Bearing New Things
At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 4As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” —Luke 1:39-45
I love this story.
This is the story of God’s care for two women, of their being honored and favored by God in a society that recognized them only in terms of their identities as bearers of life.
It is the story of barriers being broken between women: a woman who was infertile and old and a young woman who was pregnant and scandalously unmarried.
It is the story of friendship and community.
It is the story of women loving each other and finding consolation and surety of God’s promises by being with and for one another.
It is the story about women’s bodies bearing new things, birthing life for the entire world.
Yes, THIS is the story of how God comes into the world.
So I imagine being Elizabeth and what it would mean to have spent a lifetime living with infertility, then finding honor in her society as she is lifted up. And not only does she know the promise of her own child, but she becomes the first to bear witness and testify to the truth that the Angel had spoken to Mary:
“You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
Elizabeth is the first to know and proclaim the true identity of Mary’s baby even as her own baby leaps within her. And upon Elizabeth’s proclamation, Mary knows that she will not be alone, she will not be cast outside of the community…for she is believed.
Through these women a revolution is given life…a new kingdom of human relationship with God and with one another has arrived. Through them, God is bearing new things and giving life. Through them we have a new baptism and the realized promise of Emmanuel–God with us.
Elizabeth and Mary stay together for three months, caring for each other and knowing the beauty and power of what happens when women believe God and one another. They model what it is like to be committed to the labor of love that is our invitation to bring God with us into the world—the God who is bearing new things in and through us as we labor with and for one another towards the rebirth and redemption of our world.
—Rev. Sara Wilhelm Garbers