Mary went with haste to the hill country for good reason. To be unwed and pregnant was not a condition a woman wanted to be found in, especially in a small town where gossip once whispered would grow louder as Mary grew larger. She goes to see Elizabeth, who has had a remarkable conception herself, which may have made her more open to the extraordinary mother and unborn child who greeted her that day. John leaping in her womb prompted an exclamation, which seems to be the proper response to someone leaping in your womb, but this is more than an “Oh my!” Elizabeth knows that this is one of those moments when heaven and earth meet and all of history pauses to hold its breath as the Holy and Invisible and Immortal is revealed to flesh and blood. And while she proclaims “Blessed are you…” Elizabeth knows that Mary’s blessing is hers as well and one thing leads to another and before you know it there is singing. It is a magnificent song that remembers the promise that God has remembered, to show mercy and strength, to embrace the humble and let the proud be lost in their futile thoughts which is a lonely place to be. Mary sings the powerful brought down and the lowly exalted, the hungry fed and the well fed hungry and in the singing I imagine the two unborn may have done a little leaping. It is lovely thing to imagine, two pregnant women embracing, dancing, singing because while the whole world just kept spinning as if nothing had happened they know the secret about to be revealed in the birth of the child, God with us. But of course as lovely and magnificent as that moment was the song will not be complete until punctuated by a cry of anguish “it is finished.” It is in the finishing that our song begins and the only way to sing it is to enter it, to allow our proud thoughts to be scattered and see that the hungry are well fed and whenever that happens the song goes back to the beginning, My soul magnifies the Lord.
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