For Sunday, December 20, 2015 – Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)
We tend to remember the big moments more than the small. During the Advent and Christmas season we recall in story and song the high points—an angel’s startling visitation to a young girl, her bewilderment and subsequent marriage to her befuddled fiancé and their dangerous journey to and from Bethlehem. We retell stories of lowly shepherds and wise philosophers receiving good news as the skies themselves fill with singing. We wait in the dark, learning to trust the promise of light. We hold onto hope, preparing to receive a God who is lowly, who is one of us, born to be a servant and friend.
Big memories and moments matter. Recalling them reminds us of the life-changing significance of God’s activity in the world. But the little moments often turn out to be big moments, too. Mary, still absorbing the newness breaking into her life, senses the need for extended family, so she travels to visit Elizabeth, who is herself expecting the unexpected, having said yes to her own part in God’s wild plan. Nothing radical or momentous about the trip itself, just another quiet family reunion, rarely presented in our pageants and plays, but oh, what a festival it becomes! What pent-up joy bursts forth in this small circle of ordinary.
Perpetually preparing and waiting for life’s big moments, the grand gestures, the culminating events, we sometimes miss the meaning in small encounters and quiet nudges. We can overlook the little leaps of awareness through which deeper blessing comes. In the intimacy of this one ordinary moment with her cousin Elizabeth, seen truly, loved totally in her current condition, Mary comes to greater understanding. She breaks forth into a song of thanksgiving and wonder at the new order God is birthing. Through her own small yes, the old order begins to crack and topple and turn. Because of her faithfulness, God’s promises will be delivered. And not she alone, but we, too, are blessed when we say yes to the small moments, just being ourselves, lowly servants, channels of mercy, bearers of God’s dream.
