Read: Luke 1:39-55
My spirit rejoices in God my Savior. (v. 47)
Mary and Elizabeth had tremendous adversity ahead of them. As an older woman, Elizabeth faced a risky pregnancy and challenging delivery. As an unwed pregnant teenager, Mary faced familial rejection and social stigma. Both women would raise their children in Roman-occupied territory. Their children would be polarizing public figures and die violent deaths. Some of these challenges were far in the future, but some were real and present when the two women met. And yet their meeting was characterized by joy so powerful Elizabeth’s baby leapt in her womb.
The joy of Advent is already and not yet. We live in a world that has already seen the Savior. He came into the world bearing the greatest gift we could imagine: God with us, access to God’s presence and power here and now. The promised Savior began in earnest God’s great work of redeeming the human race and restoring creation. With eyes of faith, we can already see abundant evidence of lives redeemed and creation restored.
God’s great work is not yet complete. We, along with the rest of creation, live with daily pain and loss and grief and unfulfilled longing. At any given moment there is the adversity we know and the adversity that may be coming. And yet at any given moment we also have the capacity to leap for joy like Elizabeth’s unborn baby. Like him, we already have the joy of the Savior’s presence with us. He reassures us that though his good work isn’t yet complete, it’s already in effect.
Ben Van Arragon is an ordained minister in the Christian Reformed Church in North America. After twenty years of congregational ministry, he now serves his denomination as a pastor wellbeing consultant in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
