Our Gospel reading for today drops us in the middle of the story. So in order to understand the wonder of this meeting, let’s start where Luke started, at verse five in Jerusalem, with a minor priest named Zechariah. Zechariah was married to Elizabeth, whom, Luke tells us, is a descendant of Aaron, and thus also a member of the priestly class by birth, not just by marriage. And even though Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous before God and lived blamelessly according to the commandments, they were, in a time when one’s faith and worth were determined by their offspring, childless. One can only assume this had been heartbreaking to them in their younger years, but they were older now, past childbearing age, and certainly resigned to their fate of being childless.
Until one day, when it was Zechariah’s turn to enter into the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense. And while he was in there, doing his priestly duty, the angel Gabriel appeared before him. The angel informed him that his prayers had been answered; his wife was to become pregnant and bear a son. Zechariah was incredulous. “How can this be,” he asked. “For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.” Which seems like a polite way to say, “quit kidding around angel, and let me get back to my work.”
But the angel would not be so easily dismissed. “I am Gabriel,” the angel replied. “I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.” And Zechariah is instantly struck mute, a strange experience for a priest in a patriarchal clerical society, someone who was certainly used to having his voice heard. Zechariah would speak again, at the naming of his son, his mouth would be open, and his first phrase would be “Blessed be the God of Israel.” But for the next nine months, he would be silent. And in that silence Elizabeth, who up to this point has been strangely absent despite the fact that one might argue she has more at stake physically in these events then Zechariah does, finds her voice, proclaiming, “This is what the Lord has done for me.”
And then the story jumps from Jerusalem to Nazareth, where the angel announced another unexpected pregnancy. This time to Mary, a girl as young as Elizabeth was old. Elizabeth had lived a lifetime as a wife of a priest, while Mary was engaged, but not yet married, to a man named Joseph. As a descendant of the house of David, Joseph may have held some esteem in some places, but certainly very little in Gentile Galilee. But Joseph is a bit player in this narrative, merely a name mentioned to set the background. The focus instead is on Mary.
“Greetings, favored one,” the angel said to Mary. “The Lord is with you. You will bear a son and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.” And Mary, an unwed girl child from a small backwater community, certainly used to being told what to do, has the exact same response as the experienced and listened to Zechariah. “How can this be?”
But unlike with Zechariah, where the angel responded to his questioning by striking him mute, with Mary the angel responded much differently. He explained. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” he told her. “And the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And now your relative Elizabeth will also conceive and bear a son, for nothing is impossible with God.” Instead of silencing her, the angel gives Mary both explanation and evidence. Here’s how it will happen, he told her. And if that isn’t enough, you can go and see Elizabeth, and her pregnancy will show you the truth of my words, the power of the Most High God.
This is where our Gospel reading picks up this morning, with these two different stories coming together. The description starts wide, and then quickly narrows to the point. “Mary set out with haste to a Judean town, in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah, and greeted Elizabeth.” Here we see the reason for the journey, to find her relative Elizabeth, to see if Elizabeth was in fact pregnant, and to know if the words of this angel could possibly be true. And as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child within her leapt with joy, fulfilling the words the angel had said to Zechariah, that “even before his birth the child would be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And in this greeting and leaping, Elizabeth too was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed, “Blessed are you among women! And why is this happening, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” Not only is Elizabeth pregnant, as the angel had said she would be, but in an instant she recognized not only that Mary, who could not be more than a few weeks along at this point, was also pregnant, and was bearing the Son of God. This was enough for Mary too to exclaim. And Mary broke out in the beautiful song that we said together this morning, what is known as the Magnificat. Some scholars call the Magnificat the theological reflection of the Gospel story. In this brief song, Mary spoke of a God who not just would, but had already done great things. She recounted God’s saving actions in the past, how God’s mighty arm had led the people from slavery to freedom under Pharaoh and from the Babylonians. She spoke of a God who brought the mighty down from their thrones and uplifted the humble, who filled the hungry and sent the rich away empty, and how all this was the fulfillment of the promises God had made long ago. It is a beautiful song of hope and praise for those who find themselves cast down, that God is already on the side of the weak and downtrodden. It promises that the one who is coming is a king like no other, a king of mercy and grace, of peace and love.
There is temptation in this beautiful song by Mary and in the words of the angel and of Elizabeth, to place Mary up on a pedestal of woman above all women, blessed handmaiden of the Lord, possessor of a level of holiness and humility that can be wondered at but never attained. But remember, Mary is just a girl, a child really, and what the Magnificat really testifies to is not Mary’s weakness but God’s greatness. The Magnificat is true humility because it does not weaken the events of which Mary will be a part, but it recognizes the powerful role that Mary is to play. What Mary models is that humility is not putting ourselves down, it is being the best version of ourselves in honor of the God who created us. This is something we have trouble with as Lutherans, and as people. It is hard to, like Mary did, accept a compliment for who one is. But if God has blessed you with a gift, claim it. It does the world no good to play down who you are, whether you are a singer or kind or the bearer of the Son of God, so claim it, live into it, and embrace that you are more than you thought you could be.
The other thing this story can teach us is that it is ok to question and even to doubt the work that God has for us. Both Mary and Zechariah questioned the angel’s words to them, and the angel’s words came true regardless. These events were not predicated on Mary or Zechariah’s ability to embrace them; they were predicated on the God who set them into motion. But the angel’s response to Zechariah’s question and Mary’s question was different, and I think it comes down to the expected response of the questioner. Zechariah questioned from a place of power and authority, he assumed he would be right. Mary questioned from a place of weakness and vulnerability, she assumed that she was wrong. For his arrogance, Zechariah got a nine month time out, if you will, to contemplate the wonder God had in store for him; while for her uncertainty, Mary got explanation, guidance, and a friend and companion in Elizabeth to walk with her in the strange, uncertain journey ahead.
These different responses offer challenge and hope for us too, in times of certainty and uncertainty. When we are called to tasks which seem above our doing, roles for which we feel unprepared, be that task sharing a gift we didn’t know we had, forgiving someone who has hurt us, or simply walking through another day, we can look to the angel’s response to Zechariah and Mary, and know that God’s will for our lives will be accomplished whether we can believe it or not. And in the times that we are sure that God is wrong, we may find ourselves silenced. But in the times that we are sure we are wrong, we can trust God to provide us forgiveness, hope, and guides along the way who will walk with us in our journey.
In these final days before the Advent, the coming of our Lord, let us remember that this birth is not a story of our past, but a story of our present. For God is still born among us, each and every day, in water and word, in wine and bread, in companionship and faith and community. And like Mary, Elizabeth, and Zechariah, we too are called and equipped to be God-bearers for each other, bringing the promise of the coming hope. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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