DAY 21

Friends

Elizabeth is Mary’s cousin and although past child bearing age is pregnant with her first child. Mary, pledged to be married, is also pregnant, with her first child. For both women their situations are not easy to assimilate into their surrounding community. We can guess that they would have been hot topics for gossip.

For Mary her situation was precarious, without Joseph’s support she would be in serious trouble. For Elizabeth It’s not hard to imagine people laughing, or at least whispering in hushed tones!

It’s somehow fitting that God provided them for each other. Both women of faith, both finding themselves outside of the acceptable norm. Elizabeth is exactly the person Mary needs and she stays with her for 3 months.

Elizabeth is Mary’s relative, but also her friend, and she is able to do the one thing that was needed the most but that was difficult to do, which was to ‘rejoice’ with Mary at the news of her pregnancy. It’s a reminder to value and nurture our friendships, people that can rejoice with us when we are joyful, and be concerned and sad with us when we are down.

Elizabeth and Mary are surely two power houses of faith being able to rejoice together when the world would rather frown, laugh, or gossip about them!

Here’s also a lovely thought I came across recently from a book called ‘liturgies from below’ - ‘worship is a form of resistance to the empire’. It certainly adds a slight frisson to coming to church! Let our acts of worship to the God of our salvation be our beautiful resistance to the worldly values that undermine faith, love, peace and hope and all the other wonderful things you can think off!!

(Jesus said) “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”