Mary and Elizabeth

What does a young teenager need when she learns she is expecting a baby. A safe place. An understanding ear. A comforting embrace. In Cousin Elizabeth, Mary found exactly that. Up to this past weekend I’d never thought of Elizabeth in this regard before. She has always just been ‘mother-of-john-the-baptist’ to me .. one who quietly slipped in to the birth narratives and then out again. But this year's Advent, from the moment when I heard the text read out :

“..and Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea..” ** 

Elizabeth came into focus in a new way. Mary’s mentor, her confidant, her go-to person. The older cousin, the mother figure, for the young woman with all her questions and concerns. How well prepared is this! Mary doesn’t have to walk this path alone. She has someone who, not only is part of her own family, senior in years and the wife of the respected Priest Zechariah, but also one who shares a full understanding of that sense of holy calling that came with the visit of the Angel.

One can imagine how important it would have been to have Elizabeth at her side when she had to break the news to her parents. Worse still, to try and get Joseph to understand how this wondrous thing had happened to her. And what all did they talk over those three months together, I wonder? When she pours out that wonderful song of praise, that has come to be known as “The Magnificat” **, someone might ask, how could a young teenage girl ever have all that learning? Did the two women pore over the scriptures during those weeks together, the older guiding the younger, into what the Psalms, the histories, the prophecies spoke about in regard to the Messiah, and indeed, in regard to the other miracle births from before, of Sarah, of Hannah, of the one who was to be called “Emmanuel”?

So there’s a lesson in here for us. When God calls you to walk a certain path, to carry a certain load, He doesn’t ask you to carry it alone. He always has the right person on hand to walk with you. God's support and help come as a combination of the supernatural, the presence of the Spirit, the ministry of Angels, and also the down to earth strength of special human friendships.

** Luke 1:39, 1:46-55