"Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets"
A few of these prophets
led the people of Israel, many stood beside their leaders. Sometimes they were heeded, sometimes ignored
or even punished for what they said. But
still they spoke, proclaiming God’s word to the people, to anyone who would
listen.
And then the prophets fell
silent. No new words were spoken for
centuries. The silence wasn’t total –
the words of the prophets had been written down and preserved. The prophets of old, Isaiah and Jeremiah, Zephaniah
and Micah and the rest, their voices echoed down through the years, and their words
continued to speak to those who had ears to hear, with new resonances for each
generation.
Until one day a new
prophetic voice spoke – two voices – and they were not what anyone was
expecting. A pregnant teenage and a
middle class woman of a certain age.
We don’t know how old
Elizabeth was, but we do know she was past the age when she would be expected
to be able have a child, and yet here she is, pregnant, and being visited by
her young cousin Mary. Elizabeth is
filled by the Holy Spirit and speaks out the words given to her by the Spirit.
"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 fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."
Elizabeth’s own child is a
miracle, a gift beyond all expectation.
And yet she recognises that the child in the womb of the woman before
her is an even greater miracle – a gift not just to a faithful old couple who
had been patiently waiting, but a gift for the whole world.
There is a beautiful humility
in Elizabeth’s words. Who am I, she
asks, that this has happened to me, who am I that the mother of my Lord would
come to me? She is honouring Mary’s
faith in believing what was spoken to her, but I think these words also speak
to Elizabeth’s own faith. We spoke about
Elizabeth at the study group last Tuesday and two words that I took away from
our conversation were steadfast and trusting.
Elizabeth had put her trust in God and lived according to God’s
ways. And that trust was steadfast and
unwavering, even when, to those around her it looked like she had been forgotten
by God.
I am sure these words were
precious to Mary too. These last few
months would have been tough on her. She
had accepted God’s call on her life, but it had implications. We know Joseph took some persuading to accept
that this was all from God. I wonder how
many people looked on her growing pregnant belly with judgment in their eyes –
perhaps Mary had come to visit her cousin to get away from this judgment. So Elizabeth’s recognition of Mary’s
faithfulness matters. There’s an encouragement
in this for us to follow Elizabeth’s example, and to say out loud to others the
things we are thinking, to tell them about the good we see in them. It’s always good to say good things to people
when we have the chance, and just sometimes these words, prompted by the Spirit,
will be the very thing that someone needs to hear.
Elizabeth blesses Mary and her baby, and then Mary
speaks her own words of blessing for the God who has done all this. In a sense, Mary was a prophet like no other.
Her call was to literally bring the Word
of God into the world, to carry and give birth to Jesus, all the fullness of
God contained in the tiny body of a baby.
Mary puts into words the hope that this baby brought
to the world, words we speak and sing in this place week by week. She speaks of the promise of God, she speaks of
a world turned upside down, she speaks of a saviour come to show us the way
back to God.
I don’t need to tell you
the ways in which you fall short of God’s ways, you know how you do. I know you do because I know how I fall short
of God’s ways. As Paul says in his
letter to the Romans, I know the good I want to do, but then I don’t do
it. And I know the things I want to
avoid, but then I tangled up in them again.
I do delight in God’s ways, I do want to follow God’s ways, but I have
this little pull in my nature that, time and time again, draws me away from God.
We have each gone astray
and turned to our own way. But the good
news is, God doesn’t expect us to find our own way back. In Jesus, God came to us. Jesus walked among
us, shared meals and told stories, showing people the way to God. Jesus died as one of us, and Jesus rose
again, overcoming death and giving life to us all, life in all its fullness.
This is our hope. And it is hope not for each of us, but for
the whole world. The systems and
structures of our world reflect our human nature – the desire to do good and
the pull to act selfishly are woven together in the institutions across our
society as they are in each of us. Some
systems or institutions stand out as particularly oppressive and there is
nothing we can do but to work for them to be overturned. Often, however, our institutions are like us –
capable of doing great things and at the same time capable of great failure. There will be times when we can work for
justice within a system, working to take power and resources out of the hands
of the few who are hoarding power, and sharing them fairly with all. At other times it may be impossible to work
in the system and we need to stand outside it and work to build new and better
systems. Wherever we stand, outside systems
or within, our task is to work towards the promise in Mary’s words.
Mary and Elizabeth’s words
have come down the centuries as an encouragement to us. But they were first of all an encouragement
to each other – one woman who had received an unexpected gift, the other who was
going through an unexpectedly challenging time.
I don’t know what the days and weeks ahead hold for you, what mix of gift
and challenge you will face. But I pray that
you will find companionship like Mary and Elizabeth found in each other, and so
will find God’s blessing for the year ahead.
Amen.
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