The Song We Didn't Know We Knew

We’ve spent time with Zechariah and John. We’ve heard the story of the elderly couple who received the promise of a son, the silencing of a righteous man in the face of doubt, the surprise of an old woman who feels things she never thought she would feel – the nausea, not being able to keep anything down, the questioning looks toward her husband, who can only smile and shrug, and the swelling belly, confirming that nothing is impossible with God. But God is not done doing impossible things. God is never done doing impossible things.

Let’s back up a bit and hear the story of Mary that leads up to our reading for today:

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.  The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.  He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.  He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”  Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have never known a man [intimately]?”  The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.  And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren.  For nothing will be impossible with God.”  Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.   

Mary, likely somewhere in her early teens, likely poor, from a town far away from the hustle and bustle of the city, yet a place in which they can see the effects of Rome’s occupation – the roads, the grain leaving their small community and traveling to Jerusalem and then on to Rome, paying taxes to a place many of them would never see, with soldiers walking through their towns as much for intimidation as keeping the peace – hears that she has found favor with God. I imagine her laughing in her head: favor? Favor? Let’s talk about God’s favor as my family struggles to eat, as young women try to look the other way and remember that they forgot something at home as they notice the soldiers glancing their way, speaking a language they don’t understand. God’s favor doesn’t come to places like this. God’s favor doesn’t come at times like this. If anyone was favored at this point, it was Rome – they were the ones with the money, with the power, those who seem to have received God’s blessing while others are left hungry and empty, remembering only echoes of the promises that had come so many generations earlier nobody was really sure if they were fairy tales or the voice of God.

            Like Zechariah, Mary is promised a son in unlikely circumstances. Like Zechariah, Mary questions Gabriel’s words. Mary, however, is not rendered silent. Zechariah explains to Mary that she will be overshadowed by the spirit and that her child will be holy and will be called Son of God. “Let it be with me according to your word,” and Mary says yes to the impossible.

            But just because someone says “yes” to God doesn’t mean that the way is then easily traveled; it doesn’t mean that things will work out smoothly; it doesn’t shield one from the scornful glances of others, even one’s own family. Mary travels, presumably alone, to Elizabeth… far enough away from home to collect her thoughts, to share the company of an elder relative who is also dealing with news of an impossible pregnancy. I imagine Mary showing up on Elizabeth’s doorstep, wiping her eyes and nose on a loose fold of cloth, feeling ill partially because of fear and nerves, partially because of the hormones, trying to put on her bravest face as she calls out to Elizabeth.

            Elizabeth, who has been in seclusion, whose husband is mute, has only had her unborn child to converse with for six months. Upon hearing Mary’s voice, John leaps; it may be the first voice he has heard besides his mother’s. Elizabeth, who could not have heard of Mary’s pregnancy, is filled with the Holy Spirit, seems to somehow know what is happening to Mary. Perhaps it was the green-tinge around the edges of her face. Perhaps it was the sweaty glow on her face, or noticing that Mary had started absentmindedly touching her stomach as she anticipates the changes. With scarcely an introduction, Elizabeth blesses Mary: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb… and blessed is the one who believed…”

            It is not at the proclamation of divine favor from Gabriel that Mary sings; it is not at the realization of the conception of her son; it is when she hears the words from another person, the words of blessing that she can’t say for herself, the words of blessing that come in the face of God doing the impossible, the confirmation that God, indeed, is up to doing the impossible, bent on coming to those whom others have forgotten, those whom others overlook, those who do not seem to receive God’s favor and certainly do not receive human favor.

            And Mary sings. This is not a new song. It is an old, old song. It is one of those songs Mary didn’t even realize she knew:

The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts.
He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap,
to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor.^[c]
For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and on them he has set the world.

“He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness; for not by might does one prevail.

The Lord! His adversaries shall be shattered; the Most High will thunder in heaven.
The Lord will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king, and exalt the power of his anointed.”

Hannah’s song, sung long ago and far away, by a wealthy woman who had prayed for a child, whose situation was quite different from Mary’s, inspires Mary’s song. These words of Scripture, from long ago and far away, are alive, receiving new life as they are uttered in successive generations, hummed by women as they went about their work, sometimes in the midst of joy and laughter, sometimes in the midst of tears, sometimes when the promises seemed close enough to touch, and sometimes when the promises seemed so far away they may as well have been a fairy tale.

            But we are so different from Mary. The words of Scripture are, for many of us, a story of long ago and far away; they aren’t a story or a song that we look to break into our reality. Sure, maybe God did impossible things back then, bringing the dead to life, bringing life to barren wombs, bringing the promise of Good News through an pregnant and unwed runaway teen. It’s a story we teach to our children, but we forget to remember for ourselves. It is a story that has the power to sweep us up in its promise and in its possibility, in God showing up in a world that creates saviors in its own image, whose gods hate the same people they hate, who find it easier to ignore the voice of God than recognize that God continues doing the impossible, continues creating, continues moving in this world that is occupied with its own self-interests.

            Yet God comes. God continues whispering the song, beckoning us to sing along with Mary, with Elizabeth, with Hannah, as God continues to be bent on doing the impossible, on reaching the unreachable, on loving the unlovable. You are a part of the activity of God. You are part of the impossible thing that God is up to in the world: saving it in spite of itself. God continues wrapping you up in this story, a story that has claimed your life and will not – and cannot – let you go because this story is about you, the world, and God’s impossible overflowing of love that refuses to be confined by rules of what is possible and instead proclaims the impossible has come true.