Joy

Luke 1:24-25 and 39-45

(Text copied from biblegateway.com. Translation is New Revised Standard Version)

“After those days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she remained in seclusion. She said, “This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people” (1:24-25).

“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” (1:39-45).

Elizabeth was an older, faithful woman of the Lord, who was unable to have children. When Elizabeth miraculously conceives, there are two things verses 1:24-25 tells us to be of significance—one, she gives thanks to God for what God has done, is doing, and how God has redeemed her amongst her people and the text tells us she was in seclusion for five months.

We have lived in a world for nearly two years now, where we still hesitate to get close to one another, to open our arms wide and fully wrap ourselves in the warm embrace of loving hugs. Even now, we hesitate to get too close, frightened of the next variant that might take away our chances of being together.

Up until now, I had never comprehended the line of the text that tells us Elizabeth was secluded for five months of her pregnancy. In the sixth month her cousin, Mary, is visited by an angel announcing her own miraculous conception and immediately she goes to be with Elizabeth whom she has learned is also expecting.

I can imagine both women were experiencing anxiety, fear, shock, and uncomfortable uncertainty for their futures and the futures of their children. Yet, in the midst of all of that uncertainty, the text writes of joy. The joy of this relationship, the joy of two very special babies growing, the joy of knowledge (no matter how limited) that God is at work in this world and has created a way and has chosen them to be a part of it.

I wonder, if we might be able to find joy in the uncertainty we constantly live in? As we sit in the flickering lights of the candles of hope, peace, and now joy may we remain open to the holy moments of joy that can be found even in the darkest of places.   

May joy find you this day and week,

Margaret