Our readings today remind us of the importance of Mary the
God-bearer in the unfolding of salvation history. This “lowly servant” from Bethlehem, “one of
the little clans of Judah,” expresses in her person and in her song the central
thematic arc of Scripture: God will be faithful to God’s promise to bring the
creation to its fulfillment. She
consents to participate in the realization of this promise, and in so doing she
brings new life into the world. This new
life fills her – and all who are willing to receive Jesus – with joy.
What is striking to me about Mary is her very
ordinariness. She is a young peasant
girl from the backwater of the Roman Empire.
There is nothing in her pedigree or social location that would single
her out as remarkable or especially suited to bringing God’s promise to
life. Yet, her very ordinariness is the
marker of continuity between her and the previous history of salvation.
God always seems to work in unexpected ways. King David also came from the little clan of
Judah, and was the youngest and smallest of his brothers. Israel itself was constituted by runaway
slaves – Hebrews who fled Egypt – and was a tiny, inconsequential nation
continually buffeted and absorbed by larger imperial powers: Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman. God chooses what is ordinary in this world to
give expression to God’s power. That
power is love and it takes the form of justice.
And so it is the little ones, the victims of coercive violence, the
expendable people, who realize God’s promise through nonviolent, creative
responses to injustice. It is those who serve
life in the midst of death who show us the face of God.
So it is with Mary, and with Elizabeth. Their relationship is a microcosm of the kingdom of God coming with power into the world of
oppression and death. Luke is careful in
his narrative to remind us that the new life these women are bearing will be
born in the context of a cruel empire, an occupying power. He is very intentionally drawing our
attention away from the centers of command and control, from the “deciders,”
the purveyors of death and destruction, so that we might focus instead on the
place where life truly is nurtured.
Luke is reminding us where the signs of God’s presence are
found: Not in imperial palaces; not in legions conquering foreign lands with
shock and awe; not in coliseums where violent spectacles pacify the masses and glorify
the wealth of the patrons who sponsor them.
God’s presence is found in the bodies of ordinary women: one barely old
enough even to bear children, the other already considered old in her late
twenties. God’s presence is found in
their willingness to risk the struggle to give birth in a world where death is
easy and life is cheap. God’s presence
is found in their understanding of their own value, and their indefatigable
hope for their children, and for the world. It is here, through them, that God is
coming into the world with power.
That power is merciful, it is joyful, and it is
hopeful. It is interesting that in her
distress as an unmarried girl with an unplanned pregnancy, Mary hurries to her
cousin, Elizabeth: not to Joseph and not to her parents; but to the one person
who will embrace her with mercy rather than judgment, to one who will
sympathize with her situation and affirm that God is at work in it. Mary turns to Elizabeth, because she sees the
life Mary carries as God’s gift rather than a source of shame. Here, God’s power already is at work in this
simple act of mercy.
Notice, too, that there is no rivalry between these
women. Elizabeth might have resented
Mary’s intrusion into her celebration of a pregnancy she had long desired and thought
she would never enjoy. She might have seen
Mary as trying to one-up her, to throw her youthful fecundity into the face of
Elizabeth’s belated fruitfulness, to steal her thunder. There is something very powerful in the
simple act of taking joy in another’s good fortune, not to mention the power in
affirming the good in what others might see as bad or, at the very least,
ambiguous. Elizabeth doesn’t just offer
mercy; she rejoices with Mary! She is
filled with the Holy Spirit! God’s power
is manifest in joy.
This is the joy of Miriam leading the people of Israel in
the dancing after they escaped from Pharoah’s army. It is the joy of Hannah who sang praises to
God when her own barrenness gave way to the birth of Samuel. It is the joy of David who danced with wild
abandon – naked, no less – before the Ark of the Covenant!
And so Mary can not help but burst into song herself. Her song is a song of hope. Just as Mary has experienced God’s power as a
merciful and joyful Presence, without and trace of rivalry or resentment, so
she sings of the hope for a world in which the rivalry and resentment between oppressor
and oppressed, rich and poor, majority culture and minority culture, will be no
more. The rivalry which leads to
domination and death will give way to the promise of abundant life. Mary is able to sing of hope, because she
trusts that her experience of God, coming into the world with power in her own
life, in her own body, in mercy and joy, desires that same mercy and joy for
the whole world.
We are all God-bearers in this season of Advent. God is coming with power in our own lives, our
own bodies. Coming to those of us who
are ordinary. Coming to those of us
whose lives have been barren. Coming to
us in our poverty, our hunger, and even in our humiliation. Coming, so it may seem, either too soon or
much later than we wished, but coming nevertheless. And when God comes, we will discover
infinite mercy. Joy unspeakable. And hope for the world.
From
Mary's sweet silence
Come, Word mutely spoken!
Come, Word mutely spoken!
Pledge
of our real life,
Come, Bread yet unbroken!
Come, Bread yet unbroken!
Seed
of the Golden Wheat,
In us be sown.
In us be sown.
Fullness
of true Light,
Through us be known.
Through us be known.
Secret
held tenderly,
Guarded with Love,
Guarded with Love,
Cradled
in purity,
Child of the Dove,
Child of the Dove,
-
“Advent Antiphons” - Sr. M. Charlita, I.H.M.
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