4 Advent Year C 2021

St. George’s Episcopal Church, Texas City
Gospel: Luke 1:39-45
December 19, 2021

When my grandson, was a 4-month-old, while at a family gathering, I noticed his parents on a hammock listening to music with the kiddo right between them.  For one so young, the baby was very into the music…smiling and ever so gently moving his arms and legs.  Then the song changed, to more of a lament with a somber tone.  The baby's face suddenly changed to sadness; he stopped moving and began to cry quietly.  Sometime later, I asked a pediatrician friend about this.  Did he think this was an inborn response…a response to music that is genetically determined?  To my surprise, he was familiar with this kind of thing and was quite confident such an emotional response was learned behavior…but something learned while he was still in the womb.  An unborn child is affected by his or her mother’s emotions, both joy and sadness.  I don’t know if the pathway is well understood, but chemical signals that affect mood can be transported across the placenta.  In this way, a mother’s emotional response to music can be learned by her fetus.

This experience with my grandson was brought to mind by today’s reading from Luke.  One reasonable idea from the story might go something like this: Elizabeth’s Joy on hearing Mary’s greeting triggered baby John to move his limbs enough that Elizabeth could feel him moving in her womb.

Before we can glean the full value of the story of Mary’s arrival at Elizabeth’s home…a story known and commemorated as The Visitation in the Episcopal Calendar…before we can fully appreciate this, we must look at what immediately precedes it in Luke.

Just prior to the Visitation is the story of the Annunciation…the incredible greeting and announcement to Mary made by the Angel Gabriel.  Gabriel tells her that she has found favor with God and will therefore bear a son by divine means…a son who will be called the offspring of the Most High.  And as if to provide some corroboration for this amazing announcement, Gabriel tells her about her relative, Elizabeth, who in her old age had conceived a son and is now in the 6th month of her pregnancy…the same relative that everyone thought to be barren.
From this background, let me make 3 quick points.  1) The prior story helps us understand why Mary is described as setting out in haste to visit Elizabeth.  It is quite understandable that Mary would want to confirm what the Angel had said to her, and quickly. 2) If you read the KJV, you may note that Elizabeth is called Mary’s cousin.  But this is not the correct translation: the Greek is not so specific…it’s just kinswoman or relative.  3) Since Elizabeth is old and Mary is likely a teenager, they are not of the same generation….so we might make a better guess that Elizabeth is Mary’s aunt.  I wonder if Mary was in need of someone to confide in…who better than a trusted relative with some considerable life experience and understanding of God’s work in the world.

So, let’s consider the story at hand: Elizabeth was moved with great joy at the greeting of her young relative, Mary.  Here’s my take: this great joy caused Elizabeth’s unborn child to move with such strength she could feel him in the womb.  And this great joy also opened Elizabeth’s heart to the Spirit of God…so much so, that she recognized Mary as the mother of her Lord, as one who found the favor of God…blessed to be chosen as the mother of Jesus and blessed by a faith that all things are possible with God.

Thanks to Luke’s own written or oral sources, we get to see how Jesus later used the example of his own mother to teach the essence of Christian discipleship.

In Luke 11 (27-28), the same chapter in which Jesus introduces the Lord’s Prayer, from the crowd who was listening to Jesus, a woman is heard to cry out: “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you.”  Jesus’ response makes the point that his mother’s decision to accept God’s will has set an example for every disciple…all of those who would follow him as Lord are called to obedience like that of Mary his mother.  So, when the woman from the crowd called Mary blessed, Jesus responded, “Blessed rather are they who hear the word of God and obey it.”  All who welcome Jesus into their hearts, who put their trust in his love and seek to follow God’s will are blessed (as was Mary) with God’s favor.

On the 4th Sunday of Advent, our focus is always on Mary and her obedience.  In the story we heard today, Elizabeth helps point our attention to Mary while modeling how joy is central to our Advent journey.  Mary is blessed by God’s choice and by her willingness wholeheartedly to accept the role she had been given…perhaps, more so over time with her aunt’s guidance.  We are reminded in the Collect that God transforms us over time by his coming…not a coming in the past or in the future…but by what is called a daily visitation.  Perhaps, the quiet joy we extol in Advent is what moves our hearts within and opens us to the daily movement of the Spirit. 
Finally, Jesus’ comments later in Luke remind us that we are all called to share in Mary’s obedience.  Jesus makes the Word of God known to us, and we know what he has commanded us to do…we are to love one another as he has first love us.  We now have reached the final Sunday before Christmas, and may worry the time has grown short to prepare our hearts.  But, in the quiet times of Advent’s waning, may we be surprised by Joy to find that our Lord has already come to us, visiting us daily and changing us from the inside out by his love.

Elizabeth could feel John leap for joy in her womb.  Let us be open to the movement of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.  AMEN.