CAMINANDO WITH JESUS: Leaping for Joy

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.

When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."

And Mary said,

"My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever."

- Luke 1:39-55

After the Virgin Mary had had a most amazing conversation with the angel Gabriel, in the story commonly called the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38), she rushed to visit her relative Elizabeth, who was then six months pregnant with the child we have come to know as John the Baptist.

Our gospel narrative begins when the two women meet. Elizabeth is much older than her young cousin Mary. Both are pregnant in quite unusual circumstances.

Beyond childbearing years, Elizabeth and her husband Zachariah had been told that they would have the child who was to have “the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17). (You may recall that her husband Zachariah was a priest who, unable to believe he and Elizabeth would have a child in their old age, had been reduced to silence for nine months by the angel Gabriel). Elizabeth is in bliss, and I even imagine that among her friends she was perhaps the subject of a lot of teasing with this unexpected pregnancy.

Mary is engaged to Joseph, but they have yet to live together, as was the custom in those days. Even so, she accepts the angel’s invitation to bear “the Son of the Most High” (verse 32). How long did it take her to answer? The text does not tell us. But I dare say that all heaven held its breath, waiting, until she said, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (verse 38). Mary is in awe of God’s mighty works. She is also, I suspect, feeling quite stressed. She is facing scandal and shunning as an unwed mother, with the possibility of scorn and derision. (And Luke doesn’t tell us how Joseph feels about it; it falls to Matthew to tell us Joseph’s story).

It is an uncertain time, fraught with danger, as childbearing has ever been.

Elizabeth and Mary needed to see each other. Here’s how the scene unfolds: Mary runs to visit Elizabeth. Elizabeth is ecstatic; Mary breaks into song.

Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! We know Elizabeth’s words well, as they are part of devotions such as the Angelus and the rosary. Elizabeth and Mary both know in their bodies that God’s mighty acts are unfolding before their very eyes. They are amazed that they are being brought into the story of salvation in such exceptional ways, one as the Bearer of the Herald of the Good News, the other as the Bearer of the Word made Flesh. Their joy is palpable. Dangers and heartaches no longer matter; they are nothing compared to the laughter and hugs they share in this moment of pure bliss.

And did you notice that Elizabeth’s child leaps for joy when they meet?!

I love that jumping for joy is John’s first recorded act in the Bible. Yes, that very same John who in last Sunday’s gospel thundered warnings with harsh words, sounding as irascible as an old curmudgeon, is first and foremost a child who leapt for joy when Mary showed up. I want to say this: that joy, for all his travails later on, never left him, not even in his doubts and at his own bitter end.

This reminds me of C.S. Lewis, who wrote in his book Letters to Malcom: Chiefly on Prayer: “Joy is the serious business of heaven.” He also wrote somewhere that laughter is the one sound you will never hear in hell. I am talking about true, heartfelt, from deep in your gut, wide smile, face-splitting laughter. Joy is indeed the hallmark of heaven, as we will hear in a few days when choirs of angels will light up the night sky over the shepherds’ fields with songs of pure joy.

I wonder if we can learn from Mary and Elizabeth to feel God’s joy deep in our own bodies.

I wonder if we can let go of our fears and worries over all that could go wrong in our lives, in our world.

I wonder if, drawing strength from the resounding yes of Mary and from Elizabeth’s resilience, you and I will open our hearts to the joys of heaven that are at work in us even today.

This is the work of Advent: to leap for joy.

The Rev. Daniel Robayo is the missioner for Latino/Hispanic ministries in the Diocese of North Carolina.