Mary and Elizabeth: Unseen by the World; Seen and Used Powerfully by God

Good morning, friends.  I hope you are having a blessed Advent. 

So, one of my favorite movies of all times is an old Hollywood classic starring Ingrid Bergman called, “The Inn of Sixth Happiness.”  Although the movie takes Hollywood liberties, it is essentially the true story of an amazing British woman named Gladys Alyward, who became a missionary to China in the 1930s, and it is a wonderful movie for Gladys was an extraordinary woman.

Yet for many years of her life, Gladys was unknown and unseen. Though, she had had a strong sense of call to serve in China for many years, every time she applied to go, the missionary agencies sending people to China at the time rejected her.  You see, Gladys was a nobody.  She was a working class woman with an inadequate education and she was just not deemed as an appropriate person for such a role.  So, time after time, the agencies said “no”.

However, Glady’s sense of call to China never waned, and she eventually figured out a way to get there on her own.  In 1930, after scraping together every last penny she had saved, she set out on a great adventure, traveling from Great Britain to the edge of Russia by train, then sailing to Japan and from Japan to China, and then finally traveling by train and mule to an inn in Yangchen, China.  Here at this Inn was a missionary woman in her 70s named Jeannie Lawson who was greatly thankful to have a young woman at her side to do this work and to continue this work after she passed away.

And continue her work, she did.  Gladys Alward would be in Yangchen, China for many years, welcoming travelers into her Inn, sharing the good news of Jesus with the local people, and doing much more.  This included adopting numerous abandoned children, helping end the oppressive practice of foot-binding, helping stop riots and improving conditions in local prisons, and leading more than 100 orphans on a treacherous journey to safety during the Japanese invasion.

And yet, if it had been left up to the missionary agencies of her time, Gladys would have never gone to China.  She would have stayed in England, continuing her work as a day laborer, barely getting by, and not doing the extraordinary things that God had called her to do. 

Well, thank goodness, friends, that we have a God who sees unseen people like Gladys Aylward and raises them up so they can be all that they were meant to be, and as a result the world is greatly blessed.

Well, let us pray.

Thank you, God that you are a God who sees us, knows us, and desires that we be lifted up to become all you have created us to be.  Lord, as we engage your Scriptures today, would you open up our hearts to your love for us personally and for all you have created, and would you open up our eyes to see those in our midst who are forgotten, unseen, and oppressed so that we may work for a world where everyone is known, loved, and flourishing.  In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

 So, in today’s Gospel reading, we read the story of two women, Mary and Elizabeth, who were also unseen and yet also were raised up by God on the very margins of society to be part of God’s wonderful plan of salvation for the world. 

Now, Mary was a young girl from the town of Nazareth and Elizabeth was an old, barren woman.  Both women were considered to be insignificant.

As for Mary, her town of Nazareth, was so inconsequential that it was not listed among the 45 villages mentioned by the historian Josephus or the 63 Jewish villages mentioned in the Hebrew Talmud.  Nazareth was in fact so insignificant that when many years later a man named Nathanial was invited to follow Jesus of Nazareth, he asked, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”   Thus, as a young person, a woman, and a resident of a completely inconsequential town, Mary was an absolute nobody. 

Likewise, while Elizabeth would have had some status because she was married to a priest, her barrenness would have lowered people’s view of her.  In all her many years of life and marriage, she was unable to bear children, and this would have been a continual great source of shame for her.  Many in Israel would have seen her barrenness as a punishment, a curse, and even a sign of God’s disfavor.  Just as barren land was seen as unproductive and wasteful, some people would have seen Elizabeth in a similar manner. 

Thus, after 400 years of silence with his people Israel, who would have guessed that God would begin speaking once again through these insignificant women?  Or for that matter, through any women at all?

You see, according to Jewish law, women were not considered to be reliable eyewitnesses to events and thus their testimonies were ineligible in the court of law.  They simply could not testify to what they had seen or heard.  And yet, here was God inviting Mary and Elizabeth, two women - and two insignificant ones at that - to participate in His work of salvation and then to testify to that miraculous work – work that not only impacted their lives but had implications for Israel, and indeed for the entire world.  Who would have expected that?

Well, of course, no one. The people would have surely expected that God would speak through a man, and a well-respected and strong one at that, who would be able to lead his people in overthrowing the oppressive Roman Empire.  Yet, that is not what God did.  Rather, he started with Elizabeth and Mary, two women who had lived out their whole lives trusting in God, believing that He would fulfill His ancient promises to his people, two women whose lives were absolutely beautiful, not because they were perfect or greatly respected at the time, but because they trusted God and allowed Him to bring beauty out of their difficult and broken circumstances, even if that meant a pregnancy much too soon for Mary and a pregnancy much too late for Elizabeth.

