Reversal of Fortune

Luke 1: 39 - 45 (December 20, 2009)

1) The Text
39In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. 45And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

2) The Context

This gospel reading precedes the Magnificat, or Mary’s Song, said or sung today. An angel has appeared to Zechariah in the Temple, and later the angel Gabriel has come to Mary. Zechariah has been told that his wife Elizabeth will bear a child in her old age; Mary has heard that she will bear a son to be called Jesus and “Son of the Most High” (v. 32), of God. God will make him a king of David’s line; he will rule Israel for ever.

Now Mary visits her “relative” (v. 36) Elizabeth. A scholar tells us that the Greek words translated “with haste” (v. 39) can be rendered very thoughtfully. In telling us that “the child” (v. 41, John the Baptist) “leaped” in Elizabeth’s womb, Luke intends us to understand that John recognizes his Lord, Jesus. Elizabeth’s reaction, empowered by the Holy Spirit, is to praise Mary.

V. 43 translates a Semitic idiom: today Elizabeth might say: How can I be thought worthy of being visited by the mother of my Lord? V. 45 portrays Mary as the model believer: she trusted that God would keep his promise made through Gabriel, preposterous as it sounded.

3) Interpretation

The assumption here is that these passages, as in other parts of Luke, are more than simply the recounting of historical event. While there is no question that historical event lies behind the narrative, the theological message of Luke lies more in how he tells the story, in what shape he gives to the events, and what aspects of the tradition he emphasizes. As such, we need to follow the story and listen carefully to the texture of the narrative as it unfolds and as it engages us in the journey that will wind from Bethlehem to Nazareth to Jerusalem, and on to Rome and beyond.

A sense of impossibility, of endings, of dead ends, is a major feature, not only of Luke, but of the entire Gospel tradition, because in the theological confessions of Scripture human impossibilities, human endings, human dead ends are only the arena in which God works possibilities, new beginnings, and new paths!

At that very point of barrenness, as often happens in biblical narratives, Zechariah was confronted with the messenger of God and given a wonderful promise of something quite extraordinary that would unfold, the birth of a child who would fulfill a special role in bringing newness not only to Zechariah and Elizabeth, but to the entire world. The narrative then moves to the Annunciation (1:26-38), in which a similar promise of newness is given to Mary. She will also bear a special child who will play an even larger role than John. While Mary is not barren, she is a virgin, which underscores the impossibility from a human perspective of any of this happening.

The result in Luke’s narrative is clear: the whole focus of the story now revolves around these two women, one old and one young, both powerless, and a new future that each represents. Why does Luke, uniquely among the four Gospels, bring these two women together in mutual celebration?

Introducing the theme of the reversal of fortune serves to place the impending births in the context of a reordering of the world. This anticipates not only the immediately following features of the narrative, for example when shepherds are the first to receive the news of a Savior born in the city of David, but also the role of the new community of Faith that is emerging in the world.

With this expression of the Advent in terms of subversions of power, of the reversal of fortunes of the weak and hungry and oppressed, there is clearly a call to the early church to participate in this subversion. That does not mean a call to militancy of any kind; but it means a call to live out the implications of accepting a God who defines Himself in terms of the weak and oppressed, who has chosen to work in the world among lowly handmaids and barren women. It is not that we must work to earn such newness as much as it is, like Elizabeth and Mary, to believe the newness and embrace it as a defining characteristic of what it means to be faithful to God.

To embrace this newness is to confess with Mary in joy, faith, and submission that "the Mighty One has done great things for me." It is to acknowledge that the powers of this world are not the powers that matter most, and that God is the great leveler of all human structures of power that oppress and control. It is He who brings down the exalted and elevates the lowly. We are called to nothing less than to view the world in terms of that potential of God’s ordering of worth and value, not in terms of our own ordering of worth and value.

4) Thought Exercise

Where in your life do you look for a reversal of fortune?

Where in the lives of others can you help facilitate a reversal of fortune?