Fourth Sunday of Advent Year C

The Advent Liturgy resounds with the voices if Israel’s prophets promising the people a joyful homecoming from exile. Today Micah tells us that the Lord says ‘one will be born for me’ from Bethlehem Ephrathah, ‘the least of the clans of Judah’. Then suddenly Mary and Elizabeth appear in the Gospel text, the rich significance of their story hidden, perhaps, in its familiarity.

Both women were coming to terms with the marvel of God’s intervention in their lives, with all its human complexities. Mary may well have come to the older woman hoping for understanding, comfort and support as she faced the frightening suspicions of her neighbours at home. Luke, however, has another purpose in mind for her.

Mary and Elizabeth come together carrying within them the evidence that the promises conveyed by the prophets are about to be fulfilled. Bearing the child who will become the Messiah’s herald, Elizabeth herself becomes a prophet. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, she names Mary’s child as her Lord and declares her young cousin to be, therefore, among all women the most blessed. Elizabeth’s prophetic insight prompts her further to praise the faith with which Mary dared to trust God’s promise to her, undaunted by the human costs this might entail.   

Luke invites us to remember that God’s ways are not our ways.  ‘Worldly wisdom’ would not have chosen Mary to be the Messiah’s mother: a woman of no account in a town beneath the notice of the religious power brokers. (Can anything good come out of Nazareth?)  These two women proclaim, from their own experience, that God is doing ‘a new thing’; that the promises will be fulfilled in a manner totally unpredictable, defying the expectations of the status quo.

Today’s Gospel passage is followed by Mary’s response to Elizabeth. Her Magnificat, which Edward Schillebeeckx has called ‘a toast to God’, completes the story. There Mary, too, becomes a prophet, describing in advance the transformation of the world under the reign of God, the ‘good news for the poor’ which her son would proclaim to his people as their true homecoming. Like his mother, Jesus would take the risk of committing his life to God’s agenda. We are invited to do the same, accepting the costs of discipleship for the sake of the Kingdom.   

‘Lord, make us turn to you. Show us your face and we shall be saved.’ Psalm 79

                                                                                                                Mary Britt OP