Sunday, December 15, 2019 Luke 1:39-45
39 In 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 leapt 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 leapt for joy. 45And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’
Waiting Together
My mother-in-law, many of my parishioners, and many of my friends started telling me that I should watch Downton Abbey when it first aired in the United States in 2011. I believed that I should, I believed them when they said that I would like it, but still, I didn’t watch it. I always meant to; I knew that I was missing something that many people thought was really special. But at that time in my life, I had four little kids, a busy job, and still no DVR, which means that I was still watching television on the networks’ schedules and not on my own. At that point in my life, I really didn’t have room in my life for anything else, not even something I knew that I would probably enjoy.
Well, now it is 2019 and this year, I “binge watched” the entire 5 seasons of Downton Abbey in a couple of months. The people who said that they thought I would like it, were right. I did enjoy the series. But I know that I missed something by watching Downton Abbey the way that I watched it. I certainly missed the opportunity to share the experience of watching it with others, since, by the time I watched, most people had moved on to the Next Big Thing. I also missed the anticipation of not knowing what was going to happen from episode to episode. Thanks to the convenience of streaming, I was able to watch episode after episode, no waiting involved, no wondering what was going to happen next, and no opportunity to look forward, to anticipate, to wonder.
We often think of waiting as a bad thing; as a frustrating thing; as a thing to be avoided. But waiting can sometimes be a blessing. Waiting times can be times full of community, of anticipation, and of wonder.
Today’s scripture reading tells us the story of two women who were waiting to have their miraculous babies. Mary, pregnant with Jesus, and Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist. This must have been a strange, joyful, confusing, blessed, and scary waiting time for both of them. And yet, they did not have to wait alone. They got to share the journey with one another. Together, they anticipated, worried, wondered, celebrated, and sang. I wonder how, they lifted each other up, how they shared each other’s burden, how they encouraged each other when it was hard to wait. I wonder what stories they told each other to keep each other’s hopes up. I wonder if they remembered Sarah and Rebecca and Rachel, and Moses’s mother, and the midwives of Israel, other women who had been God’s agents through the wonder and mystery of pregnancy and childbirth. This story makes me glad, because these two women, who were waiting, did not have to wait alone. God gave them their sons, their miraculous pregnancies, but God also gave them each other.
And that reminds me that God gave me a community, not to share the story of Downton Abbey with, but to share a much more important story, the story of God’s activity in the world and in our lives. We might be waiting, but we are not waiting alone! Thanks be to God!
Let us pray. God, we give you thanks for placing us into a community where we can share our questions, our worries, our wonder, and our joy. While we wait, help us to share each other’s burdens and to be encouraged by the stories of your faithfulness that we share with each other. Amen.
Submitted by: Pastor Amanda Warner