Emphasis Preaching Journal

The little story about Mary and Elizabeth seems pleasant enough, doesn't it? Imagine the two pregnant women, cousins, meeting in Elizabeth's country home in the hills of Judea. Picture their excited, loving embrace. There's that lovely touch: the baby leaping in Elizabeth's womb on meeting Jesus as his greeting to Jesus. Finally, at the end of the passage, Mary breaks forth in magnificent song. Heartwarming, isn't it? Or is it? Mary's situation may not be as idyllic as it seems. If Mary was serene and peaceful, it was in spite of, not because of her lot in life. She was poor. She was young, fourteen, maybe. She was uneducated. She was pregnant out-of-wedlock. Joseph had lurking suspicions about her pregnancy. Her mother and father aren't mentioned at all. Maybe Mary's parents were embarrassed. Maybe that's why Mary went out-of-town, without Joseph, for three months, to visit her cousin. Poverty, scandal, questions at home, Roman oppression abroad, the anxieties of a first-time pregnancy, morning sickness, mood swings, crazy cravings. Then, giving birth in a stable, surrounded by animals, far away from home, with no midwives or female relatives in attendance. Mary's life wasn't peaceful. It was a mess.

But in the midst of Mary's mess, there was a message, a reminder that God particularly chooses and uses the lowliest and the least. A reminder of how God selected elderly, childless Abraham and made him the father of great nations. Of how God chose Moses, a verbally challenged, "not our kind," never-quite-fit-in-at-the-palace, hot-tempered murderer-turned-shepherd, and made him the deliverer of God's people. Of how God picked a quarrelsome, ragtag collection of slaves with an attitude problem to be God's "Chosen Ones." Of how God selected the little town of Bethlehem to be the birthplace of the Messiah. God has been lifting up the least and the last for a very long time.