God’s Plan of Salvation (Luke 1: 39-45)

God comes to us and calls us to participate in his plan of salvation in quite embarrassing and unexpected ways.

Elizabeth and Mary were two magnificent women who were called to play their part in God’s plan of salvation. Elizabeth was not a young woman. After years and years of praying for a child, after becoming used to not having a child and after getting to the age where giving birth to a child was not a good idea, she becomes pregnant with a baby. In contrast, Mary was a very young woman. She too hoped for a child someday, when it would be appropriate, not now, not before she was married, not while she was still a virgin. So we meet two women who are pregnant. One of them is too old to be a mother and the other is too young. Scripture tells us that Elizabeth "became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion" (Lk 1:24). As for Mary, she had no one to talk to because she was pregnant outside of wedlock. I am sure they wept together, laughed together, prayed together and encouraged one another during the three months they were together (Lk 1:56).When God comes to us, God shakes our lives and radically alters it in ways beyond our imagine; and it will surely have its pain and agony. It is not without cost.

Elizabeth and Mary had many things in common: they were cousins, they were both in their first pregnancy, they both became pregnant through an act of God, God sent the angel Gabriel to announce both conceptions and births, and they both were given children who would play significant roles in God's plan of salvation. Both women submitted themselves to be vehicles of God’s plan of salvation. It is not a question of whether all things are possible to God; God does nothing without human cooperation. Remember that God wanted a woman’s womb and her willing submission to unravel God’s redemptive plan for us: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” Are we willing to submit ourselves, insignificant as we may be, to play our part in God’s history of salvation?

God chooses what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chooses what is low and despised in the world so that no human being would boast in the presence of God.

We should know that most of history is written by and is about men. At least, it is written as if it were mostly the males, kings, bishops, philosophers and scientists who made all the breakthroughs and developments in history. But when God intervenes with the single most influential breakthrough in history, isn’t it interesting that his only human agents were two pregnant women, who from human standards poor and of no status in the Jewish society? We find no role for the arrogant male in carrying forward God’s plan of salvation.

Solidarity in God’s mission transcending narrow egotism and envy

The two women, pregnant at the same time, with babies destined to do great things, supported each other in fulfilling God’s plan of Salvation. There was no rivalry, no sense of competition, no contest about who had the best and greatest baby. In that culture and at that time and place, it normally would have been appropriate for Mary to pay homage to the elder Elizabeth. But Elizabeth, through the Spirit, recognized that she was in the presence of the mother of the Messiah. So she praised Mary and pronounced her blessed. Neither was there any competition between the two mothers nor any competition between their children. While Jesus referred to John, “Among them that are born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist” (Mt. 11:11), John’s attitude was that “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Both women and both their offspring had their unique and God given place and role in God’s plan of salvation. They fulfilled in solidarity and mutual respect.

Blessedness of giving birth to a revolutionary; being the agent of radical transformation

Now where can we see the paradox of blessedness of being the mother of the son of God? She was blessed but that very blessedness meant that a sword would pierce through her heart, some day she would see her son hanging on a cross. The piercing truth is that God does not choose a person for ease and comfort and selfish joy, but for greater tasks requiring enormous sacrifices. Can we sing like Mary and consider ourselves blessed for having children who have committed themselves to carry forward God’s redemptive plan, a plan that is fraught with revolutionary significance and dangerous consequences for oneself?

The redemptive plan articulated in the Mary’s song, the Magnificat, is about social reversals or transformation.Anyone who thinks the Good News of Jesus Christ is only about one's personal, individual salvation or forgiveness or justification or redemption will have a hard time reading this text.

“He hath shewed might in his arm:

he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat,

and hath exalted the humble.

He hath filled the hungry with good things;

and the rich he hath sent empty away.” (Luke 1: 51-53)

Those of us who are proud, smart, powerful, of high status, and well-fed will find this a difficult text to comprehend. William Barclay points out, “There is loveliness in the Magnificat but in that loveliness there is dynamite. Christianity begets a revolution in each man, and a revolution in the world.”Any celebration of Christmas without taking into account this earth shaking transformation that God brings into this world in Jesus Christ can only be a sentimental exercise in piety, devoid of any transforming power either as individuals or collectives.

Greetings for a blessed advent season, Christmas and a New Year!