Mary and Elizabeth’s Advent Three Months

A Sermon by Andrew Colman based on Luke 1:39-56

Tonight, we have heard one of the most famous songs in scripture: Mary's Song—the Magnificat. It has captured our hearts and minds year after year. Countless interpretations of Mary's Song have been created over the centuries. 

And so it should. It is, after all, a kind of apocalyptic prophecy from the pregnant young girl. 

Now, what an apocalyptic text is, despite the fact that it is an imposing sounding word, is actually just a piece of writing that reveals God's plan for the future. The word itself means unveiling or revealing. And that is what the song does when it finally gets to the lines: he has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree;

It is not as we are used to hearing apocalyptic texts—like Daniel, where there are beasts and the Ancient of Days with Rams, goats, and horns... or Revelation, where there are angels flying around letters read around the world, scrolls and breaking seals.

No, it is a much quieter, more apocalyptic text. One is not one of a man writing from prison on the isle of Patmos but a girl singing to her older pregnant relative, Elizabeth.

The song begins with quiet praise and thanksgiving, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.

And then comes the famous ideas of casting down the mighty from their throne, exalting the lowly, fill the hungry, sending the rich away empty.

But Mary does not end there—of course. The unveiling of God's plan is never just tearing the veil but offering grace and mercy, bringing comfort, strength, and peace to God's creation. 

This is God's promise to bring everything to right - despite all the evil in the world - forever. 

It is a song of Glory.

Fleming Rutledge speaks to it’s name like this

“The Magnificat can mean to praise, glorify, celebrate, adore, enlarge, exalt, extol. The words convey an experience of being enlarged, lifted up and out of one's self by the inbreaking of a power from another realm. 

This is the meaning of the joy that is beyond mere human joy, the hope that is beyond human hope... This is not ordinary joy. It's an ecstasy that accompanies the promise of God concerning the future.  

The promise of God arrives along with the power of its fulfilment."

If you imagine Mary singing to Elizabeth in a movie scene, maybe there would be some deep and sensitive music playing in the background. The lights would dim around Mary, but sa spotlighting helping the viewer understand her thanks,that she is, as the lowly handmaiden, has to be given this opportunity to be the God-Bearer. And then a cut over to Elizabeth as the truth of what is happening inside both of them appears on her face... 

And then, eventually, the song comes to an end because it must. 

The music fades away, and the lights slowly return to normal. Maybe both Mary and Elizabeth blink as though they are waking up from an ecstatic, revealing moment.  and the story must continue because that is how life goes.

And in fact, in the last line that was read in our Gospel text tonight, we heard these words."And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home."

A line that seems almost to be an afterthought - "And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home."

An afterthought because it was probably a perfectly normal thing to happen. These were not the times of quick trips to another city for the weekend to catch a concert. No, they were moving by foot or by cart through dangerous places. So when you got to your destination, you stayed for as long as made sense.

And Elizabeth was on in years and very pregnant. Mary would have stuck around to help her older relative with the day-to-day parts of life that would have become more difficult for her.

Not to mention that Zechariah was mute this whole time, so Mary would have at least been someone for Elizabeth to talk to.

And not just about what they were having for dinner that night - but about what in the world was actually going on.

Again, we've heard these stories so many times that they almost feel normal. But these two women were living in the state and presence of a miracle. That's not just something you sing a song about and get on with it like it's just another day. Those two women were living with the unborn presence of God. 

Who else could they have talked to about these things with any understanding whatsoever? No one, except maybe Joseph and Zechariah, kind of. 

But not in any way close to how they would understand each other. 

So, no, I really don't think that the one-liner "And Mary remained with her about three months, and returned to her home" is an afterthought. 

But rather Luke telling us what comes next - after the revelation - what comes next after the ecstasy - what comes after the high highs of the mountain top experiences. 

Or, for that matter, what comes next after the low lows of the valley of death, what comes next after the sadness?

The thing that comes next is life. Is deciding what to make for dinner, which onions to pick at the market. 

Because just a few hours later, after Mary and Elizabeth sat in the glow of the revelation that Mary was the most blessed among women and that henceforth, all generations will call her blessed,

They both will have become hungry. 

This one-liner is so much more than an afterthought because it tells us that life still happens. 

Something big happened, and Mary did not depart right away. She stayed, cooked and cleaned and ate, talked, and loved, lived, and then, three months later, she went home. After there was some kind of feeling that things made some sense of the senselessness of their situation, only then did she go home.

And surely in their conversation as they talked about what it all meant they would have girded each other for what was to come. Sat up all night talking of God’s promise how it would shape their lives and all the lives who lived under that promise.

The words of the angels counted and recounted, and then came breakfast, then dishes, then lunch. 

Mary and Elizabeth, in those three months, were living in an Advent anticipation. Where the promise of the coming King and his cousin was given and confirmed, rejoiced and rhapsodized over 

and then came dinner time.

Did the promise go away? No, of course not! They would have known in their wombs that the promise was closer to them than they could have possibly imagined. 

    But that did not alter the onset of dinner. 

The shape of their life is something we can take into our own lives. 

The recounting the words, the working to understand the promise, the girding and supporting one another for what is to come.

Maybe we don’t sit with God in our wombs, but we are filled with the Holy Spirit and we are fed by the Body and Blood of Jesus each week. We know the promise and we know what it means to live underneath the promise and what it calls us to.

All of us here live in that time in between 

when we know of the astounding promises and actions of God through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus as God's seal of love on our life, 

and yet we live in a world where hunger still sets in. 

We live in a time when we need each other like Mary and Elizabeth needed each other.

Christmas is coming—like in two days! When we celebrate the Birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, we will remember once again what it means that God came incarnate into this world for the sake of the world.

And then we will get hungry, and then we will eat! 

We will come to the table filled with Christ himself, lifted up into the life of God to give us the strength to live each day as Christ would have us do in these in between times.

Amen