Each Christmas, we read chapter 1 of Luke’s Gospel because it des cribes the birth of Jesus. Mary conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit nine months before his birth. St Luke describes Mary hearing this news from the Archangel Gabriel. We know the story so well we often fail to note one of its central and shocking features: she is not married at the time. She was therefore massively vulnerable. That fact explains the follow up: Luke describes a young woman — girl really — running for her life.
We sometimes hear stories of girls and women suffering so-called ‘honour killings’. They happen here, in the UK, but the extent is obviously far, far worse abroad. We should remember how the Jewish authorities got there first. Many of the so-called ‘terror texts’ in the Old Testament describe the way women were killed to appease the menfolk who felt their honour was at stake, and who would do anything to avoid feeling a sense of shame. The story in Luke 1 is one of only a handful in the New Testament: the only other story in the New Testament of this kind is in John 8, the story of the woman caught in adultery.
Luckily, we recall how the ending in that case is as happy as this ending. Interestingly, the other
honour-related stories in the New Testament relate to men: think of Mary and some of her children seeking Jesus, seeking to hide him away because they think he’s gone mad; think of the Jews seeking to kill Paul; and think of course about Jesus’ crucifixion itself. It means the context of this story is an attempted honour killing. Had the Jewish authorities succeeded, we would have had no incarnation, no atonement, no relationship with God, no forgiveness of sins.
So, by starting this story with the words, ‘Mary arose and went in a hurry’ we are to understand that this is actually a story of terror. Mary was afraid she would be accused of breaking the seventh commandment: the people would have thought she’d had an affair. So it shows a young unmarried girl so afraid she will be stoned to death that she can only think of escape.
Like so many who fear for their lives, Mary goes to family. In this case, she runs away to her cousin. We don’t know how well she knew this particular cousin … the traditions are so overlaid with later amendments and ornamentation that it’s crazy to even start unpicking, looking for the truth. We just don’t know. But the fact that she runs a fair distance implies a distant relative — distant in terms of relationship, and possibly distant in terms of love.
As we read the encounter between Mary and Elizabeth, we see the way it’s these more-or-less strangers who are willing to accept the young run-a-way and the people at home, who do know her, that will not. If Mary had been a saint of fragile porcelain or displayed bulletproof piety, there would surely have been no scope for misunderstanding. That she did need to flee for her life means that those who knew her did not think as we do, looking as we do through the opposing telescope of time, looking from the future. In other words, the pre-incarnation Mary was obviously an ordinary peasant girl like all the other ordinary peasant girls. It means she was like us. It makes the Incarnation more and not less of a miracle.
Let’s return to the encounter. Neither Zacharias nor Elizabeth were strangers to the way God wounds those who love him. We recall how Zacharias was High Priest that same year — an unimaginable honour that he botched. A few months (maybe a few days) earlier, Zacharias had walked into the Holy of Holies in the Temple and had failed the test. He’d spoken with an Angel of the Lord (the same Angel who, incidentally, had elicited a different response from Mary) and the Angel had struck him dumb. Presumably, Zacharias was doubly punished and was also unable to speak because we also read in Luke 1 that he has to ‘motion with his hand’ when asked a question. So Zacharias was wounded. And so was Elizabeth, who had suffered all her adult life from the terrible indignity of childlessness. That her womb was barren could, in that culture, only mean a curse from God. Luke describes her as ‘old’, so she will have suffered often and therefore suffered much. Elizabeth, too, was wounded.
As today, it is those who have been wounded who know best how to help those who have also been wounded. These two old people knew much about the supernatural world for both had recently been the recipient of a divine encounter. They knew first-hand of the ways in which God works, and knew also of the way that God chooses to work in unlikely ways. And it’s these two who know God that recognise something special in Mary. In fact, they not only recognise something special about her; they see something special in her. They see God in her — is it too much to say they recognise God in her? And it is these two broken people who care for the expectant Mary.
In the version in Luke 1, Mary responds to these shattering experiences with a song. She sings about God who has ‘done mighty deeds with his arm.’ It’s no surprise these deeds revolve around helping the helpless, defending the defenceless: ‘He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart. He has brought down rulers from their thrones, and has exalted those who were humble. He has filled the hungry with good things; and sent away the rich empty-handed.
Many of us will have also been wounded by God. We will have had experiences of God and botched them. We will have had ideas and dreams and seen them come to nothing. Many of us will have felt the weighty hand of God on us or in us, felt that he wanted us to do something of supernatural worth and have been scared of the consequences. Perhaps it’s the folk around us who see God in us, cannot cope, feel threatened and want us to go. It’s when we — the God-filled — most resemble Elizabeth and Zacharias that the broken and the frightened will come to us. I wonder, what is our response?
