Luke 1:39-45 is the story of Mary visiting Elizabeth.
The text is unique to Luke. Both Elizabeth and Mary find they are in busy, messy, and difficult times. In other words, they face the real life and times we must all face. Think of them like their Old Testament counterparts, Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah and the wife of Manoah, Sampson’s mother, all of whom had a miraculous setting for the birth of their children. Elizabeth is far beyond child-bearing age, yet she finds herself pregnant with her first child. Imagine her overwhelming feelings of joy and anxiety. At last a child for whom to love and care. Care for?! Suddenly in her old age Elizabeth was going to be expected to take on all the exhilarating but exhausting duties of motherhood. Could she do it? How would she manage? Was she up to it? Her anxiety must have been running high. This would be true in spades for Mary! Like Elizabeth, she, too, was unexpectedly pregnant. Her betrothed, but not quite yet husband Joseph was understandably confused and upset. Mary was young and poor. She may have even been average in the expectations she had for her life. She had been anticipating setting up a household with Joseph, establishing herself in her new role as wife, and then, hopefully, becoming a mother. Instead, Mary recently had to cope with the astounding visit of an angelic messenger. She was pregnant, receiving the stunning news of the identity of the baby. She was simple, admitting that her life was one of service to the Lord. Yet both Elizabeth and Mary respond to the revelations and situations of these busy, messy, and difficult times by opening themselves to this unexpected divine presence. Luke will remind us throughout this story of the presence of the Holy Spirit leading to the insights we find here. Elizabeth, wife of a priest, humbles herself before the pregnant country girl, Mary.
39 In those days, Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. After the announcement of the birth of Jesus to her, Mary went unchaperoned and alone to Judea to visit the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth, the latter being in seclusion for five months. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. We find here that the child in the womb of Elizabeth, as special as he clearly is, displays humility in acknowledging the superiority of Jesus. The Holy Spirit, making its presence felt for the first time in this quiet, elderly woman, filled Elizabeth, inspiring her as she 42 exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. An interesting similarity is in Judges 5:24, “Most blessed of women be Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, of tent-dwelling women most blessed.” In Judith 13:18 (about 150 BC), we read, “O daughter, you are blessed by the Most High God above all other women on earth.” 43 Why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? Here is the basis for the affirmation in the Council of Ephesus in 431 that affirmed Mary as “Mother of God.” [1] In Luke 11:27-28, the faith of Mary again receives mention, but this time, Jesus says, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy (en agalliasei). The child in the womb of Elizabeth responds humbly but joyfully to the child Jesus, still in the womb of Mary. The symbol of Elizabeth’s baby leaping in her womb is both a visually descriptive detail and an interesting reworking of an OT image. In the story of Isaac and Rebekah, the latter, who once had been barren, miraculously becomes pregnant with twins. Nevertheless, while in the womb, the unborn twins “jostled” each other. Rebekah learns that this jostling symbolizes the coming discord between the nations that would descend from each of the twins (Genesis 25:21-23). The prophecy ends with the foreboding quotation: “and the older will serve the younger.” In fact, the prophecy does come about, and the story of Jacob and Esau, as well as their descendants, is one of strife and anger. Yet in the story of Elizabeth and Mary, there is no indication or hint of jealousy between the two women, nor any between the two unborn sons. In fact, quite the opposite is true. In Elizabeth’s praise of Mary, she reiterates what the story has already told us: that her baby leapt in her womb at the sound of Mary’s arrival. Yet in Elizabeth’s prophetic telling, she adds the detail that the baby leapt “in rejoicing,” or “for joy.” This is a transformation of the story of Jacob and Esau. Here the “older will serve the younger” but this time in joy and thanksgiving. 45 Further,blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” The statement is like John 20:29, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” The beatitude pronounced upon Mary refers to her belief, given the content of 1:38, that she believed the word given her by the angel. She is “blessed” through her faith, not because of it.[2] Indeed, God blesses Mary among women because she hears and responds. She sings. She becomes a model for us. Luke looks at her as the first disciple. We sing in our world of darkness because we believe. As Martin Luther once said in a Christmas sermon, three miracles occurred at Christ's nativity: God became human, a virgin conceived, Mary believed. For Luther, the greatest miracle that first Christmas was the last. Mary believed. Despite all the oppression, closed doors, brick walls, blind alleys, and dark, silent, death, she believed. She sang.
For Barth, this passage leads to a discussion of Mary as representing humanity in receiving the gift of the Son. He is willing to go there, even wondering why Mary is the one chosen as a female in contrast to the male, especially since the story of the birth of Jesus excludes a male role. Both God and humanity are involved, and thus, the story says something about the role of humanity. Yet, he wants to avoid any trace of Mariology. The story does not mean, in typical Barth fashion, that humanity has openness toward the work of God. He stresses that behind wicked human history there is still hidden a good human being, worthy of communion with the divine. For him, no plane exists upon which the meeting between God and humanity can be possible or real except in virtue of the mystery of the divine mercy. He stresses that for the Protestant reformers, Mary had no more aptitude for God than other human being did. He rejects any notion of the goodness of the creature and its capacity for God.[3]
Throughout the story, Luke wants us to think of whether we would respond with the faith Mary has had. We might even think of Mary as representing the potential in every human being to respond to God with such faith. Mary is not passive in this story. She has had to respond.
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