Scripture Luke 1:24-45 (NRSVUE)
After those days [Zechariah’s] wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she remained in seclusion. She said, “This is what the Lord has done for me in this time, when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.”
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
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 leaped 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 leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
Sermon A Monologue Sermon from the Perspective of Mary
“Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
It was when those words left my lips that I finally felt it—really felt it, in my heart, in my gut: Fear.
The angel had said, “Be not afraid,” And I wasn’t afraid, the whole time he spoke to me. But then, he’d vanished. And once again, I was alone in the garden. I was still clutching a bouquet of radishes in my hand.
I looked around, wild with shock. What had just happened? What had just happened?
I’d been digging in my mother’s garden…we still call it my mother’s, because she was the one who initially laid the plans for it, who knelt and measured and tilled and planted. It was my mother who had decided we would grow both vegetables and fruits in it, and who I found one day digging a hole for the most pathetic looking cherry sapling I’d ever seen. It gives the sweetest cherries, to this day. It was my mother who, when she died, hadn’t exactly told us to keep it going, but who looked at me, a few days before her breathing slowed to a stop, and, as if it had just occurred to her, whispered, “the garden…?” She then began to cough uncontrollably and after calming it some honey, fell instantly into a sleep. One of the last from which she would awaken.
I’d been pulling up radishes. My father doesn’t like them, but my mother and I loved them. She especially loved roasting them over the fire and serving them with anchovies, but my favorite dish was chopped radishes with orange slices and honey, if we could find oranges at the market. Anyway, I had a handful of them and was still scratching in the dirt when a breeze caught my attention. More of a wind, but a very local kind of wind—really, just in front of me. And then, there he was. The angel. The messenger.
You wonder what he looked like. His boundaries weren’t very well defined. He looked like a combination of a kind of person and flames. His hair, especially. It moved.
Hello, he said, favored one. And then, God is with you.
Now, I knew this to be nonsense. Absolute nonsense. I had never been taught, that God could be “with” 15-year-old girls, and God certainly doesn’t “favor” us in any particular way. We haven’t fulfilled the woman’s universal task yet—having a child. Giving our not-yet-husbands a son. Whoever this poorly defined messenger was, he didn’t seem to know a lot about girls.
Then, as if he could hear my thoughts, he said, Fear not. You have found favor with God. And now, he went on, you will conceive and have a son, and his name will be Jesus… and… I… can’t really remember much of what he said after that. It was a lot, but it was missing one vital piece of information: Not one word about the father. I assumed he was talking of Joseph, the carpenter’s son. My father had been talking to his father—everyone knew about it—and we had been allowed to walk around the garden together while our fathers spoke of the how, and the when, and the how much, and so on. But… the man has yet to hold my hand. It was hard to imagine him… in that way.
I interrupted. I don’t know whether it is a bad thing to interrupt an angel, but I did, and he didn’t seem to mind.
How is this possible? I asked. I have never been with a man. And then… I do remember this part…he told me that God’s Spirit would overshadow me, and… that would mean that the child—my child—would be holy. The Son of the Most High God.
My head started to swim. What was happening?
And then I snapped to attention. Now he was saying something… I remember every word. Elizabeth. My mother’s cousin, my mother’s dearest friend while she lived, my sweet aunt, who had doted on me from my earliest memories. I hadn’t heard from her in a while. I’d been worried. I’d been wondering whether her age was catching up to her, whether she’d become infirm.
She was pregnant? Elizabeth. Elizabeth who must be… 50? 55?
What was happening?
He seemed to be coming to the end of his announcement, and I… I did what the women of old did when a prophet told them God’s will. I said, “Here I am. I am God’s servant. Let it be.”
And he vanished. And then I found a cold space where my heart used to be. I was afraid.
I dropped the radishes in the basket into which I’d been placing my harvest, and pulled them nearer the house, into the shade. And I started to walk. I walked past the homes of our neighbors, their little gardens, so similar to ours… I walked to the well in the center of the village, where no one was drawing water. It was mid-afternoon. I drew up a bucket and took a few scoops of the cold water to drink from my hand. Then I sat on the edge of a nearby wall.
I looked around. Nothing looked familiar—the village I’d been born in, been raised in, the place where I knew everyone, and everyone knew me. I felt utterly alone. No familiar smiles. None of my mother’s friends looking sadly at me. Even the well looked strange and different. I wondered: Who could I possibly tell? How could I convince anyone to believe me? Who could begin—
Wait. Of course. I knew exactly where I must go. I knew exactly who I must see. I ran all the way to my father’s house, scooped up the basket of vegetables and took them inside. I went into my room and put a few items in a bag—a cloak, a half loaf of bread, some nuts and dates. I waited until I could hear the sounds of my father putting his tools away at the end of his workday. He came into the kitchen and saw me—clearly ready for a journey.