However, friends, those are the exact situations these women chose to embrace, and because of their faithfulness and obedience, God began to work powerfully through them.  As such, Elizabeth would become the mother of John the Baptist, the great prophet who would call people to repentance and prepare the way for Jesus, and Mary would become the mother of Jesus, the Savior of the world.  And though Elizabeth and Mary couldn’t have comprehended all of what this would mean for them, as they began to experience God’s work within them as they carried their miracles sons in their wombs, they couldn’t help but break out into shouts and songs of joy, prophesy, and praise.   

In fact, upon arriving at Elizabeth and Zechariah’s house, before Mary was even able to share her good news, Elizabeth’s baby leaped inside her womb with joy and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.  Elizabeth then cried out in prophesy and praise, demonstrating that she knew who Mary’s baby would become. 

To Mary who had just conceived Jesus and who most likely had not shared the good news that the Angel Gabriel had told her with anyone, this outburst would have been greatly encouraging.  Her secret was a secret no more.  Thus, she was not alone in this glorious and weighty call.  Nor was she crazy for believing what the angel had told her.  As a result, Mary also burst out in joy, prophesy and praise – this time a song so beautiful and powerful that it has now been sung for generations ever since.  We know it as the Magnificat, Handel has made it into a musical masterpiece.  and N.T. Wright calls it the “gospel before the gospel, a fierce bright shout of triumph [that came] thirty weeks before Bethlehem [and] thirty years before Calvary and Easter.”   

Well, friends, we can certainly say that that this insignificant young woman from Nazareth is not insignificant anymore. Nor is her elderly aunt, and we have so much to learn from these faithful women of God.  Listen now to what the Anglican priest Malcolm Guite has to say about these two women in his poem entitled, “The Visitation”.  He says:

Here is a meeting made of hidden joys

Of lightenings cloistered in a narrow place,

From quiet hearts the sudden flame of praise,

And in the womb the quickening kick of grace.

Two women on the very edge of things

Unnoticed and unknown to men of power,

But in their flesh the hidden Spirit sings

And in their lives the buds of blessing flower.

And Mary stands with all we call ‘too young,’

Elizabeth with all called ‘past their prime.’

They sing today for all the great unsung

Women who turned eternity to time,

Favoured of heaven, outcast on the earth,

Prophets who bring the best in us to birth.

Well, I don’t know about you, friends, but I absolutely love this poem – it captures these women so well - women who were outcast on the earth and yet, as Guite states, were favored of heaven and whose lives the buds of blessing flower. 

In this light of who Elizabeth and Mary were and what God would do through them, it is then really no surprise to hear then what the content of Mary’s song was all about.  Mary’s “gospel before the gospel” was all about casting down the mighty and lifting up the humble so that all people could be the blessings that God had always intended them to be.  While Mary started off with what God had personally done for her, she quickly expanded her scope.  For this was not a one-off thing that God has done for her only but was something He was doing for all of Israel, and indeed for the entire world.  This after all, was and always has been God’s heart. 

In fact, centuries before, another previously barren and insignificant woman named Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel, had sung a very similar song about God’s work of salvation – surely Mary was familiar with it as she sang her own song, inspired by the Holy Spirit.

The truth is, friends, that God is in the business of lifting up the marginalized, the lowly, the humble, the forgotten, the despised, and the ones who despite their difficult circumstances around them trust in God and allow Him to create beauty out of their difficult and broken circumstances. 

God has been doing this all along, and God is going to do this most completely through Mary’s son Jesus.  Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s ancient promise to Abraham that his descendants would be a blessing to the whole world, and a significant aspect of this blessing will entail the leveling of the world’s playing field – the uplifting of oppressed, unseen, and forgotten people;  and the toppling of the brutal, evil, and oppressive principalities and power-brokers that dehumanize, oppress, obscure, and keep in slavery the people God has so lovingly created. 

This uplifting of the humble and toppling of the powers has already begun with the birth, life, death,  resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, and it will find its consummation when Jesus returns again, a reality for which we expectantly wait during this season of Advent. 

