Blessed is she who believed

Fourth Sunday in Advent, 22 December 2024: Micah 5:2-5a; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45, (46-55); Canticle 15 (or 3).

The beginning of Micah’s prophecy for Bethlehem “You, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah” is a reminder that Bethlehem was probably not where you expected a Messiah to be born. It’s rather like Micah predicting that the next leader would come from Merced. Bethlehem was a “little clan”, a bit of a backwater. Yet amazing things would happen there, Micah promised.

In the Gospel, we have another celebration of amazing things. Mary, newly pregnant, and vulnerable because she was not married, visited her cousin Elizabeth. Elizabeth is, like Mary, pregnant; the pregnancy was unexpected because of Elizabeth’s age. When Mary arrives, the baby (the future John the Baptist) leaps for joy in her womb. Elizabeth sees Mary in her fullness: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb . . . and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

Mary’s response is to sing the hymn we know as the Magnificat. In it Mary acknowledges herself as a “lowly servant” but as one who will be called blessed by “all generations”. And she proceeds to enumerate the Lord’s great deeds. The words, about casting down the mighty, feeding the hungry and sending the rich away empty, are a powerful invocation of the way God’s love and justice turns the world upside down.

In this hymn, Mary is speaking as a devout Jew, echoing words of scripture she would have lived with. The hymn can be seen as version of the Song of Hannah in 1 Samuel 2:2-10. Hannah’s prayer comes as she brings her son, born long after she was thought infertile, to the temple to be dedicated to the Lord. “The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength.  Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil.”

We live in a world where it is difficult not to be aware of those who are vulnerable, whether as the result of climate catastrophes, war, or politics. We see the homeless on the streets. In Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Sudan, Congo, Myanmar and elsewhere, we can see the terrible destruction of war. Politicians around the world lash out at the poor and at immigrants. Billionaires seem set to reap ever more wealth while others suffer. Yet Mary proclaims that the world will be turned upside down. That the Lord has “brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

Elizabeth blesses Mary because she “believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord”. Do we believe the promise of the Lord? Do we believe Mary? Can we make her song our own? As we wait with Mary for the arrival of her baby, let us sing it loud. The it will be said of us that we believed in the fulfillment of what was spoken by the Lord”.

Statue of the Visitation at the Church of the Visitation, Ein Karem, Israel. Photo by Deror Avi, license