How Does a Weary World Rejoice? We Find Joy in Connection
Scripture: Luke 1:24-45 (NLT)
24 Soon afterward his wife, Elizabeth, became pregnant and went into seclusion for five months. 25 “How kind the Lord is!” she exclaimed. “God has taken away my disgrace of having no children.”
26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, 27 to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David.28 Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!”
29 Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. 30 “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!”
34 Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.”
35 The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. 36 What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. 37 For the word of God will never fail.”
38 Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her.
39 A few days later Mary hurried to the hill country of Judea, to the town 40 where Zechariah lived. She entered the house and greeted Elizabeth. 41 At the sound of Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth’s child leaped within her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
42 Elizabeth gave a glad cry and exclaimed to Mary, “God has blessed you above all women, and your child is blessed. 43 Why am I so honored, that the mother of my Lord should visit me? 44 When I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped for joy. 45 You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said.”
This is what the Spirit says to God’s people. Thanks be to God.
Message
Our scripture takes up where we left off last week. You remember – Zechariah has seen the angel Gabriel in the Temple where he was serving as a priest. The angel told him he and his wife Elizabeth would have a son after so many years of waiting. He can’t quite believe it, and the angel Gabriel says, “Since you don’t believe it, you forfeit your right to tell anyone else your good news!”
Seemed a bit harsh, but perhaps it’s not all that different from what we do when we don’t believe what others see in us and so silence ourselves from pursuing those dreams.
Sometimes, though, a little doubt causes us to reach out to someone for affirmation.
Time has passed since Zechariah returned home with his incredible news. Elizabeth is indeed pregnant and in seclusion. Maybe she too is as full of doubt as Zechariah, perhaps experiencing some of that foreboding joy we talked about last week – that feeling that joy won’t last, something will happen to cause her to lose this longed for child, that the familiar disappointment, disgrace, would return – this time even worse – so to immerse herself full in joy felt impossible. Perhaps she was a little embarrassed to be pregnant at her age, didn’t want to have to try to explain the whole thing to the other women in the village. Perhaps she felt like they would also doubt and would watch for yet another failed birth, another proof that she and Zechariah were living outside of God’s will in some way – else why would God not bless them with a healthy birth, a child to carry on the priestly lines they both shared? For whatever reason, Elizabeth was staying at home, doing everything she knew to do to stay healthy.
In the meantime, another story was unfolding – a story of a young girl, engaged but not yet married. It was a story of another visit from the angel Gabriel. That particular messenger of God got around that year! Gabriel had yet another message to deliver about a baby to be born. This message-receiver was just as confounded by the message with even more reason to be so. At least Zechariah and Elizabeth were married – even if they were an old married couple and way past child-bearing years. Mary doesn’t even have a husband. Heck, she probably just had “the talk” last week.
Mary, like Zechariah, wants to know how it will happen, but her question is more of curiosity and wonder while his was more about a need for certainty. Mary asks, “How will this happen?” Zechariah asked, “How can I be certain this will happen?” So Gabriel simply responds to her question with an explanation. I can just imagine Mary looking at him like, “I have no idea what you just said,” can’t you? And I can imagine Gabriel simply shrugging and saying, “It’s a God thing.”
Gabriel must have instilled trust, because Mary, in all her youthful innocence, agrees to the plan. We wonder if she had said no, would Gabriel have had to find someone else? It’s a moot point. She did say yes. And perhaps God knew that would be the case, else Gabriel would have been sent elsewhere.
Maybe it was God’s idea for Gabriel to tell Mary about her cousin. Maybe Gabriel was remembering the recent visit to Zechariah and thought it might make Mary feel a little better to know it wasn’t only in her own life that God was doing miraculous things. In any case, after Gabriel goes on his way, the God thing happens, Mary becomes pregnant, and she starts thinking about her cousin.
I suspect Mary was feeling just a bit overwhelmed, don’t you? I suspect she needed to some time away from her parents, away from Joseph, away from the village of Nazareth and the reaction she could expect from all of them. So, she decides to go see Elizabeth.
I wondered how far it might have been. I was thinking maybe just a few miles. I googled it to see where Biblical scholars speculated Elizabeth and Zechariah might have lived. I learned that “according to tradition, Elizabeth and Zechariah lived in Ein Karem in the Judean hill country, which was about five miles west of Jerusalem and 80 miles from Nazareth.” 80 miles! I looked it up. Walking 3 mph, it would take over 26 hours. That’s a lot of time to think. Innocent she may have been, but I suspect Mary had some idea of the hardships ahead for her. She may have hoped for the sympathy of an older relative, also pregnant, also unsure of the days ahead, but at least with more life experience. Let’s face it, though, she really didn’t know how Elizabeth would react.
