"Great Expectations" - Luke 1:39-56

November 28, 2004
Rev. Rachel Cornwell, Bethesda UMC

I know, it's not even December yet, and here we are talking about the baby Jesus, or at least the story that leads up to his birth. Although the story of Mary and Elizabeth may push us a bit further into the Christmas season than we are used to on first Sunday of Advent... I couldn't resist, given my own pregnancy, being drawn to this story. Since I won't be preaching again until Lent, I hope you will indulge me. And, in fact, I do think that the story of Mary and Elizabeth and their unborn sons is a good place to begin our Advent journey. But in these seasons of waiting, both pregnancy and Advent have some things in common: the anticipation of an exciting event, the miracle of God revealing God's self in a new way, and a bit of discomfort, too.

There are two women whose pregnancies figure significantly in our Advent story. There is Mary of course, but there is also her cousin Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. There is so much that happens in the stories leading up to the point of today's reading, that I'd like to fill in with a little background. What we know of Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah is that they were righteous people. Luke tells us that "they lived blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord." Zechariah was even part of the priestly order. But they were barren and because of this, Elizabeth was disgraced in her family and community.

One day in the Temple, Zechariah is going about his religious duties, when the Angel Gabriel makes his first prenatal pronouncement. Elizabeth will conceive, and their child will be called John, and will be great in the sight of the Lord. Because he will possess the prophetic powers of Elijah, he will turn the hearts of fathers back to their children, turn the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, and prepare people for the coming Messiah.

Naturally, to this prophesy, Zechariah responds, "Yeah, right." He's an old man, and his wife is an old woman. They had prayed for children for years, but that was a long time ago. Perhaps Zechariah had temporarily forgotten the story of Abraham and Sarah, or of Hannah and Elkahah, both of whom conceived late in life and became parents to important figures in the history of Israel. But for his disbelief Zechariah's voice is taken away by Gabriel - he is to remain silent until the birth of his son. Elizabeth does conceive but she remains secluded until the fifth month of her pregnancy, when the changes in her body would begin to be obvious, and her shame would begin to fade into celebration.

But because one miraculous conception is not enough for God, Gabriel then goes to Elizabeth's young, unmarried cousin, Mary, to tell her that she, too, will have a child. She has been chosen by God to give birth to the Son of God, that his name will be Jesus and that he will be reign over the house of Jacob forever and that his kingdom will have no end. Mary's response to Gabriel is basically the same as Zechariah's (and Gabriel must be getting used to this by now). This can't be true, she says. But as proof that nothing is impossible with God, Gabriel tells her of Elizabeth's pregnancy. So the first thing Mary does is head for Elizabeth's house.

When she arrives and greets Elizabeth, the child in Elizabeth's womb jumps for joy, and she proclaims that Mary is favored, blessed, and so is the child that she is carrying, for it must be the Messiah. Both women were told by the angel that their babies would grow up to be great men and that the birth of these two children would change the world forever. John would proceed Jesus, bringing people to repentance and preparing the way for Mary's son, and the Son of God.

All parents have great expectations for their children - we hope that whether they follow in our shoes, or find their own path, that they will be well educated, successful in their careers, that they will find love and happiness and fulfillment.

There is a tradition in Judaism at a boy's bris or a girl's baby naming ceremony, that the child is placed for a moment on a chair that is reserved for the prophet Elijah. This is to symbolize the belief that any child could be the Messiah, the one to usher in the kingdom of God. Even without a vision from an angel, we put great hopes in our children.

So we can understand the great expectations of these two women for the future of their children. However, we can be certain that Elizabeth never imagined her son would live in the wilderness, surviving on locusts and honey, would be imprisoned and ultimately killed by a vengeful ruler. And Mary can only begin to understand how differently God is working this time when she takes Jesus to the Temple as a baby. The priest there, Simeon, recognizes Jesus as the Messiah, but he tells her of the opposition that he will face and that his destiny will pierce her own soul like a sword. God sometimes turns our great expectations, even ones assured by angelic pronouncements, on their heads.

