Thursday, December 14: Elizabeth and Mary
Mary spent the first three months of her pregnancy with Elizabeth. Why did she immediately leave when hearing the good but confusing news about her pregnancy? And, why did she travel so far away just to be with her older cousin? Did she know Elizabeth was also pregnant? What had their relationship been like before? And, if they were so close, why did Jesus and John the Baptist seem to be strangers meeting fro the first time in every account of Jesus' baptism?
Sometimes I want to shake the writers and editors of the
Gospels for how vague their stories are. So few people have names, and details
are sketchy. This story in particular seems woefully incomplete. Artists from
the Byzantine era on have added details to the story—most notably, an embrace
between the women, a physical affirmation of the tremendous connection they now
shared.
The babies leaping in the women’s wombs.
The women embracing, praising one another with words that are
clearly not their own—inspired words, words of great clarity and beauty.
Mary’s song indicates she was wise far beyond her years,
aware of the kind of reversal Jesus was going to bring to the world even before
her pregnancy was real.
He bared his arm and showed his strength, scattered the bluffing braggarts, she sings. He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud. The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold.
And Jesus really lived this way, reversing every command that had been given before his time, or at least reordering their levels of importance. Ultimately, The Christmas story means nothing if we don't remember that his birth in a stable was the start of those reversals, the first invitation for us to see the world with unflinching clarity, to recognize privilege and oppression and to act outside of those paradigms.
But for a moment, we can simply rest in the embrace of two women with dreams, two women terrified and hopeful, and feel grateful for the magnitude of their joy.
He bared his arm and showed his strength, scattered the bluffing braggarts, she sings. He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud. The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold.
And Jesus really lived this way, reversing every command that had been given before his time, or at least reordering their levels of importance. Ultimately, The Christmas story means nothing if we don't remember that his birth in a stable was the start of those reversals, the first invitation for us to see the world with unflinching clarity, to recognize privilege and oppression and to act outside of those paradigms.
But for a moment, we can simply rest in the embrace of two women with dreams, two women terrified and hopeful, and feel grateful for the magnitude of their joy.
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