In Sunday Gospel Land, we’re going backward. Having spent two weeks with John the Baptist (at a time when Jesus was already a grown man), we zip back to both men’s pre-natal life.* Back to Galilee, or rather to Judea, to where the young Mary has gone “with haste” to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Mary, having received the rather alarming news of her own impending pregnancy by the power of the Holy Spirit, is told by that frightening angel that Elizabeth, “who is in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”
One piece of news or the other sent Mary quickly away from her native Nazareth:
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. (This week's gospel passage is here.)
I wonder what induced the haste. Was she anxious to verify the angel’s claims, to be reassured that she was not crazy, hadn’t hallucinated the whole stupefying encounter? Was she eager to get away from prying eyes and nagging tongues and gossip that could have exposed her to more than disgrace – were she found to have committed adultery while betrothed, she could have faced a penalty of death. We aren’t told why she went “with haste,” but the phrase jumps out during this season when we are invited to embrace the waiting and watching. Mary didn’t wait – she just went. Perhaps guided by the Holy Spirit, perhaps by her own raging emotions, she high-tailed to the hill country.
There is a place and time for waiting in the life of faith. “Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength,” we read in Isaiah 40; “They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Certainly there is a tremendous amount of waiting during a pregnancy. And there is also a time and a place for action, for moving quickly to right a wrong, or stand for justice, or to discern what exactly it is that God is up to when you’re feeling the Spirit’s nudge.
Discernment is a tricky business. Often we need to wait for things to unfold in God’s time. But when we do get a direct word or prompt, even a hint of where God is inviting us to serve, we can seek confirmation right away.
What stirrings of the Spirit are animating you these days? What activity of God are you drawn to participate in? What person or people do you feel called to encourage and support? What injustice do you wish you could set right? Do you feel called into a new job or vocation? To pick up a new friend or pastime?
Whatever may be stirring, ask God to make it clear. That prayer doesn’t always get answered quickly, in my experience, but we should not tire of asking it, and we should be ready to move with haste when we have a chance to find out just what it is God is doing. For nothing will be impossible with God.
*If you go to Christ the Healer, it’s even more scrambled, as we took time away from John to celebrate Mary this past Sunday at our annual “Baby Shower for Mary.”
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