Blessed are you among women

In the four Sundays of Advent, we mark the beginning of the Eucharist with the lighting of the Advent Wreath. At the lighting of each candle, we recall aspects of the story of our salvation told through the lens of the Old Testament: the patriarchs who looked forward to the coming of the Messiah; the prophets who foretold his coming; John the Baptist, who looks like Elijah and prophesies like Isaiah, the forerunner of the Messiah. And the on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, we come to Mary, the Mother of our Lord. Now we imagine that this is just a neat link in the sequence as we draw close to Christmas Day. After all, Mary is not an Old Testament figure. Or is she?

When Luke presents Mary in his story of the birth of Jesus, his account is full of allusions to the Old Testament and other Jewish writings. In our gospel reading today, Mary visits Elizabeth and Mary’s greeting causes Elizabeth to prophesy “Blessed are you among women!”

This phrase occurs twice in these earlier writings. The phrase is used in relation to two women. In the Book of Judges with reference to Jael and in the Book of Judith with regard to Judith. It is worth hearing these to see what slant they give to the words of Elizabeth. First of all the one about Jael.

“Blessed among women be Jael….. blessed among tent dwelling women. He (Sisera, the leader of the enemy) asked for water, she gave him milk; in a princely bowl she offered curds. With her left hand she reached for the peg, with her right for the workman’s mallet. She hammered Sisera, crushed his head; she smashed in his temple. At her feet he sank down, fell, lay still; down at her feet he sank and fell; where he sank down, there he fell, slain. “ (Judges 5.24-47) Jael is blessed because in this heroic and violent action, she saves her people from an abusive tyrant and in the magnificent song, the Song of Deborah, Jael’s action is described in language full of jubilation.

The other passage tells the story of Judith who went alone into the midst of the vast army of the Assyrians and cut off the head of the general Holofernes. When she returned to her people, Uzziah, the chief elder of the people praised her: “Blessed are you, daughter, by the Most High God, above all the women on earth.” (Judith 13.18)

What we see here are women who are blessed for an heroic but violent course of action which saves the people. They are stories about women who assume a leadership role and through whose decisive action the enemy is put to flight. So when Elizabeth greets Mary, the style of her greeting alludes to the stories about these two powerful women.

Mary too sees herself in this light. The Magnificat is full of powerful imagery. We can too easily forget that the Magnificat is a kind of victory song, a war cry, a great outpouring of triumphant hope, of confident assurance that the time has come and victory is assured. It is in the tradition of the great triumph songs of the people of Israel sung by women. After her victory Judith sings a canticle to God – just as Miriam sings a great song of triumph as the horses and soldiers of Pharoah are covered in the merciless waves of the Red Sea as they tumble back in their course. Luke is telling us that Mary the gentle Virgin, meek and mild, is one tough cookie.

Mary sings in joyful abandon of the sovereignty of God, of his delight in his sovereign and bewildering freedom that overturns the order that is set in the earth by men. Part of the way that men’s order is overturned by God is through this woman. This representative woman who is Israel, as she is the Church, as she is the poor, the downtrodden and the dispossessed. Luke paints an intriguing contrast in the annunciations to Mary and to Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. Zechariah is the respected priest who is so taken up with the religious ritual of offering of incense in the sanctuary that he is blind to the word of God when it comes to him in the Angel’s greeting.  But Mary hears and says Yes to God.

Just like Sarah. As the Lord did to Sarah according to his word (Gen. 21.1) so Mary says ‘Let is be to me according to thy word’. Mary is the eager co-operator in the incarnation, the greatest work of grace.

Mary is like Hannah. Hannah the neglected one who always misses out when the food portions are distributed because she has not produced a son. Hannah who prays and who is given the gift of a son, Samuel. When she conceives she sings out a song of triumph. She sings and praises the Lord before whom the rulers of the earth are powerless scattered like chaff before the wind. Hannah’s song is one of the inspirations for Mary’s son. Hannah’s son will be a prophet. A contrast is drawn between Samuel and the priestly house of Eli, between the obedient servant of God and the declining priestly line. Samuel tells the sons of Eli that the promise God made to them of perpetual priesthood is to be withdrawn and given to others. Privilege cannot stand unless there is obedience. Samuel stands in contrast to Eli and his sons and the contrast is a judgement. We are told that none of the words of Hannah’s son went unfulfilled. Mary believed that the promise made to her would be fulfilled.

But there is another shadowy figure operating behind all this; a figure who gets a mention in Mary’s triumphant song, the Magnificat. It is Abraham, one of the patriarchs with which we began the season of Advent. The Lord God, the almighty one, has done great things for me, Mary sings. The wonders of God have been wrought in her. The help given to our fathers and to Abraham have now been given to Mary. Abraham was promised many descendants and the promise was inherited by them. But Mary too has many descendants, by adoption through her Son. We are not just the children of Abraham – we are also the descendants of Mary.

In commenting on the Miracle of Christmas, the Reformed theologian Karl Barth describes the Virgin Birth as a judgement on human beings. That must be a judgement on all of our structures and institutions, our relationships and patterns of community. He goes on to say that the ‘history of humanity, nations and states, art, science, economics, has in fact been and is predominantly the history of males.’ The historical consciousness of peoples begin with patriarchy. But this birth, the incarnation of the Most High God, is in no sense a history of males. This birth reveals the limitations of all human powers and especially the limitations of male pre-eminence. That is the real challenge at the heart of the doctrine of the Virgin birth – it demonstrates the sovereignty of God in a world managed by men. Jesus is born of a Virgin under the Law but his birth has nothing to do with the works of men. 

So as we look forward to the coming of our Lord, we give thanks for Mary, our patron saint, a figure who burns with the Word of God, recalling the example of these powerful women in the scriptures, and who pronounces God’s judgment on the barrenness of all our institutions and systems, because of the ways in which they continually attempt to resist the fire of God’s love.