What is this? he asked. Where are you going?
I need to see Aunt Elizabeth, I said. It’s very important.
That’s a two-day walk at least, he said. You cannot go alone.
I must go. You must let me go. I’ve heard that she… she’s not well. She’s not herself.
Where did you hear such a thing?
Father… I MUST go. I felt my eyes begin to well up, and I didn’t want to cry. That would only convince my father that I was a child with a childish whim he didn’t need to satisfy.
My father looked at me for a few moments, and then walked to the door of the house. He turned to look back at me and said, Stay here. Do not leave. Then, he vanished.
So, I stayed. It was coming near the supper hour, and, no matter what, I couldn’t leave him without something to eat. I took the vegetables I’d picked that day and washed them with the water I’d brought home in the morning, hours before the angel had turned my life upside down. I made a paste of the beans, seasoned them, and put them out with the rest of the loaf I’d taken. There was also some cheese, nuts, fruit—enough for my father to be satisfied.
Dusk was falling as my father returned.
You can go in the morning. Jeremiah is taking some of our goods to market in Jerusalem, and his wife Leah is going with him. She will be your chaperone.
I wanted to leave right then, but I knew I couldn’t safely set out as night was falling. This way I wouldn’t be prey to anyone on the lookout for any unaccompanied women. I would even be able to take turns with Leah riding in the wagon. It would have to do.
I sat with my father, and we ate in silence. While we ate, he looked at me, curious. But he didn’t ask any questions, and I was relieved by that. I couldn’t possibly make small talk while my mind was so filled with confusion and anxiety and wonder.
That night as I lay in bed, I prayed the Sh’ma, as we always did, morning and night.
“Hear, O Israel, the Lord, our Lord alone is God.” The words repeated themselves over and over, until I realized, just before I fell asleep, that they had change into “Here am I, the servant of the Lord.”
My father awakened me before the sun was up, and I walked outside to see Jeremiah and Leah waiting for their unexpected passenger. The couple were kind, but they didn’t ask why I was traveling to the hill country or press me for any information. I was grateful. All my heart and soul were focused on Elizabeth. I must see her. Only she would understand. The sun crossed the sky over us as we traveled. I had moments when my heart wondered: had it really happened? Was it all a dream? A strange daydream, perhaps, brought on by the sun? Who was I, that this should happen to me? It made no sense. The only thing that made sense to me, in the state I was in, was Elizabeth. She would help me, whatever the truth was. She would know what to say. She would know what to do.
As the sun fell in the sky on our second day of travel the hills on either side of the wagon were planted with lush, green vineyards. The sweet smell of the grapes was gentle on the breeze. Finally, I saw it: the home of Elizabeth and her husband, Zechariah. I slipped off the wagon, my bag in my hand, called out my thanks, and ran. As I neared the house I began to call her name—Elizabeth! And she appeared in the doorway, her face astonished but joyful, and her hands clasped around her large, beautiful belly. She stopped, looking down, even more astonished, and looking up again, she took me into her arms.
Everything I had been feeling, fearing, wondering, swirled within me in a rush of emotion. As Elizabeth spoke to me, my eyes—my eyes ran with tears of relief, and recognition, and finally, with joy. Here she was—the only living person who could possibly understand what was happening to me, because something very like it had happened to her.
Elizabeth held me at shoulder length and looked into my eyes. Mary, Mary, you are blessed among women. And…” she looked down at my not-at-all swollen belly, and whispered, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Her face was glowing in a way I had never seen before as she continued. Why has this happened to me? The mother of my Lord comes to me! She embraced me again. The moment I heard your voice, my child leaped within me… leaped for joy! Now she was crying. And blessed is she who believed the word of her Lord.
Elizabeth—my aunt, my mother’s cousin, my mother’s dearest friend stood before me, herself an expectant mother, yes, but also, a prophet. I hadn’t said a word, only called her name. She hadn’t needed me to say a word. The Spirit of God was upon her and she knew. She knew.
Later that evening we sat in a cool breeze outside and listened to the insects as they chirped and readied themselves for the night. We didn’t speak. We didn’t need to. We understood one another perfectly. For the first time since the angel had disappeared, I realized I was no longer filled with fear and anxiety. Something else had welled up within me. I placed my hand over my heart, and realized, recognized what it was: joy. Pure joy.
Thanks be to God. Amen.