The Gospel of Luke, above all books of the New Testament, is about women. It reads as if a woman might have written it. It contains intimate details which hardly would have occurred to a man. It begins with the birth of John the Baptist, focusing on Elizabeth, his mother.
Many of Luke's stories from Jesus' ministry are about women: the woman who washed his feet with her tears, the woman who wouldn't give up in the court, the widow of Nain, the stooped over woman, the widow who gave her last coins, his best friends, Mary and Martha. At the resurrection it was only women who had the faith to go to the grave.
The text lists Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of Jesus, and other women. Luke reports that when they told the disciples about the empty tomb these men assumed it was an idle tale and did not believe them. And mind you, all of this from a culture in which women didn't count.
The central character in the birth narrative, a story only told by Luke, is Mary. Here we find a determined, strong, assertive woman; a model for all women -- a woman of influence: educated, sharp, committed. It is the resourceful, competent, clear woman from whom Jesus learned much of what he knew about God's will for him and for the world.
Considering the fact that Elizabeth was of far advanced age the risk involved with her unexpected pregnancy, Mary “set out and went with haste” to visit her who has been in seclusion for sixth months.
To get to Elizabeth’s dwelling in the hill country, Mary had to travel some forty or fifty miles south through the Great Plain of Esdralon over the mountains of Samaria. That was quite a journey.
When she arrives in the uplands of Judah and beholds the very pregnant and gray-haired Elizabeth, she is caught off guard by Elizabeth’s announcement: “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
But how did she know? Who told her about Mary’s pregnancy? There was no mail or telephone in those days, no singing telegrams. And to Mary’s further surprise, Elizabeth asks no questions, makes no judgments, but takes her in her arms and assures her that all will be well.
Mary was probably no more than sixteen and like many others of her age, she was betrothed to a man she hardly knew. What Mary, and Elizabeth all discovered is that God is true to God’s promises. Each of them was blessed with the gift of new, yet totally unforeseen, life moving around in them. They are blessed because they all took God at God’s word, believed God’s promise and that is, after all the living definition of faith—a faith that keeps our hopes thriving, a faith in things we have not yet seen.
Mary and Elizabeth were marginalized members of their society and culture, yet in each other’s company and supported by one another’s courage, they declared prophetic words about what God was doing in their midst.
Neither of them had a convenient pregnancy—Mary being an unwed teenager and Elizabeth an elderly woman—but they allowed themselves to be inconvenienced for the great blessing attached to the child each bore.
The song of Mary that day, the Magnificat, calls for a new world order which would be set in place through the coming and ministry of Jesus. It’s a world where the proud are scattered, the powerful brought down, the lowly lifted up, the hungry filled with abundance, the rich sent away empty.
The most significant verb in Mary’s joyful song is Magnifies—a word that means “makes clear, enlarges, brings into focus.” If you have ever used a magnifying glass, you know what that experience is like. Everything seen through it takes on a different perspective. I wonder if Mary didn’t have a huge revelation in her own pregnancy and the pregnancy of Elizabeth.
Could it be that the God who had been for her an abstract concept, a vague far away being suddenly became a living, loving reality? Did she mean that all of this wonder and awe brought God into focus for her in a completely new way? Did Mary now see and experience God in a larger, expanded way?
Barbara Brown Taylor, one of the most renowned preachers in the Episcopal Church, says “In the divine dance we are all dancing, God may lead but it is entirely up to us whether we will follow. Just because God sends an angel to invite one girl onto the dance floor is no guarantee she will say “yes.”
“Just because God sends us a prophet to tell us how life on earth can be more like life in heaven does not mean any of us will quit our day job to make it so. God acts. Then it is our turn. God responds to us. Then it is our turn again.”
The only thing of which we can be sure in the divine dance of our lives is this: we have a partner who is with us and for us and who wants us to have new life in us—surprising, illuminating new life and with it an expanded, larger, deeper relationship with our Creator God. For which my soul—your soul—can magnify the Lord for the Mighty One has done great things for us and holy is God’s Name.
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