Luke 1:39-45

Posted by DJL on Dec 11, 2012 in Advent Devotions | 2 comments

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

After Luke’s brief introduction, his story proper began with a king. King Herod of Judea, Luke names him. While he is sometimes called Herod “the Great,” he was far from it, as he was a paranoid and violent despot who killed indiscriminately, including his wife and two of his sons and, according to Matthew, all the children in Bethlehem two years or younger after the birth of Jesus (Mt. 2:16).

So the story begins not just with a king but with a murderous, treacherous king. And against him stands…?

Most good stories, you see – whether in history or fiction – start with a tragedy, with a threat, with something that has gone deeply wrong. And then comes the protagonist, the one (or ones) who will stand against the threat and try to restore balance and save the day.

So Herod is clearly a threat. Not the only one, mind you, but fairly representative of power-hungry leaders and the evil and corruption that threaten the people and world God created and loves so much.

At this point in the story we are usually introduced to the one who will stand against the evil threatening the world. We’ve had a hint of that already. For Luke’s use of Herod was to set the stage for the conception of John, the wild-eyed prophet who will proclaim without fear or reservation the justice and judgment of God and the coming of God’s messiah. He will die by the hand of another Herod.

And of course there is Jesus, who will also die but be raised again, declaring once and for all that the love of God is stronger than the hate of Herod and all like him, and that the life God grants is stronger than the death dealt out by tyrants, disease, and calamity alike.

Yes, John and Jesus will stand against Herod. But I’d also like you to entertain the possibility that in this scene Luke describes for us the meeting of two more of the main protagonists, two of the principal players and heroines in this story. For in the gathering of these two equally improbably women – one too old to have a child, one still a virgin – we have a foretaste of God’s redemption.

What do they do when they are together? They greet one another, comfort and rejoice with each other, and sing songs of love and justice. We will hear Mary’s song tomorrow. For now, notice Elizabeth’s song of faith and courage, as she is willing to believe not only that the Lord will grant her a child but that in the womb of her young cousin is the one who will redeem the world. She blesses Mary in her song, and she blesses herself, and she blesses us.

This isn’t where we expect God to be at work – out in the hill country, among two women armed with nothing but love and song. But God is often like that, showing up where we least expect God to be, granting mercy rather than punishment, and banishing fear not with strength but with love.

So perhaps we should not be surprised that the love and songs these two unlikely protagonists share will be, as it turns out, powerful enough to make the tyrants of this world shake with fear. That’s just the way God works.

Prayer: Dear God, thank you for Elizabeth and for Mary and for all the unlikely characters then and now with the courage to believe and the faith to be used to accomplish your holy will. In Jesus’ name, Amen.