Christ is Arriving to Make Us Christ-Bearers to Bring Him to One Another to Rejoice - Thursday of the Third Week of Advent

Having read the Gospel text of the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38) yesterday to reflect how Mary let God enter in her and vowed to serve as His handmaid, today’s Gospel Reading (Luke 1:39-45) is about Mary’s visitation to her elder cousin, Elizabeth. Reading the Lucan Gospel text of the Visitation in the Advent context is to reflect on the coming of the incarnated Christ.

During the Annunciation, Mary was told not only about her virgin pregnancy with the Son of God Most High, the everlasting Davidic King (Luke 1:32-33) but also about Elizabeth’s pregnancy into the sixth month (Luke 1:36).

Mary must have been quite excited to hear that Elizabeth was actually pregnant, because this cousin of hers had been barren for many years (Luke 1:7; 36). So Mary rushed to see and help Elizabeth, from Nazareth in Galilee to the house of Zechariah and Elizabeth in Judea (Luke 1:39-40).

As Mary arrived and entered the house, Elizabeth, being filled with the Holy Sprit, greeted her and her son, John the Baptist, leaped in the womb (Luke 1:40-41). Then Elizabeth cried out in a loud voice:

Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled (Luke 1:42-45).

Because she was filled with the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:41), Elizabeth recognized that she was visited not only by Mary but also the incarnated Christ, as well, though he was just conceived in Mary’s womb (Luke 1:43). Mary’s abdomen did not look like a pregnant woman’s yet. But both Elizabeth and her son in the womb, John the Baptist, were able to recognize the incarnated Christ, still very small, in Mary’s womb, for Elizabeth calling Mary the mother of her Lord (Luke 1:43) and for John the Baptist leaping for joy (Luke 1:41, 44).

This Gospel story, Mary’s visitation Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-45) has two meanings: Christ visiting and recognizing Christ’s visit with joy.

At that time, the incarnated Christ was not visible. The very first theophany of Christ was the Nativity (Luke 2:6-13). Until that time, the incarnated Christ was “hidden” in Mary’s womb, sitting in the placenta, as God was kept inside the Ark of the Covenant, on its Mercy Seat (Exodus 25:22). But Elizabeth and John the Baptist were able to recognize him, because Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:41) and so was John the Baptist in her womb.  And the recognition of the incarnated Christ, though still invisible to human eyes, before the firs theophany at his birth, was a great joy to both Elizabeth and John the Baptist, as she cried out in a loud voice (Luke 1:42) and as John the Baptist leaped (Luke 1:41, 44).

It is Thursday of the Third Week of Advent. The incarnated Christ is still in Mary’s womb, though it is when she could start having labor any time. One thing is for sure: the arrival of the incarnated Christ is nearer and rather imminent.

If you are truly filled with the Holy Spirit though your Advent preparation, you are like Elizabeth and John the Baptist in her womb in recognizing Christ, though he is still hidden. And you are already rejoicing, and perhaps, dancing for joy, as John the Baptist leaped for joy in Elizabeth’s womb, recognizing Christ in Mary’s womb.

There are two First Reading texts to choose from (Song of Songs 2:8-14 or Zephaniah 3:14-18a) to correspond to today’s Gospel Reading (Luke 1:39-45). Which one to choose depends on which meaning of the Gospel Reading (visiting in haste or recognizing Christ with joy) you want emphasize.

The first option for the First Reading (Song of Songs 2:8-14) does not mention God and His people, like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and so forth, at all. In fact,  as in the case with the rest of the Song of Songs, it does not even seem like a religious text. Rather, it just looks like a love story of a young man seeking his beloved woman. In this reading, he is coming to see his beloved woman, springing across the mountains, leaping across the hills, like a gazelle (Song of Songs 2:8-9).

This motif of love coming to see his beloved – being determined and in haste – reflects how Mary rushed to see Elizabeth. And this is how the incarnated Christ is, in his coming to us!

Yes, the incarnated Christ in Mary’s womb is coming nearer and is in hurry.  As we are getting ready to encounter him at his arrival, our hearts shall sing like:

The sound of my lover! here he comes springing across the mountains, leaping across the hills. My lover is like a gazelle or a young stag. See! He is standing behind our wall, gazing through the windows, peering through the lattices (Song of Songs 2:8-9).

The incarnated Christ is standing behind the wall of Mary’s womb and already gazing and glancing through it. Even though our eyes cannot see inside the womb, Christ can see us from the inside of his mother’s womb, because he is God.

As we are filled with the Holy Spirit, through our Advent preparation, then, like Elizabeth and John the Baptist, we can recognize the incarnated Christ coming so nearer to us behind Mary’s womb, as reflected in the above stanza.

Then, we shall hear Christ speaking to us:

Arise, my friend, my beautiful one, and come! (Song of Songs 2:10).

When you sense that your lover, whom you have longed to see, is arriving and gazing at you from behind obstacles and distance, you are not going to just sit and wait. You are already in joyful excitement in imminent anticipation. So you arise and go where your lover is arriving.

The first optional for the First Reading (Song of Songs 2:8-14) is actually an allegory to our nuptial union with Christ (Revelation 19:5-9; 21:2, 9).  The lover who is coming in haste to have his beloved with him is Christ in his coming to marry us.

Christ is coming not just to save and redeem us but to take us to his Kingdom as his bride. To make us his bride, he is coming save us from the bonds of sins and redeem us into his Kingdom, as his bride must be as pure as a virgin.

The second option of the First Reading (Zephaniah 3:14-18) opens with these words:

Shout for joy, daughter Zion! sing joyfully, Israel! Be glad and exult with all your heart, daughter Jerusalem! (Zephaniah 3:14).

When Christ, our lover, whose bride we are destined to become, is coming so near to us, as reflected in the first option of the First Reading (Song of Songs 2:8-14) and the Gospel Reading (Luke 1:39-45), as Elizabeth and John the Baptist rejoiced over not only the presence of Mary but of the incarnated Christ in her womb, we shall not only arise and go to see him, but shout and exult for joy.

As Christ’s bride to be, we shall rejoice as our bridegroom’s arrival becomes imminent, in juxtaposition to Mary’s labor can be any time for the incarnated Christ’s arrival is becoming imminent. But, Zephaniah 3:15-18 gives another reason to rejoice. And it is because Christ, our bridegroom is coming to cleanse and make us pure, in order to transform us to be his bride. He is coming to vindicate us by removing all our disgraces from sins. He is, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). And as our husband to be, he is coming to cleanse us by his blood (1 John 1:7; cf. Ephesians 5:25-27).

In today’s readings (Song of Songs 2:8-14 or Zephaniah 3:14-18; Luke 1:39-45), we have two major themes to reflect. Christ’s imminent coming as he is coming in haste, as Mary came to see Elizabeth in haste, and as a lover came to see his beloved, like a gazelle, as well as, a young stag, springing and leaping. As Elizabeth and John the Baptist did, we recognize the imminent presence of Christ though still hidden in Mary’s womb and rejoice over the prospect that we see him soon and very soon. So, we arise and go where he is arriving.

So, where is this place in which the incarnate Christ is arriving?

It was the stable in the outskirts of Bethlehem for the first Christmas. But for us, it is our hearts. Christ is coming into our hearts. So that not only that we will be saved and redeemed, upon vindication and purification, but we shall become bearers of Christ to bring joy to one another. So as Mary, who was pregnant with the incarnated Christ, brought him, to Elizabeth and John the Baptist, we shall bring Christ dwelling in us to one another. And we go in haste when we make a visit! Perhaps, as a lover seeks his beloved to let her rejoice.