Mary:
I was almost 14 when
I became betrothed. I had never met this man, Joseph, whom I would
spend the rest of my life with, but I knew that he was of a suitable
age, about 30, and that he was a carpenter, so would have the means
to look after me and my children. I was excited that I would finally
be counted as a woman, no longer a child, but of course I was also a
little scared – it is no mean thing to leave your family to live
with someone you don't know.
When I found I was
pregnant I was terrified. I knew, KNEW that this was a unique child,
a blessing from God, one who would change the world now and forever,
but it would be assumed that I was adulterous – and the penalty was
death. So I made
haste and fled to Judea some one hundred miles away when you bypass
Samaria, which I had to do. If a Samarian had caught me, an
Israelite, travelling through their territory they would have killed
me without a second thought. The journey was dangerous – there were
wild animals, bandits, and extremes of weather that a young girl
travelling alone had to be brave and a little foolhardy to survive.
I
was running for my life.
I
needed Elizabeth’s protection. This was no social visit.
This was not happenstance. Elizabeth was the wife of a priest,
a descendant of Aaron, and the matriarch of our clan. She was
distantly related to me, a girl from a related clan. I fled to see a
distant cousin who she hoped would save her life. Had Elizabeth not
blessed my pregnancy, and had the religious authorities condemned me
as an adulterer, I might be put to death. It was a journey of faith,
that would be made again so many times over my life – faith that
God was, is and always will be with me, that God's purposes are
ultimately fulfilled.
Elizabeth:
Had
Zechariah been able to speak, he would have condemned Mary. As
a priest, he would follow the law. He was known for following
the law. As a man in a patriarchal culture with a patriarchal
religion and institutions, there would be pressure to enforce the
law. The Law demanded death.
The
law protected male interests. Girls were property. For example,
if a man rapes a girl, he was required under the law to pay the
girl’s father fifty shekels and to then marry her. Having lost her
virginity, the girl could not be married and no dowry could be
collected, so the rapist has to marry the girl, and the girl had to
marry her rapist. Conversely, a husband’s infidelity is punished
only if he takes another man’s wife. But a wife who commits
adultery commits a “great sin”. She would be severely punished.
Her husband could forgive her, but he could then divorce her leaving
her penniless and disgraced. It was a risk for me to accept an
unmarried young woman with child into my house. Unlike for Mary, my
pregnancy carried with it a rise in status – as a barren woman
unable to produce a son for my husband, I was useless, less than a
woman and of little value. Now I was able to stand proud and tall,
knowing that I was fulfilling my duty not only to my family but to my
God.
When
I greeted Mary, I knew that she too carried a special baby. She
carried the Messiah, the one for which we have been waiting for so
many long years. I was filled with the Holy Spirit and cried “Blessed
are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
Then
Mary begins her song. It’s full of joy and praise for reversing the
power struggle between the lowly and the powerful. God fulfilled his
promise to rise up the poor and scatter the proud. Mary’s escape
from the limits of her situation and culture symbolizes the
fulfilment of these promises.
Josie:
Obviously,
this is a reconstruction of a possible encounter. We can't know what
was going through Mary and Elizabeth’s heads as they carried.
Brought up and eventually farewelled their children, those children
that were, despite and within everything that was done in and through
them, human and loved.
I
have been struggling this advent season. Normally it is my favourite
time of the year – a time to celebrate and prepare for Jesus, human
and yet divine. A time to remember his beginnings, as a humble,
illegitimate child with no claim to glory or status, unique and
special in his mother's eyes but to the world, just another man. I
think of my own children, feel a bond to Mary as a feed and love
them, imagine what it was like for her, watching her oldest child
grow and develop. I wonder what she wished for him, how she thought
his story would be carried out, if she watched him when he was asleep
and was overwhelmed with love and protection. I wonder if she prayed
to take his burden, to carry his pain, to give him what he had not
chosen for himself – a normal life.
But
this advent has been changed for me. I can not rejoice the way I want
to. I can't look forward with unbridled joy to the time when Jesus
will come in every heart, because this Christmas there are hearts
that will be forever empty. This Christmas there are 20 children,
children the age of my little girl, and 6 adults, teachers who gave
their lives in fear and heartbreak, who are not celebrating the way
they should be – with their families, with their friends, with
nothing on their mind but the lead up to Christmas.
I
live in the faith that, as Mary sung, God has fulfilled God's
promises. That the weak are made strong, the poor fulfilled in every
way. I have to have faith in this because right now, I find it hard
to believe. Once again, children have been torn from their mothers,
their fathers, their families and communities. Once again parents who
would do anything, suffer anything for the happiness and well being
of their children are never going to have that opportunity again.
Evil is at work in the world, and the darkness seems to be free.
There are plenty of people who seem to know what God is thinking and
planning in the wake of this tragedy – I wish I was one of them!
But I turn to the Bible to try and help me make sense of this
senseless act.
Mary’s
words in Luke’s Gospel are probably not the speech of an unmarried
girl contemplating her pregnancy. More likely, the author of the
Gospel composed them as an interpretation of Mary’s situation. This
is not to diminish Mary’s value or faithfulness; but it is a
reminder that the author was looking retrospectively at Mary’s
pregnancy, viewing it through a post-Easter lens to express a
confident hope that God’s Messiah would yet complete the task of
upending the world’s oppressive ways.
I
am very suspicious, then, of theological statements that promise too
much insight into the present. Theology that tells us what God is
doing right now, and that definitively claims to understand tomorrow,
usually is manipulative theology.
It’s
not that we have no confidence in contemplating God’s future, or
ours. But God’s future will be informed by who God has been in the
past. Our talk about God should begin there, then.
In
the end, Mary’s song remains outrageous. When the Gospel of Luke
ends, the powerful remain on their thrones, and the rich have not
been left empty. No historical event unambiguously confirms her
claims; they remain statements of faith.
Advent
is like this for Christians. It’s a season of standing up against
“the way things are.” Advent rejects the assumption that humanity
remains trapped in never-ending decline.
We
light candles during advent “against” the night. Our tiny,
vulnerable flames pose no threat to the darkness of the night. But we
light them anyway, because they declare a different reality to come.
“Joy
to the World” will not sound the same this year, not after funerals
for twenty beautiful children and their adult defenders in Newtown.
The carol, in declaring the “wonders of [Jesus’] love,” will
sound fake to some. Ignorant to others. And in some places, hopeful.
But I plan on singing it a little defiantly -- not in naïve,
Pollyannaish hope, but in confidence that Mary, the author of Luke,
and those before them who dared to speak about God saw with a
perspective I can learn from.
