The gospel today narrates the visit of Mary to Elizabeth, her relative. Luke has a peculiar way of creating intense dramatic moments in how he narrates the gospel. The meeting of Mary with Elizabeth is one of such. The passages before this text depict two parallel annunciation narratives: one to Zechariah and the other to Mary. In the passage today, the women from the two stories meet to share their miracles. Luke has prepared this moment well with some prophetic and intense spiritual conversation and made Mary sing a magnificent hymn to highlight the moment.
This moment has more to it than the meeting of the two women. In this meeting, John learns the presence of the Messiah even from his mother’s womb and gets anointed by the Spirit. Moreover, John, being a prophet after the Old Testament traditions, the moment witnesses the embrace between the Old and New Testaments. From this moment, the whole of the Old Testament will be read in the light of the New.
Mary’s purpose of the visit includes seeing for herself the sign given to her by the Angel about Elizabeth’s six months pregnancy. For Elizabeth, it was in silent euphoria of her untimely pregnancy. It was when all her hopes for bearing a child had vanished that God gave her a child. The Lord intervenes, not only when we are awaiting but also when we quit waiting. For Mary, the words of Elizabeth is a confirmation of the mystery of her pregnancy. The duo are mothers of great leaders who would change the destiny of the world. Luke has highlighted this significant moment beautifully.
When Mary greets Elizabeth, John leaps in the womb out of recognition of the arrival of the Saviour to his proximity. It was too early in pregnancy for Jesus to show any movement in Mary’s womb. But staying on that moment of the meeting for a meditation is rewarding. Words had become rare in Elizabeth’s house. John might have heard very few words since Zechariah had gone dumb and probably deaf. Remember, at the time of the circumcision of John, people talked to Zechariah in sign language as he was probably not able to hear. So, except for Elizabeth’s occasional humming of a prayer psalm or something, John probably had not heard any significant voices! Mary’s voice and the presence of the Saviour, then, are like rain in summer.
Jesus would learn the art of visiting to celebrate and console, even as he was in Mary’swomb. It was the first of his visit to the many that would follow—to the temple, to the house of Mary and Martha, to the mother-in-law of Peter, and many more. Mary might have even told Jesus what happened to John when he visited him when they were in their mother’s wombs. Mary is the sign of a tabernacle on the move, the Church going forth to where she is needed, like a field hospital.
One sentence in the gospel captures the human predicament outstandingly: “Blessed are you who believed that God’s promises would be fulfilled.” Elizabeth has wavered between belief and disbelief for six months of her pregnancy. The revelation of the pregnancy was to Zechariah, not to herself. By now, with Zechariah deaf and dumb, how would he have communicated the possibility, the miracle of the untimely pregnancy even to Elizabeth! She believed Zechariah’s story after her pregnancy, and now she is convinced that nothing is impossible for God. Her appreciation of Mary’s faith comes from her personal experience of that miracle.
Elizabeth’s comment has deeper import. When we get used to the darkness, with no hope of having any light, when we get accustomed to the blindness in faith, when we are already reconciled to the unmitigable darkness around, the day dawns unexpectedly. Elizabeth and Mary teach us that lesson. Never shall darkness overcome anyone forever. There is hope, even in the middle of the thickest darkness. As a poet sang, “Never was there a night that did not meet the dawn, never was there a shower that rained forever.”
I keep a grudge against the evangelist Luke when he makes the heroines sing a duet, not bothering to bring together the men, Zechariah and Joseph, over a cup of wine and make them tango a little. Well, realities are not as picture-perfect as my romanticized expectations.