4th Sunday Advent C, 22 December 2024
The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth
Who is this young girl who crosses the Holy Land from the north to the south and reaches the land of Judah, not far from Jerusalem? She seems to be running, rather than walking. She brings with her the energy of her youth and the strength of the life she bears in her womb. Pregnant, she visits another pregnant woman: her aged relative, Elizabeth.
When she enters the house and greets her cousin, something like an eruption of joy happens. The house of Zechariah had too long been the abode of sadness and shame. The pious couple was esteemed, but the fact that they could not have children was understood, by themselves as well as by others, as the sign of some sort of divine condemnation. It is remarkable that, when she realized that she was pregnant, Elizabeth, says St Luke, ‘hid herself five months, saying, Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men’ (Lk 1.24-25). But now, Elizabeth does not need to hide herself any longer. She meets Mary with great joy. With her young cousin, she can securely share her joy at being pregnant.
Within this simple and profound human joy, a greater joy soon reveals itself. The child in Elizabeth’s womb leaps for joy. He greets Mary and the son of Mary. Like King David leaping for joy in front the ark of the covenant, John leaps for joy at the presence of Mary. Because of the child she nurtures in her womb, she is a sort of new ark. In her, the treasures of the new covenant are enclosed; indeed the very mediator of this covenant dwells in Mary. John and Elizabeth are filled with the joy which accompanies the presence of the Messiah. Elizabeth greets Mary and salutes her as the Mother of her Lord.
These two women are a sign for one another of God at work for the salvation of Israel. Elizabeth’s childbearing is more than a miracle granted by God to a pious couple. The Virgin Mary’s pregnancy, too, points to something greater. Elizabeth saved from barrenness is a sign of the old world healed from its sterility by a God who comes to give life abundantly and for ever. Mary’s virginal conception reveals the coming of the Emmanuel, the son of David and Abraham promised long ago.
The joy that now fills the two women is the joy of salvation, the joy of hope. Yes, there is hope for our barren world. Yes, there is hope for sinners. Yes, salvation is offered. Yes, a Saviour is prepared by God and will soon be announced by the angels to the shepherds in the night of Bethlehem: “unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” (Lk 2.11).
With these two women, we, too, look forward to Christmas with joy. At Christmas, we are met with a salvation which we would never have dared to hope for. We are given a Saviour who saves us neither from outside nor from above, but from within and, as it were, from below. Mary the handmaid of the Lord who comes to serve and help her cousin bears Jesus, the Servant of the Lord, who is among us as the One who serves. Service is precisely what makes us recognise the Saviour: in Jesus, in Mary, as well as in the Church. With the eyes of faith, we see Christ serving us, Christ giving His life for us, Christ healing us and bringing us to a better life, and we recognise the signature of our Creator. We feel the hand of our Father taking hold of us and shaping us anew according to His loving purpose. This is the joy of salvation: the joy of Adam, who had slipped, as it were, out of the hands of God, and who feels again the life-giving hands of God taking hold of him and bringing him to the fullness of life. What a joy to put our hand in God’s hand and to entrust our restored freedom to His loving freedom! See: a barren woman conceives; a Virgin is with child; the old world is made new; hope is offered to all: we, too, are being made new!
Dear Brethren, let us not remain outside. Let us enter the great joy of salvation which is coming to us at Christmas. The joy of these two women and their children is ours if we wish. It touches our deepest self, our truest identity. When Mary comes to us, she awakens in us the son or daughter of God. Something in us begins to leap with joy, timidly at first, maybe, but joy grows steadily as we grow in faith. When we greet Mary with the words of the angel and the words of Elizabeth, we renew in Mary the gift of joy which entered her heart with a unique fullness. In turn, Mary greets us and we, too, begin to sing our own Magnificat, for the Lord is doing great things in us, too. When the joy of salvation has once been freed in us, we’ll have nothing more urgent than to share it with others. We shall be missionary. We, too, shall serve our brethren with a deep and peaceful Joy.