Luke 1: 39-45
39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. 45And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’
Mary…Our Lady in Waiting.
In this week’s gospel, we get an understanding that the adventure of waiting is not necessarily a time of doing nothing. It is often a time of being sent and of offering ourselves for the blessing of others. We see what a generous heart Mary had as we read about her going to be with Elizabeth in the last three months of Elizabeth’s pregnancy. Elizabeth was not a young woman anymore and having Mary there to help her was truly a blessing and it was a very loving act on Mary’s part.
But there were a couple of other reasons for Mary to visit Elizabeth at that time. The first pertains to what the angel spoke to Zechariah about John. Among other things, the angel said, “… even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Now, look at what it says in this week’s gospel: “And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit…” and “…as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy.” During her waiting, God used Mary to bring Jesus to John and Elizabeth for their blessing and infilling.
The other very important reason for the visit was so that Mary, too, could receive a gracious and badly needed blessing from God.
We all know this was not an easy time for Mary. She was waiting but not just for the birth of a son. She was waiting for God to work everything out even though he had put her in a position of shame, a position where her sanity and morality were in question and a position that could have held dire consequences for her. Her waiting called her to engage in huge trust. From our perspective, having heard the story so often, it’s difficult for us to imagine the kind of trust she had to have to believe God would indeed work it all out according to his purposes. She had to wait on God because there was nothing she could do to justify herself or to prove to others that she was not “shoddy goods”. Mary’s whole identity, inner worth and validity were completely dependent on God’s love and approval. She could no longer depend on anything else to indicate that she was a good woman and a trustworthy woman. The law condemned her and the man she was betrothed to pitied her but was not convinced of her innocence. In a time when women were not valued by society, entrusting one’s total worth to God was a risky business. The loneliness of her heart must have been intense. Have you ever cried out to the Lord for someone who would understand who you are and who would affirm your inner dignity and value? Have you ever faced a situation where others are questioning your integrity and worth? Have you ever been terribly lonely even though you’re in a relationship or part of a community? Have you ever felt that you have been denied normal dreams and expectations that others have been allowed to realize?
Mary’s visit to Elizabeth was a gift from God to Mary as well as to Elizabeth and John. Through her obedience in going to Elizabeth, she was given unexpected outside confirmation that all the angel had said to her was true. Elizabeth greeted her with, ‘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 leapt for joy. Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’
That greeting was a badly needed blessing for Mary to hear. It was such a balm to Mary’s spirit and such a confirmation of all she had been struggling to hold on to that her heart was filled with high praise, praise we now call the Magnificat. We don’t often stop to think about what that praise might have been expressing for Mary. As well as being an expression of the greatness of God, it was a prayer of deep relief and a prayer of exultant gratitude that God would know how much she needed this confirmation. Through Elizabeth’s prophetic greeting, God said to Mary, “You are blessed because you have continued to believe even though belief has been hard, rocky and lonely and you have had to struggle to hold onto your one and only true foundation. I am the one who fills you and validates you. I am your vindication and your justification. I am your Beloved and you are mine. I am your past, your present and your future, I am your all in all. I AM.”
Waiting can be painful. When we are waiting, it is easy to lose sight of what it is we are actually waiting for and even easier to begin to seek people, things and activities we think will fill up the empty aching places in our hearts. Like Mary, we are waiting for Jesus to come. And like Mary, we need to open our hearts to hear God’s Word telling us that he delights in our belief, especially when belief is hard. We need to be open to hearing him say, “Thank you for bearing my son within you even though others sometimes condemn you for it. Thank you for holding my son close to your heart even when it’s lonely and frightening. Thank you for believing in me even when others don’t believe in you.”
Like Mary, your moment of encouragement from the Lord may come when you bring Christ to someone else. You might be sent to someone in your family who also is in need of encouragement or needs the balm of love and forgiveness. You could be sent to someone outside of your family who is lonely or one who struggling with grief and discouragement.
Wait…but be ready to be sent. Just like Mary…Our Lady in Waiting.
*****
As Advent is a time of reflection and preparation for the coming of Jesus, you might like to ponder the following prayer written by Ted Loder, from his book of prayers titled, “Guerrillas of Grace.”
Gather Me To Be With You
O God, gather me now
To be with you
As you are with me.
Soothe my tiredness;
Quiet my fretfulness;
Curb my aimlessness
Relieve my compulsiveness;
Let me be easy for a moment.
O God, gather me
To be with you
As you are with me.
Forgive me
For claiming so much for myself
That I leave no room for gratitude;
For confusing exercises in self-importance
With acceptance of self worth;
For complaining so much of my burdens
That I become a burden;
For competing against others so insidiously
That I stifle celebrating them
And receiving their blessing through their gifts.
O God, gather me
To be with you
As you are with me.
Keep me in touch with myself,
With my needs,
My anxieties,
My angers,
My pains,
My corruptions,
That I may claim them as my own
Rather than blame them on someone else.
O Lord, deepen my wounds
Into wisdom;
Shape my weaknesses
Into compassion;
Gentle my envy
Into enjoyment;
My fear into trust,
My guilt into honesty,
My accusing fingers into tickling ones.
O Lord, release me
From the fears and guilts
Which grip me so tightly;
From the expectations and opinions
Which I so tightly grip,
That I may be open
To receiving what you give,
To risking something genuinely new,
To learning something refeshingly different. O God, gather me
To be with you
As you are with me.
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