The Women of Advent

When we took up the gospel reading for today in last week’s Bible study, those gathered were quite taken by the fact that, unlike so many Biblical scenes when the characters are men and the voices heard are male, the house of Zechariah tucked into the Judean hillside had a decidedly different feel: no men. We hear nothing from Zechariah, the husband of Elizabeth and father of the soon-be-born John the Baptist, who was famously struck mute by the angel Gabriel because he did not believe what the angel came to tell him: that at such an advanced age he and his wife would become parents for the first time. Where was Zechariah? Perhaps at work in the Temple in Jerusalem. Gabriel, considered the number two angel in the angel hierarchy just behind Michael, had also visited the village of Nazareth to announce to young Mary that she was would conceive a son and name him Jesus and he would inherit the throne of his ancestor David. After this stunning news, we don’t hear much from Joseph, Mary’s fiancé, until the trek to Bethlehem.

Where our gospel story begins this morning is with pregnant Mary doing what countless unwed young mothers have done throughout history: get out of town to spend some time with a relative, in this case Elizabeth. Was it out of shame or fear that she left Nazareth? We do not know for sure. What we do read about is this amazing relationship between two women, both pregnant, one old, one young, both frightened, both surprised by what was going on in their ordinary lives with no men in sight. Mary would spend three months out of sight far away from Nazareth. Elizabeth was six months into her pregnancy.

As they found themselves alone, needing each other, one can only imagine that they talked about the growing children inside of them. Perhaps the older Elizabeth was able to pass some wisdom down to her younger relative Mary, but then again all of this was new to her too. I doubt they could afford to relax that much, for life in rural Palestine had to be taxing and rigorous: pregnant women took no break from daily chores of cooking, fetching water, cleaning and washing clothes. Life went on uninterrupted.

Our story has Elizabeth giving Mary a blessing: “blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” There was a strong connection between these two evidenced by the jumping in-utero of the baby inside the older woman. We have heard over these four weeks of the strong connection that developed between the sons they carried: John and Jesus. This is the major Advent storyline not to be missed.

Then it was time for Mary to speak, and speak she did. The church knows of her words as the Magnificat, from the Latin magnify. It is Mary’s eternal prayer from her heart sung out in a way that has given hope to countless generations of believers. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor killed by the Nazis, wrote of Mary’s song: “It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung.” He goes on to write: “This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in painting; this is the passionate, surrendered, proud, enthusiastic Mary who speaks out here. This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong song about collapsing thrones and humbled lords of this world, about the power of God and powerlessness of humankind.”

The last Sunday in Advent, especially when it comes on the morning of Christmas Eve, takes some fertile concentration to get our last dose of preparation in before we tackle the overflowing feasts of the Nativity and Incarnation. Mary’s words give us one final chance to walk through some of the lasting hopes for God’s plan for this season of birth, giving and peace.

Having heard the Magnificat many times before, one sentence came alive for me this Advent. “For the Lord has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.” In a society and culture such as our own that prizes celebrity, achievement, material success, and uniqueness, it is often painfully hard to admit to being ordinary and average – let alone ordinary. To admit to an uneventful life, an average job, and a typical family. But isn’t that just what God is celebrating here?

Each Saturday night the radio host Garrison Keiller finishes his News from Lake Wobegon with his trademark declaration that in the mythical town the women are strong, the men good looking and all of the children are above average. But he knows this is not true in real life. Keiller writes: “I come from Minnesota, where it's considered shameful to be shameless, where modesty is always in fashion, where self-promotion is looked at askance. Give us a gold trophy and we will have it bronzed so you won't think that we think we're special. There are no Donald Trumps in Minnesota: We strangled them all in their cribs. A football player who likes to do his special dance after scoring a touchdown is something of a freak.”

But that is not the norm in our world. For many being ordinary is not good enough; one must push to be extraordinary. We’re coached that if we do not toot our horn once in a while, who will? All children get trophies and ribbons by a society that is getting more conflicted about what it means to win and lose.

The pursuit of perfection is admirable but not absolute. I am reminded of the expression: “do not make the perfect the enemy of the good.” Too many of us are told by the prevailing winds of our culture that we should not settle for anything less than we deserve.

The lowliness of Mary and the surprise of her being chosen to bring Jesus into this world is God’s way of reminding us that ordinary is good. In fact, it might be even better. Because it allows us to give credit where credit is due. It allows us to credit the Mighty One for doing good things for and through us.

God can use another rather uneventful Christmas Eve, in a typical church and during a service filled with pretty much the same carols to implant in us what Elizabeth and Mary came to understand.

God is already exercising power in the world, already lifting up the lowly, feeding the hungry, reminding the high and mighty how shaky their hold on power already is. The bus has already left. What do we want to do? Will we be spectators or partners in God’s plans? Creation is already being made new. Will we stand far off and wait for the right time to get involved, when everything thing else in our lives falls into place, or will we jump in?

Will we be open to God’s messengers – God’s angels -- in our lives, those people who tell us something we don’t want to hear, keep us honest, or inspire us to step out in faith, take some risks, dare to be wrong once in a while? If so, just maybe we are ready to hear once again the story of the birth of Christ -- for the first time.