Fourth Sunday of Advent
Luke 1, 39-45
“How many visitors will be coming for Christmas?” This is usually our first concern for Christmas Day. How many of us would prepare for the whole morning on Christmas Day just to make sure that the house is ready for our visitors by lunch time? We clean our house days before Christmas. We buy and prepare food for lunch. We make the gifts ready to be given on this special day and many more things, to the point that sometimes it makes us mad. And yet, when our visitors arrive and have had a good time during that Christmas lunch, we know that all the effort was worth it.
In the gospel for today, we have a visitation episode that is like no other. Elizabeth, knowing that she’s pregnant, retreated to her room and then in the middle of her pregnancy was visited by Mary who is now pregnant as well, even though she is a virgin.
For years, Zechariah and Elizabeth longed for a child. In Jewish culture, a child is a sign of God’s blessing. Being barren and childless are signs of God’s curse on the couple. Sometimes, this situation would be a valid ground for divorce. And yet, even if Zechariah and Elizabeth had been married for years, they never considered divorce. For Zechariah, he has even given his life to serve at the temple as a priest. Maybe for Zechariah, being a priest, must also have been a way of getting closer to God and hopefully God would answer their prayers to be gifted by a child. And yet, after many years of being married, they remained childless. And now in their advanced age, they must have almost given up the possibility of having a child. They might still be hearing some taunts and gossips from their neighbours because they remain childless but I think they must have been so used to it after many years that they may have been deaf to it. Then one morning Elizabeth must have realised that she’s pregnant like what the angel Gabriel said on that day that the angel appeared to Zechariah in the temple. Then she retreated to her room for the whole time. Until that day, when she received a visit from her cousin Mary, who is also pregnant to nothing less than the Son of God himself.
The gospel tells us of the awesome happiness and surprise of Elizabeth of being visited by Mary. Elizabeth must have felt more unworthy now. First, she felt so unworthy of being blessed of getting pregnant. For years and years, she had longed to have a child and felt that she was unworthy of God’s grace but now, she won’t just have another child, but a child who will have a very important role in the history of salvation, that is to be the precursor of Jesus Christ. Her child would be so important that Jesus even said years later that there’s no one greater person born of a woman than John the Baptist. Second, even though she knows that Mary’s son is greater than hers, still it is Mary who is the one who have travelled for days by foot just to be with her and share their common joy. That is why Elizabeth exclaimed, “Who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Elizabeth should have realised that she is the one who is supposed to pay homage to her younger cousin and yet she is the one who gets visited by the Mother of God. That’s why the child in Elizabeth’s womb leaped for joy.
In this day of modern technology with mobile phones, the internet and social media, it has become so easy to greet “Merry Christmas” with so many people in less than half the time than writing a Christmas card. And yet, I believe that nothing still beats a personal visitation especially to people who have been lonely and sick. This Christmas, let us make it a point to take some time in visiting our relative and friends. Of course, we can’t visit everyone but at least in visiting a few we are sure to make a positive impact on all of them. May this Christmas be a meaningful one by making the people that we visit feel important, because they are.