What Mary likely did not expect was Elizabeth’s absolute joy. Brené Brown, who gave us the “foreboding joy” definition last week, defines joy as “an intense feeling of deep spiritual connection, pleasure, and appreciation.” That’s what Mary experiences from Elizabeth as she walks into her house and greets her. And Mary’s soul rises up in response: ““Oh, how my soul praises the Lord. How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!” We didn’t read it this morning, but the next verses from Luke’s Gospel are the Magnificat, the words Mary speaks, the song Mary sings, in response to Elizabeth’s joy.
Brené says joy is “characterized by a connection with others, or with God, nature, or the universe.” It’s as if Elizabeth’s joyful greeting, allows Mary to fully experience the joy she hasn’t been able to express until this very moment. Their connection, hers and Elizabeth’s – and even John’s, who leapt in his mother’s womb at the sound of Mary’s voice – gives rise to this intense feeling. Elizabeth’s weariness, Mary’s weariness fade – not entirely never to return, but in that moment they both recognize the extraordinary circumstances in which they find themselves and are able to express to one another how very blessed they feel to be a part of them.
Cole Arthur Riley in her book This Here Flesh puts it this way:
I think we were made to be delighted in. And I think it takes just as much strength to believe someone’s joy about you as it does to muster it all on your own.
Mary feels Elizabeth’s delight in her, and in turn feels delight in Elizabeth’s delight. They are able to hold that joy for one another.
In an interview, author of Inciting Joy Ross Gay, talks about how “experiences of joy make us feel more connected to others, and our connectedness gives us more capacity to love and support each other.” He talked about “fleeting caretaking interactions.” Connie and I experienced one of those just the other day. We were picking up bags of water softener salt at Menard’s. This stuff comes in 50 lb bags. Between the two of us, we loaded up 3 bags into a cart and were wheeling it to our vehicle. I know inside both of us were thinking, “now we have to somehow get it from the cart into our car.” As we were walking, this man, who was heading into the store glanced at us and our cart and sort of hesitated. He started to walk on and then stopped and turned around and said, “Do you need some help putting those bags in your car?” We both were like, “As a matter of fact…” And he followed us over to our vehicle and just transferred those bags from the cart to the car like they were nothing. He seemed thrilled to have helped us and we were thrilled to have received his help! We thanked him effusively, of course. Then we got in the car and couldn’t stop talking about how grateful we were for his help. This tiny little connection brought us so much joy! And the fact that we shared the experience made it even sweeter.
Some of you have heard that we have a new member of our household – our 6 ½- month-old kitten, Simon. Simon is a constant delight. He brings us so much joy. I can’t tell you how many times one of us will say, “Come here and look at what Simon is doing now.” We each delight in watching him, but it is so much sweeter to be able to share that joy.
It's like watching a baby take her first steps and sending a video of it to grandparents. Or seeing a rainbow when you’re driving down the street and wanting to get the attention of the driver in the car next to you to make sure they see it too. Shared delight, shared joy multiplies it but also deepens it, makes it even more real.
Perhaps Elizabeth’s joy in Mary’s condition allows Mary to accept and delight in her own condition, to set aside the worries for a moment and to make the days ahead, the challenges to come, just that little less overwhelming. Perhaps Mary’s seeking Elizabeth out and her responding joy, brought Elizabeth out of her seclusion and allowed Elizabeth to be less fearful of what might happen and more willing to embrace the possibility of longed for motherhood. Perhaps their joy in one another led them to be grateful for one another and for their own lives and how God had blessed them.
Will you pray with me?
God of connection, lead us to connect with one another, with you, with our world, so that we might experience the joy in one another and in ourselves even more fully, and in so doing experience life more fully. May we delight in one another and in you as you delight in us. We pray in the name of the source of joy, our savior Jesus Christ, who lives with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
An Invitation to Find Joy in Connection
As I mentioned in the welcome this morning, connection is something we identified as a value and is a part of our goals for disciple care and nurture and serving neighbors. As you experience the weariness that seems to be a part of the world around us, how will you be intentional about making connections with others? with creation? How will you share the joy of new discoveries or foster tiny caring interactions during this season of Advent? How will you cultivate delight in your life and the lives of those around you in the days ahead? What brings you joy and how will you share it?