“We are Mary”
The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 22nd, 2024
“When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed.. ”Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb….And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” Luke 1: 39-55
`Today’s Gospel is the beautiful story of two women caught up in the mystery and wonder of God. Both are carrying sons who are divinely commissioned by God to bring about God’s purposes for the world.
Elizabeth is carrying John the Baptist, the one who will prepare the way for Jesus. And her cousin Mary, is pregnant with Jesus, the Savior and Redeemer of the world. Both are miraculous pregnancies. Elizabeth was thought to be beyond child-bearing years, and yet she and her husband are expecting a son. And Mary, her much younger, unmarried cousin, is carrying a child that she conceived after an angel announced that she would be bear God’s Son. Mary and Elizabeth are participants in God’s work of salvation, and when they meet, they are immediately aware that their lives are intertwined in a way that goes beyond their understanding.
After learning that she will bear Jesus, Mary travels 80 miles from her home in Galilee to the Judean hill town where Elizabeth lives. Mary was no doubt overwhelmed and afraid and needed support from Elizabeth. And Elizabeth’s joy at seeing her and her recognition of the significance of the child Mary is carrying, is the confirmation that Mary needs.
There is nothing like the support of an older, wiser spiritual guide when we are discerning what God is doing in our lives. I often think of my spiritual director as my Elizabeth. I have met with her once a month for the last 24 years, ever since my first year of seminary. She has supported me, prayed with me, challenged me, and often confirmed that a certain direction that I felt called to was correct. We all need people to sure us up when we are seeking to be faithful but feeling uncertain about whether we are on the right path or not. God sometimes calls us to do hard things and we need courage and encouragement to stay the course. Mary had said yes to the angel when he had announced that she would bear God’s Son, but there was no way of knowing how things were going to unfold, but she certainly knew that it was not going to be easy. Mary is the very finest example we have in Christan tradition of courageous, costly discipleship.
Very early on in Christian tradition, Mary was envisioned as the new Ark of the Covenant. The ark carried the presence of God in the Old Testament and Mary was seen as the new ark because she held God in her body for nine months and her child would give us the new covenant, God’s very self. That is an incredible thought, that Mary, an imperfect human being, housed God in her womb. Elizabeth recognized this and marveled at this joyfully. And Mary’s response to Elizabeth’s epiphany is the song that Luke puts on her lips, expressing the profound wonder and majesty of God and foreshadows Jesus’ redemptive work in the world.
“My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me and holy is his name… He has brought down the powerful form their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things.”
In addition to being understood as the new Ark of the Covenant, Mary also came to represent the universal Church. Like Mary, the Church is an imperfect creation, but our call is to embody God and to continually bring Christ into the world. The advent of Jesus coming as a baby 2,000 years ago was a one-time historical event, but the Church’s vocation, our purpose, is to bear God over and over again. That happens as we hear Scripture, as we celebrate the Eucharist, as we pray for the world. Mary was no doubt in continual prayer with and for her son from the time he was in her womb until his death. God chose her, in her imperfection, for her faithfulness, her righteousness, her strength and courage. God chooses us, the Church, for the same reasons. And God chooses us as individuals as well.
In the Orthodox Church, Mary is known as Theotokos, Mother of God. She is represented with arms outstretched in continual prayer, with Christ at the center of her being and his hands raised in blessing. She is the model of the church. Her vocation is our vocation. The 13th century German theologian and mystic Meister Eckhart took this thinking to the next level. He said this.
“We are all meant to be mothers of God…for God is always needing to be born.”
He said that there was an empty place inside of us where we can access God, but we have to clear away distractions in order to hear God’s incarnate Word speaking to us in that secret place deep inside of us, but that when we do, Christ is born again. He said this at the beginning of one of his Christmas sermons.
Here, in time, we are celebrating the eternal birth which God the Father bore and bears unceasingly in eternity, because this same birth is now born in time, in human nature. St. Augustine says, “What does it avail me that this birth is always happening, if it does not happen in me? That it should happen in me is what matters.” We shall therefore speak of this birth, of how it may take place in us. —Meister Eckhart (1260–1327)
Meister Eckhart is speaking to us across the ages. As we look forward to celebrating the Feast of the Nativity in two days, we ask God to prepare a place inside each of us, a quiet, holy space to birth Christ and to bear him to others.