But perhaps I am getting too far ahead. We are talking about babies today! And the miracle of children. We connect with the miraculous conception stories because we know what a miracle the birth of a child is. And yet, while the birth of a child is an amazing event, it is completely ordinary at the same time.

It is, of course, the most amazing thing in the world when it is your own child. It is an awesome and wonderful thing when a baby is born.

But it also something that happens all the time - every day in fact. It's a normal, natural part of life that children are conceived and babies are born. Every one of us has a birthday and a bellybutton to prove it. I recently made the observation to a friend that there seemed to be a lot of pregnant women around, and she (who isn't pregnant and hadn't really noticed herself) responded, "Yeah, I guess it's like when you drive a Toyota you see everyone else who is driving the same car."

Pregnancy is about as ordinary as driving a Toyota. And it's a miracle, too. And what's even more amazing is that this is the way that God chose to come into the world. The God that Mary sings about is the God who does incredible, awesome, wonderful things. She recounts in her hymn of praise, the way that God has acted in history with strength and power. This God is the Mighty One who scatters the proud, brings down the powerful from their thrones and lifts up the lowly, who is the faithful protector of His people. Mary has great expectations for her God. And this God is also the one who now comes to be among us, to be one of us, in the form of a vulnerable, weak, helpless infant child.

One of the gifts of expecting a child is the way it connects you to other people, especially women, who have shared the same experience. For me, over the last nine months, friends, relatives, people at church, even total strangers, have shared with me their advice and stories of pregnancy, birth and parenting. It can be overwhelming at times, but mostly it's a gift, a way of feeling connected to a great human experience, that is at once deeply personal and private, and universal. For someone going through pregnancy and childbirth for the first time it can be scary and isolating. Think of Mary, so young and innocent, unmarried, poor. She had no church family to throw her a big baby shower, or sonograms or an obstetrician to help her follow the growth of the baby inside her. But she did have Elizabeth.

I love that Mary goes to Elizabeth immediately after her visit from the Angel Gabriel. Her journey raises lots of questions for me: I wonder where her parents are, and if she told anyone else her news before she left for Elizabeth's house? She traveled a long way from Nazareth to Judea. It must have taken her several weeks to get there. Did anyone go with her? We have no way of knowing. But it makes sense to me that she would go to Elizabeth, another pregnant woman, to share her news, her joy and her fears.

There is a wonderful wood block print by the German artist Käthe Kollwitz of Mary and Elizabeth. The two woman are standing close together, with their swollen stomachs touching, and Elizabeth has one arm around Mary's neck, while her other hand rests on Mary's belly. Elizabeth is whispering something into her cousin's ear, and Mary's expression is like a daughter being comforted by her mother. The moment is so intimate, so gentle, and yet so universal and public, too.

It is simply because we so closely identify with the experience of conception, pregnancy, birth, parenting, and family, that God chose this way to reveal God's self to us. God desires closeness with us. But even as God comes to us in this comforting and familiar way, there is a challenge there for us, too. When God comes into our lives we are forever changed and it's not always easy or comfortable. Mary sings of a Messiah whose coming is going to be difficult for some - for the rich, the proud, the powerful. There will be discomfort and pain and struggle, but there is joy and liberation, too, if we can accept God's coming to us on God's own terms and allow ourselves to be changed. Perhaps this is the very reason God came to us as a baby, because a baby cannot be controlled. We must adapt ourselves to it, and they change everything.

So many times over the last nine months people have warned me, "Get ready... your life is going to change." While it seems obvious, I can only guess that it must be more dramatic than I can imagine. I think that people who have been through the transition try to prepare those of us who are becoming parents so that we won't be shocked. Before the baby comes, there is no way to know whether your greatest expectations or your greatest fears (or both) will come true. And yet, when else in life do we celebrate the fact that our lives have been turned completely upside down?

Amen.


1. See Mary Lou Redmond's book While We Wait for some excellent reflections on Mary's journey.