Today's gospel reading from the Book of Common Prayer is Luke 1:39-48b. I was struck by something as I read it this morning — something I'd never noticed before.
As preface, it's important to note a few things. First, Luke 1:24 informs us that that Elizabeth went into seclusion for five months after discovering she was pregnant. Furthermore, verse 26 indicates that it was in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy that Gabriel visited Mary with the news of her coming pregnancy.
So now we pick up the trail on verse 39, which states that Mary hurried to visit Elizabeth only a few days after her encounter with Gabriel. It would seem that Elizabeth's seclusion ended with the timing of Mary's arrival, more or less.
Here is where things get interesting for me.
I may be going too far with this thought, but it strikes me that Elizabeth had not been in the presence of much talk. She had been in seclusion for five months, and her husband Zechariah was literally speechless.
Had Elizabeth heard the voice of anyone recently? Perhaps not. What few interactions she did have, if indeed there were any, would have been with familiar personages from her local community. I'd guess that such greetings, if they occurred at all, would have been subdued.
But now Mary bursts in upon this quiet scene. Verse 40 tells us that Mary entered the house first and then greeted Elizabeth. Heaven knows houses were not big back then! This was a very special meeting conducted in close quarters!
It would surely not be asking too much to imagine that Mary's excited greeting, delivered at close range, might well have been far and away the loudest voice John the Baptist had ever heard before. Small wonder that he leaped so excitedly in his mother's womb!
And is there not a lesson for all of us, as we approach the end of our season of advent waiting? Our world is full of noises, and when the noises go away, not a few of us plug the gaps with iPhones, iPods, and a host of other distractions that may not even involve sound.
But if we want to hear the voice of God, we need quiet seclusion. I don't mean to stretch the analogy beyond the breaking point. Mary was not God, and John the Baptist was not a spirit. That said, I see a parallel in the mix. A good reminder. Silence and seclusion attune our spirits to the intrusion of the almighty.
John the Baptist later recognized the entrance of the almighty not least because he sought out a desert in which to wait for him. In doing so, John followed the good example given him by his own mother. We do well to continue the tradition. If we miss the entrance of the almighty on any given Christmas, it's probably because we're not finding quiet places to wait for him.
"Silence and seclusion attune us to the intrusion of the almighty."
ReplyDeleteGreat observation. And we should note that Jesus also sought the silence and seclusion of the wilderness ...
We live in and with so much noise, it is no wonder we often wonder if God is still speaking. If a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it fall ... did it really fall? Of course it did. Did the fall make any noise? More than likely. But did that noise make any difference? I suppose maybe not ... except to a few birds or rabbits that were spooked by it for a moment.
When God speaks but we do not hear because we are so attuned to the noise of the world one might also wonder whether God is still speaking. For if his voice isn't being heard than his words aren't making a difference in the here (or is it hear?) and now.
I can take the ipod off (actually I just have a cheaper MP3 player); I can turn the radio and the tv off; I can even drive out to the middle of nowhere to hear the silence ... but how do I silence all the internal noise that keeps me from really hearing?
And just sitting in silence seems so downright unAmurrcan. Silence may be golden, but it is so painful!
Have you ever just sat in silence with someone? I remember I used to see older couples sitting across the table from each other while eating at a restaurant. They'd sit there and eat their meals in complete silence. And I'd sit across the restaurant wondering what was wrong with them. Had they grown so distant over the years that they didn't have anything to talk about anymore?
As I approach my 20th wedding anniversary I have begun to rethink those thoughts. Maybe they had grown so close that they didn't have to talk (make noise) to prove it. They could just be with each other.
I wonder if I will ever grow so close to God that I can just be in God's presence without having to feel spoken to or feel the need to speak.