Blessed Are They Who Believe

by the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Luke 1:39-55. An audio version of this sermon is available at this link.

“Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

Those are the words with which Elizabeth brings to a climax the spontaneous outburst of praise and blessing that came to her when she greeted her young cousin Mary in our Gospel reading today. “Blessed is she who believed” is a kind of hook for the whole story to hang on. And it is a promise beyond the story for those of us who hear it.

But how does Elizabeth know just how blessed Mary is? Mary’s just arrived, Mary has not yet had a chance to tell Elizabeth the remarkable thing that has happened to her. How does Elizabeth know how to bless?

Partly it is because Elizabeth herself is in an unexpectedly blessed situation. Elizabeth is pregnant, six months along — and that’s unusual because Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah are old, “getting on in years” as Luke delicately puts it, and though they’ve tried for years they’ve never had any children. They were past hoping for that. And then the angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah and told him that Elizabeth would bear a son, and their son would be great in the sight of the Lord, and he would turn many people to God, and make ready a people prepared for the Lord. And Zechariah had said “Oh I don’t think so — we’re too old for that.” And Gabriel had said “God’s word will be fulfilled; but since you have not believed it, you will not be able to speak any words until your son is born.” So Zechariah, mute, went home; and Elizabeth did conceive, impossible though it was; and they were overjoyed; and Elizabeth kept their good news to herself, and remained in seclusion for five months.

But in the sixth month something happens that needs Elizabeth’s attention. Her cousin Mary is on the doorstep, arrived in haste, clearly with something big, something extraordinary, something life-changing, going on with her. So Elizabeth goes out and brings Mary into the house and Mary greets her — presumably she says “Peace be with you,” because that was the common greeting of the time — and as soon as Elizabeth hears Mary’s greeting, Mary’s word of Peace, the child in her womb who will be John the Baptist gives a mighty kick, leaps, jumps for joy in utero. And Elizabeth herself is so surprised by this that the Holy Spirit uses that opening to fill her with insight, and she knows Mary’s story — without being told, she knows — and she witnesses Mary’s blessedness, that Mary’s child is her Lord, and that Mary is blessed because she believed.

And specifically, Mary is blessed because she believed “that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” When Gabriel came to Mary, as he had come to Zechariah before, and told her she would conceive and bear a son, Mary, like Zechariah, had asked “How can this happen?” She had her questions. But when Gabriel said “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God,” Mary had not said “Oh I don’t think so”; instead she said “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word”;  and so it was. Even though by all human standards it was clearly impossible, Mary trusted that “nothing will be impossible with God,” and that these impossible words would be fulfilled.

But more is at stake here than just the fulfillment of Mary’s impossible pregnancy. Mary also believes there will be a fulfillment of the angel’s words — God’s words — that her son will receive the throne of David, and reign over the house of Jacob, and bring in a kingdom without end. That’s the vision Mary gives voice to in her Magnificat. Mary speaks of God’s mercy on generations; Mary speaks of the proud scattered in the thoughts of their hearts, the powerful brought down from their thrones, the rich exposed to the emptiness of their riches; Mary speaks of the faithful gathered, the lowly lifted up, the hungry filled with good things. And so powerful is Mary’s belief in the fulfillment of these things, that she speaks of them in the past tense, as things already accomplished, even though clearly they haven’t happened yet. In Mary’s world the Romans are still in control, and in a few months she and Joseph will by forced by Roman authority to leave their home and go to Bethlehem, where they will be counted in a census to determine how much tax money the Emperor can raise to fund his interminable wars and corrupt occupation government. In Mary’s world the rich show no sign of letting go of their riches, and the powerful show no sign of relinquishing their power, and the lowly and poor, like Mary herself, see no sign any significant change on their horizon.

But God has spoken, and Mary has heard it, and Mary trusts so completely that there will be a fulfillment of this speaking that she gives herself — mind and heart and soul and body — she gives herself to living out the fulfillment of God’s word in her life, and the life of her son within her, and Elizabeth’s life, and the lives of everyone who will be touched by what God is doing through her. That is the power of blessing God has focused in Mary. And Elizabeth proclaims “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

And that is the blessing God promises to share with us today, too. Blessed are we, when we believe there will be a fulfillment of what is spoken to us by the Lord — and because we believe, we give ourselves — mind and heart and soul and body — we give ourselves to living out the fulfillment of God’s word of the reign of justice and peace in our daily, personal, public, communal, active lives.

And for us in our time and place, here and now, surely one of the most important ways we can give ourselves to the fulfillment of God's word of the reign of justice and peace is for each of us to take an active role in the work of reducing gun violence in our society. Over the last week, in the wake of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, people of all sorts and conditions in our country have joined in calling out for reducing gun violence. Ideas about how to do that have varied. Some have said we need better security, more armed guards in schools, better gun training and gun safety. Some have said we need more gun control, a ban on semi-automatic weapons, reducing gun violence by reducing the number of guns. Some have said that this is about more than just guns, that we also need better access to mental health care, to help identify the roots of violent behavior and steer it somewhere else before it acts out violently. Some have said we need a deep and serious and critical conversation about the role of violence in our society, how the news media report it, how TV shows and movies portray it, how computer games glorify it beyond all realistic proportion. Opinions differ -- but at the core of all the opinions is a central agreement that we need to do better, that we need to work together to be a society where little children at school, and shoppers at malls, and audiences at movie theaters, and worshipers in churches, and people going about their daily business, are not at risk of senseless violent firearm murder. As people of faith, we can be part of the solution, we each can search our conscience, we can pray with the Collect today that God will purify our conscience, so that each one of us can take the part we each can best take to work for the reduction of gun violence, to work for the reign of right relationships and peace. Blessed are we, if we believe enough in the fulfillment of what God has spoken that we will act.

Mary believed there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord, that she would give birth to Jesus, and that Jesus would bring the kingdom of peace; and because she believed, Elizabeth was inspired to witness that Mary was blessed. May God grant us such believing. May God grant us such blessing. And may God grant us to do the work of Peace. Amen.