Readings: Micah 5:1-4a; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45
Mary comes to Elizabeth
with a new world in her womb.
Of course, every child who is born
brings with it a new world,
for every person who enters our world changes it:
relationships are reconfigured,
a unique perspective is introduced,
history is set on a new trajectory.
But in the case of Mary,
the new world in her womb is something
even more radically new:
a world in which the mighty are cast from their thrones
and the lowly are lifted up,
a world in which the hungry are filled with good things
and the rich are sent away empty,
a world in which God and humanity are united
and heaven joined to earth.
Mary comes to Elizabeth with Jesus in her womb,
the new creation that God had wrought
in the midst of the old creation,
the new world of blessing
in the old world of curse,
the new world of mercy
in the old world of judgment,
the new world of peace
in the old world of violence.
Within the womb of his mother Elizabeth,
John the Baptist, the last prophet of the old covenant,
he who stands at its edge
and looks into the new world that is coming,
leaps with joy at the new thing God has wrought:
curse usurped by blessing,
judgment passing into mercy,
swords beaten into ploughshares,
heaven wed to earth in the person of Jesus.
For Mary does not bear blessing, mercy, and peace
in her womb as abstract concepts,
but as a person.
The new world that Mary carries in her womb
is not an idea, an ideal, or an ideology,
but Jesus himself.
Jesus is the new creation;
in him the reign of God takes flesh.
He comes not to give us new information about God
but to dwell among us as Emmanuel, God with us.
He comes not to give us a new set of moral rules
but to display in his living and dying and rising
the contours of new life in the reign of God.
Mary visits her kinswoman Elizabeth
with this new world in her womb.
And we are invited to share
in Mary’s ministry of visitation.
As St. Ambrose put it,
“Christ had only one mother in the flesh,
but we all bring forth Christ in faith.”
Just as Mary brought joy to Elizabeth and John
through the new creation that she bore within her,
we too are called to bring joy to a world that waits
for blessing, mercy, and peace.
Through the gift of faith, we too
bear glad tidings of the new creation:
the world of the mighty cast down
and the lowly lifted up,
the world of the hungry filled
and the rich left empty,
the world of heaven joined to earth
and God made flesh.
And this privilege that we share with Mary,
the privilege of bearing Christ to the world,
should be for us a cause of great joy.
But we have even greater cause for joy
for the mystery here is even greater.
We do not simply bring news of the new creation,
but we are that new creation.
St. Paul wrote to the church at Corinth,
“if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation:
everything old has passed away;
see, everything has become new!” (2 Cor. 5:17).
Through faith and Baptism
we have become members of Christ’s body,
members of that new creation
that Mary bore in her womb.
This means that we, like Jesus,
do not present the waiting world
with an idea or an ideal or an ideology;
we offer no new information or rules of conduct;
we present no comprehensive plan for peace.
Rather, we reveal through our being together in Christ,
in our living and dying and rising together in Christ,
the contours of the new world
waiting to be born in its fullness
but already present in mystery,
present when we gather as Christ’s body
to hear his word and celebrate his Eucharist,
to worship in Jesus’ name
and serve him in the stranger and the hungry one,
those who are sick and those imprisoned.
But until the return of Christ
the presence of the new creation
remains a hidden presence,
veiled in sacrament and mystery,
hidden within our imperfect worship
and our stumbling attempts at serving,
hidden like the child within Mary’s womb.
The new world born in Christ in Bethlehem
still awaits its birth in us
because Christ is not yet fully formed in us.
The old creation continues within us its life
of curse and judgment and violence,
but in Jesus the victory of the new world is certain.
We feel in ourselves still
the sorrows of the old creation,
but, with the eyes of faith,
we know these now
as the birth pangs of the new creation,
the pain of old things passing
and everything becoming new.
In these final days of Advent waiting,
let us not grow drowsy,
intoxicated by the anxieties of daily life,
mired in the sorrows of the old creation,
but let us yearn more eagerly
for Christ to be formed in us,
for the new world to be brought forth in joy,
for the full unveiling of the new creation.
