I haven’t
checked yet but I expect there will be some blockbuster movies on the
television over Christmas, most of them with carefully timed ad breaks so you
can put the kettle on, or whatever it is you need to do. But watching a film in
short installments is no substitute for sitting down and seeing the whole thing
through with no interruptions.
The
Gospels can be like that, particularly Luke who is such a great dramatist. We
can miss the full effect if we start reading part way through. Today’s gospel reading
begins, “Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country.”
Read like that it sounds as though it’s the start of a new story, but actually
it follows on immediately from the account of the Annunciation, they are more
like two parts of the same story.
It’s a
continuous piece of action: the angel delivers his message that Mary is to be
the mother of the Saviour, Mary responds “let it be with me according to your
word”, the angel leaves, and Mary sets out in haste to see her cousin. The way
Luke tells it, it looks as though Mary’s sudden decision to visit Elizabeth
arises out of the message she has just received.
Now why
did she do this? On the simply practical level, she probably went to help.
Elizabeth was suddenly pregnant in her old age and Mary, as another woman in
the family, went to help out. Luke tells us that Mary stayed for the last three
months of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, so implies that she was there for the birth of
John the Baptist.
But there
is more to it of course. God has intervened decisively for both of these women.
Both, being faithful daughters of Israel, know the scriptures, their stories
and promises were part of their world. Promises like the prophecy we heard from
Micah, that God would raise up a ruler who would shepherd his people and bring
peace, after so many centuries of war and exile and oppression. This ruler
would usher in a new age, when everything that had gone wrong would be put
right.
No wonder
Elizabeth blesses Mary for believing that the promises made by the Lord would
be fulfilled. God is coming to save his people, the long awaited Messiah is even
now growing in Mary’s womb, and the forerunner and herald, John the Baptist, now
in Elizabeth’s womb, will prepare his way before him. Both women in this scene
are bearers of that joy, and surely wanted to share it with each other.
But there
is more still. Mary is pregnant, not with just any child, but with the Word of
God in person. And she who bears the Eternal Word in her womb also bears the word
of salvation, the good news, in her heart. The angel has given her the good
news that the Saviour will be born of her and his kingdom will have no end. In
Greek the Annunciation is called the “Evangelism” of Mary. Because Mary has
received the good news with gladness she straight away becomes an evangelist
herself, and goes off in haste to share the good news with others.
This
openness to the good news means that both women are also open to seeing what
God is doing in the world. This scene, the meeting of Elizabeth and Mary, is
full of God, for those who have eyes to see. God is here, invisible but truly
present in Mary’s womb, fulfilling his promises. Elizabeth is filled with the
Holy Spirit and recognises that presence before her and calls Mary the mother
of her Lord.
It’s in
this scene in Elizabeth’s house that Mary sings the Magnificat, that great song
of revolution and triumph that we had as our canticle this morning. God has
visited and redeemed his people. He has put down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted the humble, he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the
rich empty away. Notice: God has done this. Not “will do”. It is a present
reality, there and then, for those two women who have the faith to see.
And this
results in great joy, exulting and overflowing. The Magnificat is superb poetry
and song, full of faith, full of the promises of the prophets. And above all full
of joy that God has acted to save his people.
Mary and Elizabeth have much to teach us in this scene.
Firstly, faith gets us moving! Those who receive God’s good news with an open
heart can’t keep still, can’t keep it to themselves. The good news makes us all
evangelists, and makes us want to share it in haste.
Secondly, faith in action can be very practical, like Mary
going to help and support her pregnant cousin. But this is not a separate
action from sharing the good news that God has saved his people. The two go
together. Offering practical help to those in need, if it is done with a heart
full of the good news, becomes in itself an act of evangelism.
Thirdly, know the scriptures and believe God’s promises. This
keeps our hearts and our eyes open so we can see how God is at work in the
world. The violent empires of this world in the end will fall and pass away,
but the Saviour of the world has come, Jesus is Lord, and his kingdom will have
no end.
Fourthly, the keynote and the end of all this is joy,
praise and thanksgiving, overflowing and uncontainable. The good news of
salvation gives great joy to those who have received it, a joy that wants to
increase and be spread, a joy that impels us to widen the circle of God’s
saving work and draw others in.
On Good Friday a few years ago the Pope’s preacher, Father
Raniero Cantalamessa, said this: “Christian
evangelization is not a conquest, not propaganda; it is the gift of God to the
world in his Son Jesus. It is to give the Head [Jesus] the joy of feeling life
flow from his heart towards his body [the Church], to the point of giving life
to its most distant limbs.”
To be an evangelist is to be, like Mary, a bearer of joy. We
carry into the world the good news that God is saving his people in Jesus, so
that more and more of the hungry, the humble and the meek can be caught up in
Mary’s song of triumph, praise and joy.
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