Now, friends if it is not obvious to you yet, what Mary’s “gospel before the gospel” shows us is that God’s salvation is wholistic.  Yes, as Jesus and his first apostles will later teach us, the gospel involves the forgiveness of our sins, the purification of our hearts and minds, the restoration of our relationship with God, and eternal life.  However, salvation is not strictly individualistic, nor is it otherworldly or just future-oriented.  It is not only about a personal relationship with Jesus and going to heaven when we die, which is what many of us in the American church have been taught.  Rather, it is about the world being “put to rights” and heaven coming down to earth, even now. 

Mary’s song reminds us that when Jesus comes back, He will finish putting the world to rights and bring about a new heavens and a new earth where in our resurrected and glorious bodies, we will live in harmony with each other, the creation, and God; and we will endlessly create beautiful things for others to enjoy.  There will be no tears and no oppression and no people forgotten.  All of us will be seen and known and will be the blessings to each other that God has always intended for us to be.

Friends, our future is glorious, and this reality allows us to live now with hope, to praise God even in the midst of difficult and broken circumstances, and to serve as signposts of this world to come, this world where justice reigns, where all is right.  Now serving as such signposts will not mean that our lives will be worry or pain-free or glamorous by any stretch of the imagination.

Just think again for a minute about Mary and Elizabeth.  Their role in God’s salvific plan was absolutely indispensable, but for most of the time completely ordinary.  It involved the changing of diapers, late nights to comfort their babies, making meals for their families, teaching their growing son about God’s promises to Abraham and the law of Moses, and all the mundane stuff that goes along with being a mother. 

Their part in God’s plan was joyful and beautiful, and these women were great blessings to many, but their lives were not glamorous.  And they were not pain-free.  Being an elderly mom must have been difficult and exhausting at times for Elizabeth.  Being a pregnant teenager before she was supposed to be pregnant must have brought scorn and shame upon Mary.  And then, of course, as we know, watching the crucifixion of her son many years later would have been absolutely excruciating for Mary. 

So no, participating in God’s plan was not easy or extraordinary most of the time, but it was beautiful.  After all, there is no place better to be than in that space of trust and obedience to God where God can work out His plans.  Sometimes, God’s plans for us will seem quite extraordinary, but in most situations, they will be completely ordinary as we go about loving God and neighbor with our whole hearts, wherever we may find ourselves.

And friends, Elizabeth and Mary’s story show us something else that is important, as well about God’s work in our lives.  Though it is tempting to do, we should never compare the work that God does through us with the work that God is doing in another.  So, for example, it would be easy for us to say that Mary got the more extraordinary task, because she got to carry and raise the Savior of the World, but such a comparison is unhelpful, and notice that Elizabeth and Mary did not make that comparison themselves. There was no jealously involved here.  These women simply rejoiced together in the fact that God had seen them and was using them in his plans of redemption, and we are invited to do the same as God invites us into whatever work He has planned for us to do.

And so, friends, as we come to the end of our time together reflecting on the story of Mary and Elizabeth, I want to leave you with a few questions.

First off, are there areas of your life where you feel unseen or forgotten?  In those areas of life, are you able to trust that God sees you and is working within you and on your behalf?  If not, what may be preventing you from trusting God?

Secondly, are there people in your life that are generally unseen or unknown?  Do you see them?  How could you more conscientiously pay attention to them, giving them a voice, and drawing them out so they can be more of who God created them to be?

Thirdly, in your spheres of influence, are there ways that you can work now to transform unjust systems so that all impacted by those systems may flourish and be all who God has created them to be?  How can you use your personal places of privilege to advocate for those with little to none?

Finally, are you content with the ways that God is using you to love your neighbors, love God, and be a signpost of the world to come, or are you comparing yourself to others or wishing your life was more extraordinary?  If you are not content, what would it look like to cultivate contentedness and joy in the life to which God has called you?  What would it look like to praise God, and to give testimony to how God is working in your life?

Friends, these are some deep questions that I hope you will take home with you and consider.  To get you started, however, I am now going to give you a minute of silence to reflect on any of these questions to which God may be inviting you to consider.  I will put them up on the screen and next to it, you’ll find a picture of Mary and Elizabeth for you to also contemplate.  When the time is up, I’ll will say Amen. 

[Minute of Contemplation]

Amen.  Friends, would you now go out in the love and grace of God, becoming the people He has always intended you to be, lifting up others so they can also be all they were created to be, and testifying to the work of God in your lives and in the world.  In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

For some art, music, and contemplative questions regarding Elizabeth and Mary, check out content from a short online contemplative retreat I led for other women clergy.