elizabeth brings us to the very edge of the incarnation moment. We near the end of our Advent journey not with the final Lenten thunderbolt of Good Friday, but with the pre-Christmas joy of Elizabeth. And as we turn the page in Luke's narrative John is born, and then of course Jesus himself, and the joy is made complete. But that, as they say, is for next time.
The Lord be with you.
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