Sermon Tone Analysis

Mary Visits Elizabeth

39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.

41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb.

And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.

45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

Mary’s Song of Praise

46 And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,

47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.

Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,

and holy is his name.

50 His mercy is for those who fear him

from generation to generation.

51 He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

and lifted up the lowly;

53 he has filled the hungry with good things,

and sent the rich away empty.

54 He has helped his servant Israel,

in remembrance of his mercy,

55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,

to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

56 And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.

What’s it like to enter your home?

How do you welcome your guests?

With a hug, an embrace, an offer to take their jacket?

Or what’s it like to be received in a place you love to visit?

What do you look forward to?

Do ever get that tickle in your stomach when you embrace someone you love or see their face again after a long time apart?

How it brings a smile your face...

Today, in this meeting of two women, we are invited to savor such powerful moments.

I’m sure many of us will have opportunities for these kinds of meetings in days to come.

Opportunity to connect more deeply

These women show us a picture of what it means to connect, what it means to draw close and give and receive love from another.

Let me frame this moment between the two women in a stark fashion, to really get at what beautiful thing is going on here.

Let’s start with Elizabeth: married to Zechariah, this couple unable to conceive of a child until late in their years.

Like, she’s a woman who’s gone through all the fertility tests, received hormone therapy, attempted en vitro fertilization, probably had a number of miscarriages.

Her husband, a priest, likely had his own troubles with virility and visited the doctor countless times, adjusted his diet, and with his wife tried again and again with no positive results to have a child.

And to this woman, this couple, we find God offering the remarkable conception of John the Baptist — the wild man we’ve been looking at these last couple weeks, this man of great strength and power of God.

He was a delight to his parents, the joy of answered prayer.

And then we have Mary — the young girl, probably a teenager.

Suddenly pregnant under confusing circumstances, at least if seen through the public eye.

Unmarried.

An unmarried teen who gets pregnant by a mysterious spirit (a story certainly very few would believe).

A teenage girl who flees her hometown in the months before she is to be married to hide away her pregnancy with her relative Elizabeth.

A refugee of sorts, a girl who the system wouldn’t have taken care of, but rather shunned.

Now picture these two, pregnant joyful women meeting.

Both have experienced something miraculous, something of God’s presence and love, something of being known by the Lord, something they share with each other.

The joy of their meeting is not simply one of family reunions, no this is a meeting of likewise blessed women, women who would be other wised outcast.

Women, who with out each other, I imagine would feel a deep sense longing and loneliness in their respective states, both before their pregnancies and now in this liminal state of anticipating birth.

It makes me think of our many stories, which are gathered up here right now.

The particular ways we have struggled, the heartbreaks we have known, the physical and emotional wounds we carry or the longings in our hearts to be truly received and known, just as we are.

As I see these women, I think of the meetings that take place as we gather.

Out of our joys and our sorrows, we meet each other here, as God calls us together.

How many of us are longing for connection right now?

How many of you feel the loneliness that draws in close this time of year?

No need to show hands, I can say with confidence that many of us feel this longing, most of us.

We yearn to be known by others and, as we gather here in this congregation, we yearn to be loved and a part of a community of God’s people.

“Count me in.”

Let’s pause just a moment here and have a time to be reminded: you are very welcome here.

Not simply welcome to sit among us, but you are welcome to belong to us.

In your loneliness, hear this invitation to belong in this community, to see the people next to you in these pews and sense the invitation to be a part of their family.

We are not perfect people, we are messy and stubborn and very, very human.

But in this state, we gather and in this we anticipate that we can still belong.

We welcome you as Elizabeth welcomes Mary.

Pause and hold that.

The door to belonging is open and is essential to the work of Christ’s church as it exists here at St. James.

Ok, with this picture of connection in mind, I want to turn us toward the good news of great joy that we see in this passage.

In this moment of connection and Mary sharing her joyful song, we are invited to consider three movements toward a deeper connection with God and each other, as well, in this season.

We are invited to hasten, remain, and finally, with our fourth sense, we taste and savor.

Hasten

Pregnant teenager Mary leaves her home and sets out with haste to a Judean town in the hill country.

It’s kind of like “Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go” but with a lot less nostalgia and a lot more of “don’t get found out.”

She hastens to a place where she knows she will be safe.

And in their meeting, we see that she is, in fact, safe, received, welcomed and loved.

In this season, where have you been hastening too?

Advent is a season of waiting, yes, but oftentimes it feels more like “hurry up and wait.”

“Christmas, don’t be late?”

We check travel websites and Google traffic times, stressing out at how many extra minutes/hours it is going to take us to drive through Seattle or how long the border or ferry lines will be.

In Mary, we see hastening, but with purpose.

She is on a mission, she knows that the end destination will be a place of refuge.

How might, in the days and weeks to come, you experience this hastening like Mary?

How might you blitz out into the countryside to get to your destination — how might it actually be a good thing?

Perhaps you can get to where you’re going with focus, arrive…and then be.

Perhaps hastening can be something different than rushing.

Perhaps rushing is filled with worry.

Perhaps hastening like Mary is filled with intention.

When I run, I feel a difference in my stride and breathing when I set my focus, literally becoming mindful of the direction of my eyes and finding a singular thought in my mind — it drives me to be more efficient and direct in where I am heading.

Other times, when my mind wanders or I don’t set my eyes, I notice that my body becomes listless, floppy, less coordinated.

May you hasten this season, to arrive, to be welcomed, to be in the presence of God.

Do not rush.

Do not worry.

Make haste.

Remain

And once you have hastened, set forth with intention and arrived in the place of God’s presence, we hear then the invitation to remain.

The closing of this morning’s text, vs. 56, says that Mary remained in Elizabeth’s home for about three months and then returned to her home.