Road Trip!
By Rachael Flanagan, Fiat Ventures
Fourth Sunday of Advent
We have finally made it! All four candles on the Advent wreath are burning bright, telling us that Christmas is just a few days away. During the week of Christmas, there are all sorts of visitations going on. Children are lining up for miles in malls to visit with Santa Claus, coworkers flock together to end the work day early and pop open countless bottles wine, and families travel all over to visit with aunts, uncles and grandparents.
During our Christmas break, my husband and I will be leaving the Garden State behind to visit with my family in Michigan. It’s a 12 hour drive through a seemingly endless stretch of I-80, through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio and the entire state of Michigan to the west side. We go through tons of water bottles, bags of candy and playlists to get us through the journey. It can be tedious, but in the end, it’s always worth it. When we pull up to my parents’ house in the gravel driveway in the middle of the night, my family runs out to greet us. And we have a LOT to catch up on – especially my sister and I. When my sister and I get together after a month (or two or three or four) of not seeing each other, we talk so fast that we literally talk over each other and hold two conversations simultaneously. It’s pretty impressive.
In the Gospel this Sunday, we get to hear about a long journey that Mary went on to visit with her cousin Elizabeth. She didn’t have the luxury of driving in a 2007 cobalt with a latte and a bag of Mike & Ikes. She had to travel via donkey with ancient grain travel snacks. And the trip wasn’t on account of the Christmas holiday (since that hadn’t been invented yet) and it wasn’t because the house of Zechariah was holding an Ugly Sweater Contest. It was because Mary and Elizabeth had a LOT to catch up on. Some pretty big things had just happened to Mary, and she got news that something pretty big had just happened to Elizabeth. Let me break this down for you:
Mary’s News:
#1 An angel had appeared to her (#OutOfTheOrdinary)
#2 The angel told her that God favored her (#BlessedLiterally)
#3 The angel told her that she (a virgin) would become pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit
#4 Her child would be the one the Jewish people had been waiting for, for thousands of years, who would fulfill the 300+ prophecies in the scriptures and (oh yeah) that her baby was gong to be God.
#5 Mary agreed to this plan
Moreover, the angel had given Mary the scoop of Elizabeth’s big news. Elizabeth, who was old enough to be Mary’s mother (or possibly grandmother) was also pregnant. As the angel said, “Nothing will be impossible for God” (Luke 1:37).
The story gets even more crazy. Elizabeth also gets the DL on Mary’s miracle before Mary explained it herself. “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, ‘Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.’” (Luke 1:41-42). Mary got her info via an angel messenger, but Elizabeth got her’s through her unborn baby and the Holy Spirit. Pretty cool.
So as you are leaping for joy during your break from school/work and visiting relatives, remember the Visitation from the Gospel, and how Mary wasn’t just bringing a fancy plate of Christmas cookies, she was bringing Christ to her family. And we are called to do the same.
