Mary visits Elizabeth

Dr Iain Jamieson December 08, 2024 4 2

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Luke 1: 39-45 (NRSVA)

39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’

So as I sit here, tonight, with the storms of winter howling around outside the studio. I’m thinking of Mary. That night. This would be the night before she visited Elizabeth. 

For Mary, it’s a bit lonely, it’s a wee bit cold. The earth sleeps and heaves in the dark.

All the angels in the universe aren’t going to prepare you for that conversation the next morning. You toss and you turn. (In my case to write this reflection).

This is going to be a conversation that starts: “Liz, I’m pregnant” with all the import and the gravity these words bring. New life, new being. But…no…earthly partner. That’s a cold place, a lonely place. On the fringes of colour, where the sunset meets the blue.

The blue before the night. The edge.

This is when — like Mary — you’re naked before your brother or sister or father or mother. A person of confusion and need — but confused because inside you know there’s a fire, a new thing. Like finding faith, like sharing it, for the first time. You want to be heard. But what will come first, the hearing or the judgement. You can never know.

Blues music was born from that struggle. That triumph and the secret knowledge of purity in music presented in the glare of being found wanting in a world of orchestras and fine harmony.

Blue, the sound of the true.

So Mary played her blues, as imperfect and raw as the day it was formed. No finessing here there or anywhere. 

Boom. Rainbow flash.

That’s where the blues can land. Mary’s blues, your blues, the world’s blues. In the chasm of the heart and for Liz in the very pit of her womb where her baby leapt for joy.

True.

Blue.

Jesus still lands with that flash of colour and that quiet — but deafening sound of the real, the eternal.

If the blues speaks to nothing else it’s to that numinous place between sunrise and sunset where we all begin and we all end. In the raw place of truth and grace, where we all can live.

Prayer:

Lord,

We all have our blues tune.

Ours and ours alone.

This festive tide.

Let us write it in our hearts.

And let us share

From our kin to the world afar

And let it be true

Between the earth and stars

A perfect blue.