In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “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 to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
Luke 1:39-55
And Mary said:
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for you, Lord, have looked with favor on your lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
you, the Almighty, have done great things for me
and holy is your name.
You have mercy on those who fear you,
from generation to generation.
You have shown strength with your arm
and scattered the proud in their conceit,
casting down the mighty from their thrones
and lifting up the lowly.
You have filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.
You have come to the aid of your servant Israel,
to remember the promise of mercy,
the promise made to our forebears,
to Abraham and his children forever.
My sermon from the Fourth Sunday of Advent (December 22, 2024) on Luke 1:39-55.
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So I’ve fallen into the habit of repeating the same story over and over again whenever I’m asked to participate in Woodcliff Lake’s Christmas tree lighting. Two weeks ago, Father Jason from Our Mother of the Church, a handful of councilpersons, and a group of Christmas carolers stood in front of the Talbots and Chico’s at Tice’s Corner. We were there to mark the Christmas season by plugging in a large plastic tree. All of us standing in the front shared a holiday blessing with words focused on hope, peace, and joy. But I, though, couldn’t help but include in my remarks a certain legend about why we even have a Christmas tree in the first place. It’s shared that roughly 500 years ago, Martin Luther was walking home in the middle of the night through a path on the outskirts of a nearby forest. Everything was, at the time, cold, dark, and covered in snow. Luther knew how to get home but kept losing his way since flashlights and Google maps hadn’t been invented yet. Yet, while he walked, Luther noticed how the moonlight reflecting off the snow covered trees provided just enough twinkling light to guide him home. The feeling of being supported by something beyond himself could help but remind Luther of the Christmas story. And so when he got home later that evening, he tried to recreate his experience for his family and friends. He decided to go out into his year, cut down a small evergreen tree, and bring it inside. After making sure it was clear of any stray animals, he added to the branches a bunch of lit wax candles. Luther wasn’t the first person to decorate a tree for Christmas and he wasn’t very good at following any kind of building fire code. This legend, though, reminds us how God often chooses things outside of us to reflect what God’s love is doing in our world. It isn’t only what’s inside of us that reveals what our life with God is supposed to be. Rather, when we need a prayer, a word, and a little twinkling light to guide our way, God often surrounds us with experiences – and people – who reveal what kingdom of God is all about.
Now for the last two weeks, we’ve spent time with John the Baptist near the beginning of his public ministry. He was busy inviting people to recognize God’s vision for their lives and John’s background added a little credibility to his words. His father had been a high priest who oversaw the rituals conducted at the Holy Temple in Jerusalem while his mom, Elizabeth, became a mom when everyone assumed she was too old to be one. Those two things on their own sound pretty on par for any biblical story. But what made John’s family even more different was how his mom had a younger cousin named Mary. Thirty years prior to John’s ministry, that Mary left home to spend some time with Elizabeth. She had, in the verses right before this, learned how she was going to become a mom herself. The angel Gabriel, after announcing what God was up to, ended his words with an almost throwaway mention that Elizabeth was pregnant too. Rather than choosing to stay with her own parents, girlfriends, or those who might be awfully suspicious of this unwed pregnant teenager, Mary chose to visit an elderly kinswoman who, like her, was scandalously pregnant. Both of these women knew how dangerous giving birth could be and they would need the wisdom of others to help carry them through. And while we don’t know the names of those who Elizabeth relied on during her pregnancy, we get to see who Mary chose while in the midst of her holy, scandalous, and unexpected story.
The Rev. Nadia Stefko, in a commentary she wrote about this passage, couldn’t help but identify with the relationship of Mary and Elizabeth. She had grown up with a slew of older sisters who blessed her with “their [ability] to see something [she] was struggling with in a different light.” Each one of them lived lives full of all different kinds of joys and struggles. And so when Rev. Stefko needed someone to help light her way, they were there to offer her a wisdom bound with the kind of love that gave her hope when she needed it the most. That doesn’t mean their interactions were always peaceful, kind, and extremely patient. I’m sure there were plenty of times when the weeping and gnashing of teeth rather served as a better metaphor for the kind of arguments that came up when they struggled listening to one another. But when we’re feeling lost, alone, and need a little help to bring us someplace new, God often uses those around us to illuminate what God has – and is doing – in our lives. We often are so wrapped up in our own story we don’t always recognize the grace and the light guiding our way. Our choices, our decisions, the things that happen to us and the things we don’t always freely admit we did – can feel like the summation of what our life is meant to be about. God, though, chooses to use people to remind us that we’re not here to live this life on our own. These close relationships can be the sign of what God’s kingdom looks like in our world. And when they are working at their best, they offer the “giving and receiving of the reassurance … we need, even when we can’t quite see [all of] it for ourselves.”
Now Mary and Elizabeth, after receiving words and promises from the Divine they didn’t expect could have chosen to focus only on their own incredible experiences. They were, after all, literally birthing God’s imagination for our world through their own very human bodies. Celebrating, naming, and inviting others to recognize what God was doing in them was a perfectly reasonable way to live. But when they first saw each other, they chose – in their own way – to see and acknowledge what God was doing in each other’s life. That, I think, was no small feat since both were possibly pretty nauseous, exhausted, and living through all that comes while at different stages of their pregnancy. Yet by choosing to notice the light at work in each other’s life, they helped each other discover the light working on their own. That, I think, is why – when Elizabeth greeted Mary with the word “Blessed!” – Mary’s first recorded words since the angel’s visit was a mighty song we call the Magnificat. “Despite all the unknowns, Mary [knew] it [was] going to be alright, in part because her trusted kinswoman [told] her so—with her words and by her very presence alongside her (complete with leaping womb). And Elizabeth [also] suddenly [knew] that things will be OK for her as well, even though she and her husband have not been able to exchange a word since before her strange pregnancy began.” It’s through each other’s presence, care, and words that enables them to continue to embrace the story God had in mind of them. We, I think, get to experience our own faith story in a similar way by paying attention to the words others share about the ways God is moving through each of us. And when we – like Mary and Elizabeth – reveal the light at work in the lives of those around us, that’s often when we grow in our own ability to see how God’s love is transforming us into something more too.
Amen.