It was the fan on the video card. My computer problems from last week. I thought we were going to have to shell out for yet another computer, but it was just the fan on the video card. And after a few questions from the tech guy, he said, if the noise gets too annoying just go back to the built in card on the motherboard. No need to replace it. Well, OK then. Good news there. That’s what I’ve done. We’re quieter and no noticeable difference for what we do 99.9% of the time. So, good news.
In a year of bad news, of difficult news and life altering news, that doesn’t seem to stop coming, a little bit of good news seems to stand out. Insignificant as it is in the larger scheme of things, it was good news. We seek a little light when we are in the midst of darkness. We grab hold of the rope that we hope will pull us up out of the pit in which we find ourselves. A little bit of hope can sustain a lifetime of waiting. Waiting? Uncertainty, unknowing, rejection and denial. We’re all waiting.
We spend an average of 10 years waiting in line: traffic, check out, rides at amusement parks, doctors’ offices. That’s measurable time. But what about the waiting we are doing while we do other things? Waiting for a medical report we fear while we go through the motions at work. Waiting for a return phone call or an email from a friend you’ve wounded or who wounded you. Waiting for the powers that be to determine whether you’re moving up in the company or moving on to something else. Waiting for things to work themselves out, waiting for dinner to cook, for bread to rise, for the baby to be born.
We’re moving into part two of our experiment in extended Advent. Part one was about looking forward to the promise, to the coming Kingdom, to the return of the Anointed One. We were helped in our looking by the Old Testament prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, who keep their eyes on the horizon no matter how rough the seas got, who longed for something more, something better, no matter how dire the circumstances around them got. They kept looking forward.
Now in part two, we look back in order to know how to look forward. We look at some of the characters in the story of God who came to live among us. But, of course, we can’t look at the central characters, Mary and Angels and shepherds and Wise men. No, we’re more of the background people, we’re the crowd scenes. The ones almost overlooked in the story.
We begin with Elizabeth. You remember her. Mary’s relative, John the Baptist’s mom. Her story sounds like an Old Testament tale, Sarah too old to have Isaac, Hannah who waited too long for Samuel. Elizabeth was Zechariah’s wife, subject to whisper campaigns from the people he pastored. Because she hadn’t given him any sons. His line would die out, his eternity was in question. And in the thinking of the day it was her fault, she bore the blame. She was the cause of the shame. It was a burden she had to bear. So she did. And how she did made her someone worth listening too.
The problem is her story is tucked away in the margins of the Gospel and therefore takes a bit of prying to get it out. She is not the center, even of her own story. So, turn to Luke chapter one. After an introduction, we jump right to Zechariah and Elizabeth. We are told who they are and who they come from. We are told of their plight. And then the focus shifts to Zechariah alone in the holy of holies, his turn to serve in the temple finally arrived. But rather than the usual bringing of the prayers of the people to the altar of God, he gets a visitation from an angel. He’s told that his prayer has been answered, the prayer he has forgotten, I’m sure. The prayer that has moved off the table because of the passage of time and limitations of biology. But the prayer he has forgotten, God has remembered and come to answer. He’s so shocked that he asks for proof. He asks an archangel for his credentials, he wants to read the fine print of the contract. The angel, not used to feeling like a used car salesman, gets his feathers all ruffled and strikes the preacher mute. And the punishment will last until he sees what he wanted to see, proof that God answers forgotten prayers. Then he goes home.
Luke 1:23-25 When his time of service was ended, he went to his home. 24 After those days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she remained in seclusion. She said, 25 "This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people."
Elizabeth becomes pregnant and hides away for five months. Why? Luke doesn’t say. Maybe he doesn’t know. But Elizabeth gives us a hint. Notice her first spoken words in this story. Praise of God, and acknowledgment that she has been mistreated by God’s people. She doesn’t say I was disgraced by this barrenness, but that the people have wagged their fingers and whispered about her behind their hands. She says that she has had faith, but they didn’t. She never gave up, but they looked down their noses at her. So, this time is her time not theirs. Her time with God, they just have to wait. Like she waited. And they can wait with hope like she did, or with condemnation. It was up to them. Like it is always up to us to determine how we will wait.
The story then shifts to another woman not supposed to carry a child. You know her story. Luckily the angel who spoke to her had enough time to calm down from blasting a priest in the holy of holies, and now he is almost gentle with this girl-child who will carry the hope of the world. When he leaves, Mary runs.
Luke 1:39-45 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."
She runs to her relative Elizabeth, the old woman hiding a secret from the world. A secret Mary knows because an angel spilled the beans. Mary calls out and Elizabeth hears her. No, it wasn’t Elizabeth, it was the child she carried. He heard and rejoiced. He leapt inside of her. Elizabeth staggers and leans against the door frame, grasps her swelling belly and laughs. Like Sarah laughed at the very idea that she could give birth at such an age. But Elizabeth’s laughter redeems Sarah’s because she laughs, not with derision, but with joy. With hope and with joy.
But even more is going on here. In this exchange between these two unlikely mothers, more is redeemed, more is brought together. In Elizabeth’s joy at the leaping of her child, is the reversal of Rachel’s pain at the struggling of her twin boys, Jacob and Esau, who fought within her. What has been torn apart by jealousy and fear is now brought together in Elizabeth and Mary and the boys they carry. The one who prepares the way, who will say “I must decrease that He might increase”, who meets the One who comes to take away the sin of the world.
I think Luke missed a couple of words. I think Elizabeth said “blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoke to her by the Lord, like I did.” For all these years. She waited in hope.
Luke 1:57-63 Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. 58 Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. 59 On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. 60 But his mother said, "No; he is to be called John." 61 They said to her, "None of your relatives has this name." 62 Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. 63 He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, "His name is John." And all of them were amazed.
And then having fulfilled her role, Elizabeth disappears from view. Having kept her husband on course and set him free from his curse, having given birth to the forerunner, we don’t hear anything more from her. Yet her witness rings clearly and loudly, if we stop to listen. Elizabeth chose hope. Even when a community tried to disgrace her, Elizabeth chose hope. Even when the years went long and the waiting seemed almost unbearable, Elizabeth chose hope. She chose not to grumble in the darkness but to reach for the light. To find something to celebrate even in an empty time. A waiting time. Can we learn from her witness?
Shalom,
Derek
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