A Resounding and Life-giving "Yes" - Luke 1:39-55

Many of you have heard me wax poetic about Mary before. You’ve heard me say that every time I hear the words, “and Mary said,” I get goose bumps and want to settle in to a comfy chair and let her song cover me up like a warm blanket. As a woman in ministry, I find great strength and joy in being part of a long line of women of faith. I love the legacy of the Magnificat, the song passed down through generations of women which powerfully and incisively describes what God is doing in the world. I love the special way that women of faith have proclaimed the Gospel in scripture and in history. And today, we celebrate the embodiment of that record of faith: Mary the mother of Jesus. 

With every passing year, I fall more in love with Mary as an exemplar of faith, a role model for holy obedience, and lately, as a woman in a world dominated by men. Mary lived a precarious life as a woman in the Ancient Near East, a life determined by, dependent on, and filled to the brim with men. Her social status was determined by that of her father. Value was placed on her life based on her chastity and the perceived purity of her body. Her betrothal was arranged, without her input or consent, by her father and the father of her husband to be. Even the angel whose visit changes her whole life is referred to with masculine pronouns in the Greek accounts of the event in scripture, a fact I trust is not lost on many women readers today. 

We do not know exactly where John the Baptist was born, but pilgrim tradition observes the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth in a small neighborhood in Jerusalem called Ein Kerem, which is about 90 miles from Nazareth, where Mary was from. Scholars may tell you that Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth’s home during her pregnancy serves a Christological purpose in scripture by identifying the unborn child as the Lord. Or they might tell you it serves a narrative purpose by making space for the Magnificat in the story. Either way, I firmly believe that Mary also walked those almost 100 miles - through Samaria - to be able to sit in a room with just her beloved cousin, and no men.

The Incarnation is good news for people of all genders and no gender, but I have come to see that Mary’s womanhood has profound implications for her faith and for ours, when it comes to her celebrated obedience to God. Just a few verses before today’s Gospel passage, a perplexed but resolved Mary said to Gabriel, “here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” And so we venerate Mary for her “yes,” for her willingness to be the vessel God called her to be.

On the surface, we may find her worthy of veneration because all of us, even those of us who do not have children of our own, can appreciate the weight of being asked to carry, deliver, and raise a child. Becoming a parent involves a great sacrifice, and we know that eventually, Mary would have to experience the loss of her beloved child. 

But I think Mary’s “yes” goes even further. Throughout her life up until the angel appeared to her, Mary’s body had never belonged to her. It was her father’s to use as he pleased for labor or for sale, and soon it would legally belong to her husband. And the only thing that ensured her value to these men was her reputation, her chastity, and her body’s ability to produce descendants. In spite of all this, God did not come to Mary to ask simply for a commitment of faith, or a sacrifice of wealth, or even a lifetime of obedient service. God asked for her body, and in turn her reputation. And Mary still said, “yes.” 

As a woman who has tasted both the freedom of owning my own body and the danger of having that autonomy taken away, I am grateful every single day that God asked Mary and not me. I am grateful that Mary said yes to giving up the sanctity of her womanhood, so that I don’t have to. Because if Mary, an unwed teen mother in first century Palestine, can bear the Christ child, I, an unwed millennial woman with a nose ring can stand in a pulpit and preach the Gospel. My worth is not determined by my body, by my value to men to or anyone else, or by my reputation in society. I am loved and fully redeemed by Christ precisely as I am, and this was made possible by Mary’s “yes.” And what’s more, this is true for every human being in creation, regardless of the reproductive organs they were born with, regardless of their gender identity or sexuality, regardless of how society lays claim to their body. What an incredible fruit of the Incarnation. 

A Duke Divinity PhD student recently tweeted, “every discussion of ‘biblical womanhood’ should include the fact that in Luke I, two pregnant women celebrate their new motherhood by passionately discussing the coming overthrow of every earthly empire.” For me, this is what Advent is all about. As we prepare not only to celebrate the first coming of Christ, but to make way for the second, we contemplate what it means that our world will not always be as it is now. There will come a time when we are no longer bound by any of the trappings of this physical world. Material wealth, political oppression, unhealthy and violent relationships, and the weight of our own brokenness will all melt away when we are reunited fully with God.

And Advent also invites us to consider that the second coming of Christ will bring with it release from the bindings of our bodies. We don’t know precisely what this will look like, but we trust that our bodies will no longer have the power to keep us from being reconciled with all creation. For many women, and for so many marginalized groups, this is the greatest hope. 

In Advent we are called to be alert for signs of the time to come, and today, our signs are Mary and Elizabeth, who were bravely willing to give up their lives and their bodies to God, and when they did, they found such overwhelming joy and fulfillment they quite literally broke into song. It was a song passed down to them from other women through generations of ancestors, and it is a song passed down to us today. It’s a song about redemption and freedom from oppression, about Incarnation and bodily autonomy, about the end of things as they are and the beginning of something new. Let us sing our Advent song in celebration of and gratitude for Mary’s resounding and life-giving “yes.” Amen.