Fourth Sunday of Advent: Leaping for Joy
Mary and Elizabeth might seem unlikely figures for the prominent roles they play in Luke's prologue. Elizabeth is old and barren. Mary is young and not married. They're both women from the more modest layers of society. Hear the words of the text for this coming Sunday from Luke 1:39-45: In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord." As Luke describes the prenatal stories of John a...