Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to the town of Judah where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” (Luke 1.39-45)
On this fourth and final Sunday of Advent, we are introduced to Mary who will play a pivotal role in the upcoming celebration of Christmas. Our selections for the season have shifted suddenly from John the Baptist who has occupied the scene for the several past Sundays, announcing the coming of the Messiah, to Mary who already carries the long awaited Messiah in her womb. The move is intentional. The only thing remaining is the coming of the Savior into the world, his birth only a matter of time at this point.
Of course, Luke already has told us the story of Mary in earlier verses of Chapter 1, presenting the story of the angel Gabriel’s visit to a young girl in a town of Galilee who informs her that God has chosen her to give birth to his son, Jesus. Luke is the only evangelist that offers us this annunciation scene. Matthew, for his part, presents an appearance of the angel to Joseph, the betrothed husband of Mary, informing him of the same future events.
For that matter, Luke is also the only evangelist that offers the story of the visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth who, like the young girl Mary, is pregnant, although Elizabeth has more years on her than the girl from Nazareth. However, both pregnancies share the same unexpectedness and implausibility. Mary has had no conjugal relations and Elizabeth has been unable to bear children.
Now, there is a sudden reversal, one of Luke’s favorite themes in his gospel, where assumptions are disproved and where the normal course of things are upheaved. That upheaval is beautifully framed in Mary’s words to Elizabeth that follow the verses that we have today containing Elizabeth’s greeting to the young girl of Nazareth.
Mary expresses the reversal that will epitomize the remainder of the gospel, telling her cousin, “The Mighty One has shown might with his arm, dispersing the arrogant of mind and of heart. He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty.”
A quintessential Lucan motif, this movement up and down shows the Most High God reversing the assumed status of the high and mighty while elevating the lowly and the impoverished. First, as Mary expresses it, God initiates a downward movement, scattering the arrogant, pulling down the mighty, and sending the rich away empty. Then, he implements an upward movement, exalting the lowly, filling the hungry, and helping the helpless.
In effect, the visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth provides a flesh-and-blood expression of what Jesus will verbalize in his Sermon on the Plain in Chapter 6 of Luke’s gospel where he tells the crowds, “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh.”
These so-called beatitudes or blessings are followed in Luke’s gospel by what has become known as the woes, based on Jesus’ subsequent words, “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep.”
Again, it is a clear-cut reversal of fortunes, exactly as Mary had told Elizabeth, herself a living example of a beatitude, something both women recognize. Elizabeth says as much when she tells Mary, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Mary also understands that she exemplifies this reversal, telling her cousin, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed.”
So, the remainder of the Lucan gospel will be an extension of this great reversal as Jesus enacts in his ministry this upward movement, feeding the hungry, curing the sick, and welcoming the sinner, his words and his ways reminding us that the Most High God does not stomach the wiles of the wicked and the powerful, toppling them from their thrones, but instead shows care and compassion for the least and the last, lifting them up and freeing them from their chains.
By setting the stage for us with the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, Luke is stating that the time has arrived for the great reversal, or as Elizabeth says to Mary, “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” As Mary’s womb has been filled by the Holy Spirit, so the promises of the Most High God also will be fulfilled, the birth of the Messiah to inaugurate a new age and a new kingdom, one in which the hungry are filled with good things and where the rich are sent away empty.
This fulfillment is seen as the perfection of God’s plan, the birth of Jesus initiating the reign of God, his rule over the world reclaimed as the powerful are toppled and as the poor are raised up. That theme will be front and center throughout the pages of Luke’s gospel, even to the end when Jesus, hanging on a cross outside Jerusalem, says to the repentant thief who is crucified alongside him, “This day you will be with me in Paradise.”
With this theme clearly articulated for us, we might take another look at the story of the visitation, finding in it a further enunciation of this same point. As we’ve already seen, Mary becomes the living proof of the reversal, a nobody from a nowhere place called by God to give birth to his only son, showing in real time God’s preferential option for the poor.
Likewise, Elizabeth, unable to have children, suddenly finds herself pregnant, blessed by God also. A barren woman in these times was considered destitute and to be pitied, her future and her livelihood dependent on handouts from others because she would have no children to support her in her old age. But the Most High God provides for her, allowing her empty womb to be filled, giving birth to a son in a matter of months, blessing her as he did Hannah in the pages of the Hebrew scriptures.
What lesson do we find for ourselves today in this story of the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth? There are many, of course, as there always are in the pages of scripture. But we may want to pay close attention to the fact that Elizabeth welcomes Mary into her home. As the Most HIgh God has shown mercy to Elizabeth, reversing her childlessness, Elizabeth now shows mercy to Mary, an unwed mother-to-be, opening her door to her.
Accustomed to the story of Mary, the centuries of the retelling of her story elevating her status and gold-leafing her prominence, we often overlook the reality of the situation in which Mary suddenly found herself. She was young–still a teenager–and now she was pregnant, the father of her child a matter of speculation among the neighbors, and she had by all appearances violated the norms of the time, resulting in her character impugned and her morals questioned.
In other words, she was an outcast, which may be the likeliest reason for her going to stay with her cousin Elizabeth for several months, finding in the home of her cousin a safe place away from the slurs and slanders of her nosy and busybody neighbors. When Elizabeth opens the door and finds a clearly pregnant young girl in front of her, she does not disparage her or shut the door in her face, both actions the proper ones for the times.
Instead, Elizabeth opens the door, welcomes Mary inside, and calls her blessed, seeing in the child that she carries a sign of God at work. Where others saw cause for condemnation and criticism, Elizabeth sees reason to believe that God has a plan that will unfold in time. She embraces both Mary and the child that she carries and makes clear that she is overjoyed to have Mary stay with her. “At the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears,” Elizabeth said, “the infant in my womb leaped for joy.”
Now, we ask ourselves if we greet the stranger, the outcast, or the ostracized who stand at our door in the same way. Like Elizabeth, do we welcome the abandoned, the godforsaken, the pariah into our midst, finding in the stranger and the foreigner a fellow traveler on the road of life, one who needs a good meal and a warm jacket, or do we shut the door in their face before even a word or a plea can be made?
There may be a reason that Luke puts Elizabeth in the opening pages of his gospel, placing her front and center as an example of the hospitality and the humanity that the son of Mary will show when he reaches his adult years and moves through the towns of Galilee, extending a helping hand to one and all, finding ways to feed the hungry, and embracing sinners who have been beat down by the society around them. He wants us to see in her the generosity and the hospitality that Jesus the son of Mary will extend to others who are beat down by life and who have nowhere to turn.
Oddly, we have turned the knock on our door by someone into a joke. A search of the internet provides us with at least a hundred-and-fifty so-called “Knock, knock” jokes, each one for our amusement and all providing a laugh or two. But Luke, I believe, would find less humor in our dismissal of the knock on the door, allowing it to become a laughing matter when, in fact, it is anything but funny.
On the other side of the door often stands a lost person, a grieving widow, or an immigrant without papers, each one much the same as the teenager Mary who was in desperate need of help, and the question in their minds as they knock on our doors is if we will answer and if we will welcome them inside. Obviously, it is a question that only we can answer for ourselves.
But the one thing that Luke’s story of the visitation makes plain, as will the remainder of his gospel as we will see in our journey through its pages in the year ahead, is that the Most High God disperses the arrogant of mind and heart, throws down the rulers from their thrones, and sends the rich away empty, while, on the other hand, he lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry with good things, and helps those who are down and out. So on whose side do we want to be? We’ll know the answer the next time there is a knock on our door.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 