Sunday Dec. 20th, thoughts going in

39 And Mary arose in these days and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Judah; 40 and entered into the house of Zacharias and saluted Elisabeth. 41 And it came to pass, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit; 42 and she lifted up her voice with a loud cry, and said, Blessed [art] thou among women, and blessed [is] the fruit of thy womb. 43 And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come unto me? 44 For behold, when the voice of thy salutation came into mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. 45 And blessed [is] she that believed; for there shall be a fulfillment of the things which have been spoken to her from the Lord. 46 And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, …(ASV)

BIG THOUGHTS—In spite of the real world issues that lie ahead in these two pregnancies, Luke’s primary emphasis seems to be that of JOY…..joy….and nearness to completion. Two separate promises have been delivered by the angel—one to Zechariah and one to Mary. Now those promises are well on their way to fulfillment.

Vss 39/40: Malina points out that travel alone in this culture was considered deviant behavior. He surmises that Mary considers the fetus Messiah to be something of an amulet against the all too present danger in such a journey. It’s interesting stuff, but the text doesn’t say she went alone, so its supposition on his part. Brown assumes she joined a caravan (also supposition). Regardless, nobody is too sure about WHERE she went. A “city of Judah” is pretty nebulous. Commentators suspect she was anywhere from 3-5 days’ journey from her home.
One is equally unsure as to the proposed elapsed time between vs 38 (Gabriel’s departure) and vs 39 and the “these days” statement. In other words, the question arises…just HOW pregnant was Mary when she took her trip? Did she leave the next day? The flow of the narrative seems to suggest a fairly quick departure.
Another question surrounding Mary’s departure is WHY? Some commentators (citing Calvin & others) see doubt in Mary and a need to verify the angel’s words with some sort of tangible evidence. This seems more consistent with a generally protestant urge to ‘humanize’ Mary. After all, she may be ‘highly favored,’ have ‘the Lord with her,’ and be ‘blessed among women,’ ….but we don’t want her getting a big head (!). This is just goofy. There are two items of interest about the account (a) why she went and (b) why Luke included it. It seems easy enough to assume that she went out of sheer JOY. The angel had tied the joy of her news to that of her cousin Elizabeth’s, thus going to share this joy seems to be the most natural and least contrived option.
As to why Luke included it, several things come to mind. First, Luke had already told us that John the Baptist would be anointed with the Holy Spirit from the womb (1:15)—which always implies prophetic ability. By placing the two characters of Jesus & John in such close proximity, Luke is able to show the fulfillment of 1:15. There could be deeper theological stuff going on too, though. When one combines the leaping of John the Baptist with Elizabeth’s proclamation about “the mother of my Lord,” one senses a high Christology at work. In other words, if all one had was Mark’s gospel it COULD be possible to assert an adoptionistic Christology: the MAN Jesus BECAME the son of God when God adopted him at his baptism. Adoptionism is much harder to hold in Luke’s & Matthew’s Gospels, and impossible in John’s Gospel. Luke could be subtly addressing some forms of proto-adoptionism. Finally, if nothing else, one CLEARLY detects the subjugation of John the Baptist in these texts. This is an important detail, as we know from first century accounts that even after his death John the Baptist continued to have a ‘following’ of sorts. Here John clearly bows to the greater significance of Mary’s Son.

Vss 41-45: The fact that Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit turns her into a ‘prophet’ in the Old Testament sense of the word—at least temporarily. As such, she is able to discern at least 3 things that would otherwise be indiscernible: (a) Her own infant’s leap was more than just a typical phenomenon experienced with every pregnancy. She [correctly] interpreted not only that it was a sign, but the meaning of that sign. (b) She discerned that Mary was pregnant. Had Mary left Nazareth soon after Gabriel’s departure, there would be no outward indication of her pregnancy. This was simply revealed to Elizabeth at the moment. (c) Finally, she was able to discern the IMPORT of Mary’s pregnancy: “42 and she lifted up her voice with a loud cry, and said, Blessed [art] thou among women, and blessed [is] the fruit of thy womb. 43 And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come unto me?”
Strange as it may seem, I’m less interested in the actual verbiage of the Magnificat, hence I’ve omitted those verses. Brown makes a pretty compelling case that the hymn is probably pre-Lukan……but I’ll leave that debate to the critics.

Summary: Maybe I’m taking an overly ‘modern’ view of the Visitation, but to me it seems that what WE can glean from this text is an amazing and deliberate JOY at being included in God’s big plan. If I have a bone to pick with the modern evangelical movement (and I do have several bones to pick), it’s that they frequently trivialize the joy of being “in God’s will” to simple happiness……as in…..now you will be fulfilled, your kids will turn out great, you’ll live happily ever after, and your whole life will look like a something from a Norman Rockwell painting. Don’t get me wrong, I agree that there is both JOY & FULFILLMENT at being part of God’s big plan, but it comes at personal cost (the Church calls this discipleship). The blessing of Elizabeth’s son in her old age means that now she, at the age of a grandmother, is going to be chasing around a 3yr old…and if she lives long enough, she’ll suffer the pain of her son’s martyrdom. From Mary’s perspective, she will likely suffer the ostracization that comes with a ‘questionable’ pregnancy for her whole life—to say nothing of her own sorrow at the cross. The point is that we can and do experience JOY & FULFILLMENT when our purposes are aligned and allied with God’s, but the JOY & FULFILLMENT we experience is that of a disciple knowing that he or she is doing the Masters bidding, **not** a shortcut to realizing the American Dream.


cheers,

TM