By: The Rev. David P. Byer
Through the lives of two pregnant women this text offers powerful imagery of our approaching salvation. Elizabeth is old, too old to be pregnant. She should be barren but, by the grace of God, she is pregnant. Mary is young and a virgin, too young to be pregnant but, by the grace of God, she is. One is married the other unmarried. One’s child is the son of a man named Zechariah; the other’s child is the Son of God. One will give birth to the Voice who will cry out in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord.”
The other will give birth to the Word made flesh. Luke’s sole focus is on the greetings that take place. So how will we greet the next person we see? How will we receive the most recent news and circumstances of our lives? What is our response to our coming
salvation? There is a common thread running through all this. The womb creates and births, the tomb re-creates and re-births. The womb doesn’t just lead to the tomb it transforms the tomb. The Incarnation is the content of, gives meaning to, and fulfills everything that happens in Jesus’ life, everything he does and everything that he is. With the Incarnation the divine thread is woven through every womb and every tomb. The fabric of human life has forever been changed. That’s why we can and do take this Advent journey. It’s what enables us to prepare the fabric of our lives. Look at the fabric of your own life. It is a fabric of wombs and tombs. Where do you see wombs? What is being conceived? What is being birthed? Where do you see tombs? What are your losses and sorrows? What is your darkness? What has died or is dying in you? God promises to interrupt our lives. Hidden within every womb and every tomb is “The Lord is with you” (Lk. 1:28). I cannot tell you how this interruption happens. I only know that it does. And when it does it always produces new life when we are obedient.
At the sound of Mary’s greeting Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit. She recognizes and greets more than her younger cousin. She greets a divine womb. She embraces the divinity carried inside Mary. She recognizes Mary as the Mother of her Lord. On this day
Elizabeth greets salvation. At the sound of Mary’s greeting John, the forerunner, leaps for joy in Elizabeth’s womb – the unborn prophet greeting the unborn Messiah. In many ways our own lives are a series of greetings, one after another. Blessing emerges from God’s
ability to bring His promises to completion through our cooperation. Every day is filled with new opportunities to greet family, friends, colleagues, strangers, enemies, and those in need. Everyday is filled with new occasions to greet the circumstances of our lives –
joys, sorrows, successes, disappointments, losses, struggles, the mundane, and the exciting. Every one of those greetings is pregnant with new life and the possibilities for sharing Christ’s love, compassion, forgiveness, reconciliation, healing, joy, beauty,
wholeness, and holiness. In other words, the greetings of our lives are salvation anticipating new birth. This is the essence of response to God. To be blessed is to be happy because God has touched one’s life. His divine presence is within us like a baby in its mother’s womb. When we give attention to that presence we can also give birth to
it when we greet the next person we see.