Sermon

The Visit of Mary to Elizabeth

Mary has already been visited by the Angel Gabriel. Blessed by the "bright shadow of the Holy Spirit she is pregnant with our Lord Jesus. Almost casually in departing from Mary, the angel tells her that her elderly relative Elizabeth is also pregnant, already in sixth month "for nothing is impossible to God.

Perhaps anxious for Elizabeth,s health and delivery, perhaps so overjoyed that the travels into the hill country alone seem safe enough even for a young woman, Mary departs in haste to the House of Zechariah to attend Elizabeth, his wife. As Mary enters the house and greets her, the child in Elizabeth,s womb jumps with joy and Elizabeth too is filled with the delight of the Holy Spirit. In a loud and mighty voice, Elizabeth cries out to Mary: "Of all women you are blessed and blessed in the fruit of your womb!

What is meant by "fruit? The Greek word, karpos, means literally fruit, grain, harvest, and outcome. The "fruit of the womb is, of course, our Lord Jesus. He grows in the womb of Mary. Yet, the reference in this agrarian society to fruit, grain, and harvest is striking and auspicious. What is sweeter and more promising to a people living in a desert on subsistence farming than the luscious, sugary taste of fruit? Could anything be more satisfying? Or delicious? Or better signal the arrival of well-being? The Gospeler Luke wants us to know that the birth of Jesus brings to us a sweetness beyond knowing, beyond even our human capacity for knowing. "Fruit used a metaphor for Jesus tells us that are incomparably blessed by the gift and sweetness of Jesus in our lives. His birth signals for us the beginning of an inward and outward prosperity of joy. We like Jesus are born to joy.

The bright shadow of the Holy Spirit once fills Mary and through Mary enters into our lives. Among with Mary let us exclaim: "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

Rosemarie Anderson, Ph.D.
Association Priest
Calvary Episcopal Church, Santa Cruz, CA