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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