Sermon for December 23, 2018 
Read Micah 5:1-5 and Luke 1:39-45I want to take a closer look at Elizabeth this morning. She is Mary’s relative, soon to be mother of John the Baptist, and to understand all that is happening in this story we need a little background on Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah.
Zechariah is a clergyman, and Elizabeth is a descendant of the Hebrew people's first high priest, Aaron. Like other many couples whose stories appear in the Scriptures, these two good people had no children. They had prayed fervently for a child, but the months and years went by without a pregnancy and now they were getting old. In fact, they were well past the age when prayers for a child seemed sensible.
Then came the event that would change everything. Zechariah received an honor. The aging priest was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the temple in Jerusalem to burn incense. This was a big deal. Some priests would spend a lifetime of service never to be so fortunate as to enter that portion of the temple where God was thought to reside. And as Zechariah approached the altar to ignite his fragrant herbs under the very nose of God, an angel appeared, and the priest was suddenly, utterly terrified.
Now, the angel Gabriel first tells the priest to be calm and then he explains that Elizabeth, will conceive, and they will have a son whom they will name "John." He will be a prophet, and, says Gabriel, he will turn the hearts of people to their children. Trying to get a handle on this extraordinary moment, reaching for a rational response to the angel's announcement, Zechariah points out that both he and his wife are getting on in years, and he asks for a sign that this thing will happen.
That part always makes me laugh. There is an angel talking to him in the most holy of places and Zechariah still wants a sign. As if the angel wasn’t enough. So Gabriel tells him "You will be mute, silent, until all of this comes true."
So at the beginning of our passage this morning, Elizabeth is several months pregnant, and her husband can’t speak a word. And then there is Mary.
Tradition tells us that Mary is only thirteen or fourteen years old when the angel Gabriel appears to her. Thirteen. Do you remember what you were like at thirteen? Do you remember the kinds of decisions you made at 13? Would you have been able to say yes so easily to this great responsibility that God asks of her? I'm thirty-seven and I don't think I would be ready now, let alone when I was a teen.
And we can't forget what saying yes to God meant for Mary. She is not yet married, and so there was no legitimate reason for her to be with child, for this community. "God gave me a child" will seem like an excuse, not an explanation. Now, in our day this might be a small scandal, but in Mary's day it would have been earth shattering.
Part of the problem is that Jewish law took engagement seriously. The Jewish law said that if Joseph died, Mary would be a widow. If they separated, it was called a divorce.A pregnancy outside of marriage could result in a charge for adultery and the penalty for adultery is death by stoning. Saying yes, could very well have been a death sentence for Mary.
So it’s not surprising that she immediately leaves town to go to stay with Elizabeth. Mary needs someone to recognize, nurture, deepen, and celebrate the work of God in her life. Someone who will receive, not reject. Love, not judge. Nourish, not condemn. And so she turns to her kinswoman.
Because Elizabeth would have known what it would have been like to be shunned by the community. In her culture a woman’s primary purpose in life was to bear children, so as an elderly infertile wife she had endured a lifetime of being treated as a failure. A lifetime of not being good enough. A lifetime of not doing the one thing her world said she was supposed to.
Elizabeth’s response to her own miraculous pregnancy emphasizes that God’s grace has reversed her social status: "This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people." At long last, in her old age, she is an honorable married woman, pregnant with her husband’s son.
And in turn, by greeting Mary with honor, Elizabeth overturns social expectations. Mary is an unmarried pregnant woman. She might expect social judgment, shame, even ostracism from her older kinswoman. Yet Elizabeth knows from her own experience the cost of being shamed and excluded, and God reversed that in her own life.
Elizabeth continues the pattern of social reversal by opening her arms and her home to a relative whom her neighbors would expect her to reject. Instead of shaming Mary, she welcomes, blesses, and celebrates her, treating her as more honorable than herself. Because of Elizabeth, the pregnancy that might have brought Mary shame brings joy and honor instead. When Elizabeth welcomes Mary, she practices the same kind of inclusive love that Jesus will show to sinners and tax collectors. She sees beyond the shamefulness of Mary’s situation to the reality of God’s love at work even among those whom society rejects and excludes.
But there is more going on here. Because John leaps in her womb, and because Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit, she knows who is coming. She tells Mary: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!" Mary, you have been given a great honor, to bear the Savior of the world.
Elizabeth even uses her own life to contrast Mary’s. When she says, "Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord," she implicitly contrasts Mary’s trust in God’s power and promise with her own husband Zechariah’s skeptical questioning when they were told they would have a baby in their old age. Elizabeth celebrates Mary’s willingness to say "yes" to God.
This week we are given two extraordinary women who set these incredible examples for us. First we have Mary’s amazing willingness to say yes to God, regardless of the potential consequences to her own life. How many of us say yes to God first without hesitating? Without questioning the details and the consequences to our own lives? At the end of the day, we often find ourselves looking a lot more like Zechariah and asking for proof than we do Mary in her complete trust.
Then we have Elizabeth who shows us what welcome can really be. She welcomes her cousin who she could have by all rights disgraced with open arms and loving words. Her position as the wife of the priest meant that her welcoming and affirming Mary could have very well saved her life. How many of us practice that sort of inclusive love with others? Who do we welcome with open arms?
Today’s scripture uses these women to show how powerful faith can be, in a time when women were still little more than property. None of us is asked to do something as momentous as Mary was, and yet God still calls us to bear Christ into the world in our own ways. We are called to say yes. We are called to welcome the stranger and the outcast. And most of all, we are called to love.
After all, it is love that motivates these women. Mary’s love of God and her future child. Elizabeth’s love of her kinswoman and her God. As we look towards Christmas, can you think of a better motivation than love?
