Mary
Luke 1:39-56
“Advent tells us about our own lives as Christians, here and now. Advent is where we live, work, play, laugh, struggle, and die. Advent is the Time Between—between the first coming of Christ and the second coming, between darkness and dawn, between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. It is not the time of fulfillment;
it is the time of waiting.” (Fleming Rutledge)
When we imagine the birth of Jesus, our minds tend to go straight from “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” to “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be counted.”
It makes sense that we do that. Those words set up the “action” of the Nativity for us; they take us from the angel Gabriel in all his glory straight to Bethlehem, to the stable, to the baby in swaddling cloths lying in a manger—the sweet stuff of Christmas pageants. But when we skip the middle part—what happens between the annunciation and the birth—we miss out on the chance to learn from the woman who found such favor with God that he chose her to bear and raise his only begotten Son.
In Luke’s gospel, that middle part takes us to the hill country, in a town in Judah. There we witness an exchange between a pair of inexplicably pregnant cousins. As Elizabeth greets her with spirit-filled inquiries about the blessed babe in her womb, Mary offers a response that Martin Luther called a source of “wholesome knowledge and a praiseworthy life” which he hoped we would all “come to chant and sing…eternally in heaven.” In this moment, this middle part, Mary gives us a sacred example of how to approach Advent—both Jesus' first coming to Earth as a baby and looking towards the day when he shall come again.
Mary’s song of response, called the Magnificat, begins with words that echo Moses, Miriam (Exodus 15), and Hannah (1 Samuel 2) before her, anchoring her within the story of God’s people. She bookends her praise with references to servants whom God has blessed and shown mercy—first herself (Luke 1:48) and then Israel (Luke 1:54-55).
The space between? She fills it with remembering. It’s in that remembering that Mary shows us how to wait for Jesus. Mary remembers who she is (a humble servant). She remembers who God is (her holy, merciful savior). She remembers what God has done...and does so in such a way that invites us into her hope.
Throughout the Magnificat, Mary describes God’s actions towards his people in the present perfect tense: has looked…has done…has shown…has filled…has helped. The present perfect tense describes an action that took place in the past and continues into the present—a past event with present, ongoing implications.
Mary speaks in a way that shows she knows God is not finished. In this moment, in the middle part of the story that made her a mother, Mary sings to assure us that God’s mercy is for those “who fear him from generation to generation…to Abraham and to his offspring forever.” That’s you and me, friends. That’s all of God’s people. And we, beloved sons and daughters brought into the family of God through that baby who grew in Mary’s womb, are living in the middle part. We are living and waiting in that space between Jesus coming to Earth as a helpless baby and his return as the King of Glory to make all things new.
May we let Mary be an example of how to do that, of how to wait: remembering who we are, who God is, what God has done, and what he is still doing. May we live in a way that shows we also know God is not finished.